Sales

  • Description
  • Tasks
  • Skills
  • Useful Knowledge
  • Entry Qualifications
  • Professional Qualifications
  • Trends
  • Resources
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Sales people sell their company’s products and services to customers. This role is carried out either by telephone or through face-to-face contact with the client. The client can be either the end customer (i.e. business to customer sales) or a broker (i.e. business to business).  Telephone roles often take place in a contact or call centre and involve selling directly to clients through a ‘cold call’, following up an enquiry or business lead or seeking to sell additional services to existing customers. Face-to-face sales are usually business to customer sales and take place either in an office or through a pre-arranged home visit to customers that have expressed an interest.

Salary

Entry level positions start at approximately £15,000 per annum. With the right experience, qualifications and skills you could progress to management roles and earn in excess of £60,000 per annum.  This does not include potential bonuses and additional benefits. Salaries will vary considerably based on location and employer.

  • Promoting the organisation’s additional products and services
  • Developing and maintaining relationships with financial services’ introducers
  • Processing business and sales support, documenting all financial transactions 
  • Developing personal contacts
  • Generating and following up sales leads
  • Meeting or speaking to clients to identify their requirements, and creating appropriate solutions
  • Selling products and services over the telephone or face-to-face
  • Monitoring sales and call targets achieved
  • Contributing to the development of new products and services, based on customer feedback
  • Sales activity planning, including reviewing existing customer files to identify sales opportunities
  • Delivering professional sales presentations
  • Taking ownership of customer feedback and complaints handling
  • Compliance with sales and sector regulations
  • Excellent knowledge of products and procedures
  • Good communication skills (both verbal and written) including exceptional telephone manner
  • Questioning and listening skills
  • Numeracy and literacy skills, including IT literacy
  • Persuasion and influencing skills
  • Excellent rapport and empathy 
  • Teamwork skills
  • People and interpersonal skills
  • Planning and record keeping
  • Self motivation and ability to work under pressure when driven by targets
  • Willingness to work shift patterns
  • Being ethical

A new entrant will not always be required to have this knowledge. Employers usually provide training to acquire skills for:

  • The features and benefits of products and services on offer
  • Regulatory requirements and the difference between selling and advising 
  • How to use IT and telephone systems to support the broader sales and marketing process

Opportunities are available to those with school/college qualifications, graduates and people who are changing careers or are looking to re-enter the labour market after a career break. Many people start off in sales to access a wide variety of careers in financial services. Sales requires an understanding of numbers and the ability to communicate with customers verbally and in a written format, so qualifications in English and maths are useful. Employers may value new entrants that have experience of sales related work, like retailing. 

In order to gain an entry level position, employers will look for people who have:

  • GCSEs, Scottish Standard Grades or equivalent qualifications such as  Business, Administration and Finance (BAF) Diploma, BTEC First, Welsh Baccalaureate (BAC) Foundation and Intermediate Diploma, and Scottish National Qualifications at Intermediate 2 (SCQF Level 5)


Apprenticeships can be a useful way to gain entry:

  • Level 2 Apprenticeship in Providing Financial Services (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland)
  • Level 3 Apprenticeship in Providing Financial Services (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland)

There are a number of professional qualifications that could be relevant and support someone wishing to progress in sales and beyond in financial services:

  • City College Norwich Qualifications (CCNQ) Level 3 Certificate/Diploma for Professional Bankers.
  • CCN Level 7 Diploma for Chartered Bankers, in Building Society Operations or Financial Services Leadership
  • Institute of Financial Services Level 3 Certificate in Regulated Customer Care (CeRCC)
  • CISI Level 4 Investment Advice Diploma 
  • CISI Level 7 Masters in Wealth Management

You might work for a bank/building society, insurance company, investment firm, financial advice firm, mortgage or insurance broker. Opportunities are nationwide, with a good regional spread of financial contact/call centres.