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Sales Executive

As an Sales Executive, you will have the opportunity to establish prospective client relationships through a consultative selling process, discuss cutting-edge strategic issues with an executive-level audience of the Global 4000, and manage the sales process through the attainment of quarterly and annual revenue goals. Each Associate Director will be selling services into one of nine functional areas surrounding the CEO and his/her direct reports.

The Ideal Candidate Will Possess:

  • A track record of initiative, creative thinking, and ownership for attaining performance goals
  • Intellectual curiosity and excitement about selling an intellectual product
  • Excellent presentation and negotiation skills, ability to create and deliver convincing arguments.
  • Entrepreneurial spirit
  • Ability to apply sales process rigor to a dynamic marketplace
  • Strong interpersonal skills, ability to build rapport and credibility quickly
  • Superior time management skills and strong attention to detail
  • Solid grounding in business concepts and dynamics
  • Willingness to travel

A Week in the Life of an Sales Executives

Monday

I am traveling three consecutive days this week, and have a lot of preparation to do.  I have an early morning meeting with my manager regarding my progress against my quarterly revenue goal. Immediately after my meeting, I have a meeting with all the other ADs in my franchise, along with our Franchise Leader. This meeting is called our “Pre-Visit Prep Summit,” where the team gathers together to discuss strategies for this weeks visits, as well as potential objections. During the afternoon, as I spend time brushing up on content for my visits tomorrow, as well as research about the particular companies and executives I’m meeting with.

Tuesday

I wake up at 6:30 to catch a flight to St. Louis, where I will be spending my next two days. Between 9:00 and 4:00 today I have three visits, each of them an hour long. My first one is with someone whom I met with last year but who had decided that it wasn’t the right time for him to join. Now he is interested in seeing some updates to our agendas, and my SA had mentioned that he sounded very excited about meeting up again. I expect the meeting to go positively, and sure enough, by the end of the hour, I am almost 100% positive he will be coming onboard. My next visit does not flow as easy. I end up waiting in the lobby for 20 minutes, and then am informed that the prospect I’m waiting for will only have 15 minutes to chat. The visit actually ends up lasting only 10 minutes, and is very rushed. One of the main challenges of this job is also the reason that the position is so exciting. The people you are meeting with are some of the most senior people in some of the world’s most progressive organizations, but it is sometimes so hard to get the time on their calendars to stick. My last visit of the day goes well, but I’m not sure that I fully convinced him of the value of our services. As soon as I walk out the door I send my SA an e-mail through my blackberry to make sure to get a follow-up phone appointment on the calendar with this prospect for next week. I head to the business center in my hotel to plug through some of my messages. I also spend some time reviewing my notes for my morning meetings. Next thing I know, it is time for dinner.

Wednesday

Today I just have two visits and then an afternoon full of follow-up phone appointments with prospects I had spoken to in the weeks before. My first meeting is scheduled to be just 30 minutes, but ends up running over because the prospect is so engaged with our research. This visit is one of the many where the goal is to cross-sell memberships within companies that have already established a relationship with CEB. This meeting is a success, and I am confident that I’ll be bringing in another unit of business within the next few business days. I go into my next meeting energized and confident, but it unfortunately does not go as well. The prospect seemed distracted during my presentation, and I’m pretty sure that he had a number of other issues on his mind beyond spending more of his budget on one of our memberships. I sense that he may be difficult for my SA to get in touch with again, so I go ahead and schedule a follow-up phone appointment with him while I am still in his office for the following week. I spend the afternoon on my follow-up phone appointments, as well as plugging through some more internal e-mails. Late afternoon I have a research call with a Managing Director in our Corporate Leadership Council who is calling one of my toughest prospects to discuss in more detail one of our latest studies regarding employee engagement. The call goes well; I can detect a shift in the prospects tone by the end and am confident that this extra step taken to bring a prospect on will have been worth the effort.

Thursday

I am up and out of my hotel at 6:00, on my way to catch my 7:30 flight.  My morning meeting goes well, but there will still need to be many more steps in the process of closing this prospect. My early afternoon meeting feels the same.  It is a second meeting with a prospect who I had met with two weeks prior who is still not convinced that a membership with CLC is in his budget’s best interest. I feel as though both my SA and I have been overly aggressive with him in the last few weeks, so decide that it may be best to follow up with him in about a month or so. I have learned that sometimes it is best to back off for a few weeks, and then reengage. I have a late afternoon flight back to DC, but unfortunately there is a delay. I spend the time organizing my thoughts from my last three days and sending e-mails to my SA regarding who what our next steps will be. I also manage to get through some more internal e-mail, updating my manger of the success of my visits. By the time my flight is called for boarding, I’ve managed to take care of all the work I was planning on doing after I landed.

Friday

I get into the office early to get a jump start on the day, as I will spend a fair amount of the afternoon in meetings. The day runs smoothly, filled with follow-up phone calls, content information sessions, and a meeting with my manager. One of my newly joined members also has a welcome call with one of our Member Services Directors, and I’m happy to hear that the call went well. I end the day on a high note, closing one of my prospects from visits the week before and feel confident that I have taken some profitable next steps regarding bringing in a few more prospects before the end of next week. Next thing I know it is 5:30, and everyone is shutting down around me. Before I shut down my computer, I make a to-do list for Monday, while all of my week’s activities are fresh in my mind.

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