sales director

As a sales director, you take on several duties to make sure your company's products or services are getting sold. Some take place on a regular schedule. Others occur on an as-needed basis.

• sales audits: The actions of your sales managers and representatives aren't done in a vacuum. As a sales director, you're responsible for auditing your team members and their processes. This includes reviews of organizational charts and client information. From this, you draw up reports and presentations to address issues and suggest recommended changes.
• customer service: Customer service is an enormous responsibility for your team. You must ensure your representatives provide the utmost care possible to the organization's customers. This is done through regular performance reviews and training your managers and team leads. Your job is to seamlessly coordinate all of these aspects and review their outcomes.
• reviews of sales-based information systems: Application-based information systems supplement communications within or outside of the company. In your role as a sales director, you examine Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools. These consolidate and track client interactions from cold calls to the signing of contracts. Once implemented, you regularly review the statistics generated from the CRM. From this data, you work with the application developer and your managers to fine-tune its modules.
• report generation: Regularly, your sales managers and team leaders compile reports that contain data on cold calls, purchases and customer service issues. Once you receive this information, it's your responsibility to create a comprehensive sales report. In turn, this is presented to other executives at the director level for further consideration.

You work in an executive office that's normally on the same floor as the other directors. It contains a desk and a sitting area for small meetings. Occasionally, it's connected to a larger conference room.

• office equipment: You work on a desktop or laptop computer. It has several analytical and report-creation applications to consolidate sales data and customer service statistics. Furthermore, you have a mobile device to access these programs in the cloud and communicate with your employees and sales promoter when off-site.
• transition to a virtual environment: Some companies move away from brick-and-mortar operations into virtual environments. As the sales director inside this type of organization, you operate from a remote location, such as a home office or a shared workspace. You have a laptop and smart device with the necessary tools to conduct meetings and compile data.

As a sales executive, you regularly communicate with sales managers and sales representatives to ensure the sales team is on track to reaching its targets. You work closely with other senior-level leaders in the organization.

As a sales director, you usually work a standard 9-5 schedule Monday through Friday. There are times where you come in earlier or later. For instance, when you deal with international clients or must be available for an executive meeting. However, you don't come in for second or third shifts when the company operates on a 24/7 schedule.

Some companies allow the option of a compressed schedule. Usually, this is Monday through Thursday or Tuesday through Friday, between the hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. In the end, the four-day schedule grants an extra day off to you and your team. Some people prefer longer off periods in exchange for longer work days.

From 2022 to 2032, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts that there will be 43,200 sales director openings each year. Most of these openings are from people retiring or changing occupations. The role is growing each year at a rate of 4%, which is the average job growth rate. Sales is critical to a business's success, so sales directors are in demand. Related careers that you can transition to as a sales director are consultants, business directors, general managers and CEOs. With your skills and experience, you can start your own business if you have a viable idea.

Working through Randstad offers you a range of benefits:

• being paid weekly
• flexibility
• always a contact person you can fall back on and ask for help from
• many training opportunities
• a range of jobs in your area

Want a permanent contract? But you wonder why it would be interesting for you to work with a staffing company? A temporary job as a sales director is often a stepping stone to an attractive permanent job. Every year, thousands of people earn a permanent contract with great employers thanks to a temporary job found through Randstad. What's more, many companies recruit their permanent employees through Randstad too!

It usually takes 7–10 years of sales experience to become a sales director. This prior experience often consists of time spent as a sales representative and a sales manager. If you want to increase your chances of advancing to a sales director position, then it may take you an additional four years to earn a bachelor's degree unless you manage to work as a sales representative while working on your degree.

The highest reported salary of a sales director is $337,015 in the United States. Keep in mind, however, that this number is an outlier. It's more common to earn around $160,000–$200,000 as a top earner. Your education, location and experience influence how much you can earn as a sales director. If you generate outstanding results for a company, you may be able to request a higher salary.

As a field sales manager, you train salespeople, monitor the sales team and execute marketing strategies. A branch sales manager oversees the entire sales operation in a company. As a branch sales manager, you maintain merchandising standards, collaborate with head management to write sales plans and handle customer complaints about the sales team. Sales directors are higher up in the sales hierarchy than sales managers. They manage the sales managers and control the overall strategy and targets.

Yes, a sales director is at the top of the sales hierarchy. If you love working in sales, then you may want to make it your goal to become a sales director and work on developing the essential skills for this promotion. Sales trainees and sales representatives are at the bottom of the sales hierarchy but can be lucrative careers, too, especially if you have strong sales skills.

Sales directors have mastered the basics of sales and developed strong leadership skills. They know how to create a solid sales plan that includes strategies on achieving the targets and ideas for overcoming potential obstacles. A sales director can pinpoint the right target markets and accurately evaluate their pain points, values and other important information. Knowing how to motivate others is also an essential skill for a sales director. You can learn all of these skills through reading books, taking courses and implementing what you learn as a sales representative and sales manager.

Applying for a sales director job is easy: create a Randstad profile and search our sales director jobs for vacancies in your area. Then simply send us your CV. If you do not have a resume, no worries. Just check out our resume builder. This state of the art tool will help you to create your own resume. Need help with your application? Check out all our job-hunting tips!