What Is a Sales Executive?

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A sales executive is an employee of a company who is responsible for selling the company’s goods and services to customers. Customers are not limited to individual people, but can also be other businesses and even government organizations. Depending on the company, the position may refer to a person who makes sales over the phone, assists customers with selections in a store or even sells door-to-door.

The exact title of a sales position may vary by company. The same position may be called “sales representative,” “sales consultant” or “territory manager,” among other titles. Executives in a position of authority are often in charge of guiding how and where sales executives attempt to sell their products, and also sometimes are responsible for watching over and managing the results of sales. Those that actually perform sales tasks will have a variety of methods depending on what they are selling and whom they are selling to. In some cases, they may simply read from a script; in others, the sales executive must come to a deep understanding of the customer’s needs to attempt to deliver exactly the product needed, even if the sales executive himself is not sure what will meet the customer’s needs.