United Kingdom · Advertising Sales
Sales executive
Here is the whole job, in plain words. What it is and how people get here. Then the part no course gives you: twelve AI tutors who learn your work.
As a Sales executive, a good place to start is Using and Checking AI Tools in Daily Work, a free Future Fluency module at Level 3. You'd practise using everyday AI tools on real tasks from your own week, and checking what they produce before you use it.
Free to start, no card.
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One email: where to start free, with a link back here. Nothing else follows unless you confirm your address.
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- UK framework levelUsually someone starting out, or keeping a process running
Also advertised as Advertiser Sales Executive · Business Sales Executive · Advertising Sales Executive · Media Sales Executive · Fleet Sales Executive
Two short quizzes about you
1From this job to a course
The qualifications matched to this job
Matched from the standards this job is measured against: a suggestion, not an official ruling.
The units you would start with
Built for Sales executive
4 units that map to this job, from the qualifications that cover it.
- Building and retaining sales relationships Level 3
- Build and Maintain Sales Relationships Level 4
- Obtaining and analysing sales-related information Level 4
- Negotiating, handling objections and closing sales Level 3
Next, a free account. We build your Sales executive plan as you set up, starting with the free AI Fluency module. No card.
Your first Future Fluency module is free. After that, your AI tutor is £70 a month.
2What this role really is
Leading end-to-end sales interaction with customers and managing sales internally within an organisation.
- Structure sales discussions incorporating key features and benefits of advertising.
- Demonstrate belief in and passion for the organization’s products and services.
- Exhibit in-depth knowledge of clients’ advertising needs.
- Present tailored advertising solutions for individual clients.
- Provide relevant materials and examples to clients.
- Facilitate client discussions on advertising benefits.
- Encourage long-term advertising planning with clients.
- Show respect and empathy towards clients' views.
- Address and overcome client objections sensitively.
- Adjust communication style to suit individual clients.
- Maintain honesty and integrity in representing the organization.
- Recognize and act on client buying signals.
- Complete necessary documentation accurately.
- Identify target markets and prepare for sales activities
- Select customers and product/service offerings
- Develop and execute communication plans
- Facilitate customer comfort with investment decisions
- Prepare sales materials and messages
3What you’ll use
What you’ll use
Skills this role draws on
Technical
- Sales planning and preparation: Set effective targets using sales forecasts. Prioritise customers and activities to grow account value and maximise return-on-investment in line with your organisation’s strategy. Formulate or refine customer plans and objectives. Create efficient territory plans where appropriate.
- Customer engagement: Effectively communicate and interpret customer information exchanged through written, verbal and non-verbal communication. Develop a customer engagement style that effectively opens sales conversations, builds rapport, enhances customer relationships, and adapts to different customer’s social preferences.
- Customer needs analysis: Be highly skilled at effective questioning and active listening techniques to understand the customer’s needs, guide the sales conversation appropriately, create mutual understanding, and build trust and affinity with customers.
- Propose and present solutions: Develop sales proposals and deliver them using a presentation style and technique appropriate for your customer. Present relevant products and/or services, explain features and their advantages, and clearly articulate the value and benefit of the solution for the specific customer. Use and adapt a range of techniques to draw-out and overcome common sales objections.
- Negotiate: Research the customer’s likely desired outcomes and negotiating stance. Develop responses to likely objections. Identify your own organisation’s needs, such as minimum price and acceptable terms. Negotiate or trade variables effectively.
- Closing sales: Be attuned to verbal and non-verbal buying-signals andmove to close at an appropriate point in sales conversations. Develop ethical techniques to close sales and confirm customers’ purchase agreement.
- Gathering intelligence: Collect, analyse and interpret market intelligence and share it appropriately and effectively within your organisation.
- Time management: Use and adapt appropriate tools and techniques to prioritise and manage your time effectively.
- Collaboration and team-work: Contribute effectively within a team environment. Work collaboratively with both internal and external stakeholders. Manage communications with the cross-functional team in relation to the effective delivery of your sales, such as finance and service delivery. Support continual business improvement by sharing best practice with sales team colleagues and assist the marketing team to develop new marketing collateral.
- Customer experience management: Deliver a positive customer experience. Manage customer enquiries and issues effectively. Take proactive action to prevent and minimise customer concerns and complaints. Handle all customer interactions professionally to the customer’s satisfaction.
- Digital skills: Effectively use digital tools to conduct research and target customers in line with the overall sales strategy. Able to deliver presentations and meetings using digital communication. Complete accurate records and process sales in accordance with your organisation’s policies, procedures and digital CRM systems.
- and integrity: Present yourself as an ambassador for your employer’s brand, and act in accordance with your organisation’s values and code of conduct at all times. Maintain integrity in all business relationships. Challenge unethical behaviour.
- Proactivity: Proactively develop new and existing customer relationships. Plan and lead sales conversations and make recommendations to support the customers’ requirements. Proactively monitor the customer experience.
- Self-discipline: Demonstrate the ability to control your actions, reactions and emotions.
- Self-discipline: Remain calm under pressure and be aware of your personal impact on others.
- Resilience and self-motivation: Demonstrate the ability to maintain optimism and professionalism in the face of rejection, quickly recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and keep going in the face of adversity. Remain highly motivated to achieve both personal and professional goals.
- Continuous professional development: Respond positively to coaching, guidance or instruction; demonstrate awareness and ownership of your continual professional development, and actively seek out development opportunities outside of formal learning situations.
Functional
- Organisational knowledge: Understand your organisation’s vision, values and capabilities, the principle goals of its overall strategy, and the specific objectives of its marketing and sales strategies. Know how to analyse your organisation’s sales and marketing strategies and objectives and translate them into plans and actions for your role.
- Product, service and sector knowledge: Identify the features and advantages of the product(s) and/or services(s) you sell, understand how these meet customer needs, and examine how they compare to competitor’s solutions. Understand the nature of your sector and the likely forthcoming changes to it. Understand the legal, regulatory and ethical frameworks relating to your sector and role.
- Market knowledge: Understand how your market is segmented and how to target specific segments through effective product or service positioning.
- Customer knowledge: Know how to analyse the macro and micro environment of individual customers. Understand the challenges and purchasing motivations of your customers and the internal and external factors that impact their purchasing decisions. Understand expectations of what constitutes a high-quality customer experience.
- Commercial and financial acumen: Understand the principles of finance for sales, such as profit and loss, return on investment and budgeting. Appreciate the impacts of different types of costs on the businsess and the drivers of profitable performance. Understand the impact of any discount or variation in terms that you may offer.
- Digital knowledge: Understands how to exploit digital technologies to aid the sales cycle.
4The pathway
The pathway
Getting in, in the UK
Ways in
- Apprenticeship: Sales executive (Level 4) — Skills England standard ST0572
5Pay and demand
ONS's coding index maps “Sales executive” to more than one occupation, so there is no one median to quote. Rather than pick, here is each one it could be, with its own figure:
- Business sales executives £37,924 a year
- Vehicle and parts salespersons and advisers £31,851 a year
- Sales related occupations n.e.c. £31,480 a year
- Telephone salespersons £30,495 a year
- Sales and retail assistants £25,056 a year
ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, from the April 2025 survey, about six months old when published, as ASHE always is, under the Open Government Licence.
How you would learn this
One to one, on the work you already do
A tutor sets the task against your own job and marks the reasoning, at your pace. There is no cohort to fall behind.
A lesson from Building and retaining sales relationships, worked against Sales executive.
Applied to your work in Sales executive
The objective of this unit is to enable learners to understand the benefits and risks associated with building and maintaining long-term sales relationships. Learners will develop the skills to build effective sales relationships with both new and existing customers, and implement strategies to retain existing customers through effective relationship management.
- 1 Remember
- 2 Understand
- 3 Apply
- 4 Analyse
- 5 Evaluate
- 6 Create
It is £70 a month, billed monthly. Your free first module is Future Fluency, and you can cancel any time.
- Sales planning and preparation: Set effective targets using sales forecasts. Prioritise customers and activities to grow account value and maximise return-on-investment in line with your organisation’s strategy. Formulate or refine customer plans and objectives. Create efficient territory plans where appropriate.
- Customer engagement: Effectively communicate and interpret customer information exchanged through written, verbal and non-verbal communication. Develop a customer engagement style that effectively opens sales conversations, builds rapport, enhances customer relationships, and adapts to different customer’s social preferences.
- Customer needs analysis: Be highly skilled at effective questioning and active listening techniques to understand the customer’s needs, guide the sales conversation appropriately, create mutual understanding, and build trust and affinity with customers.
- Propose and present solutions: Develop sales proposals and deliver them using a presentation style and technique appropriate for your customer. Present relevant products and/or services, explain features and their advantages, and clearly articulate the value and benefit of the solution for the specific customer. Use and adapt a range of techniques to draw-out and overcome common sales objections.
- Negotiate: Research the customer’s likely desired outcomes and negotiating stance. Develop responses to likely objections. Identify your own organisation’s needs, such as minimum price and acceptable terms. Negotiate or trade variables effectively.
- Closing sales: Be attuned to verbal and non-verbal buying-signals andmove to close at an appropriate point in sales conversations. Develop ethical techniques to close sales and confirm customers’ purchase agreement.
- Gathering intelligence: Collect, analyse and interpret market intelligence and share it appropriately and effectively within your organisation.
- Time management: Use and adapt appropriate tools and techniques to prioritise and manage your time effectively.
Free tools
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6Where to go from here
This role profile is © 2026 Growth Engineering Technologies Ltd. Built from UK occupational standards and regulated qualification data, and written for Zavmo.