Sales position in Cisco

WhiteWashMan

CISCO Inside Sales
Based at Bedfont Lakes, Middlesex

Inside Sales Account Manager

Hours of Work: Monday to Friday 9 am to 5:30 pm

The Inside Sales Account Manager is responsible for developing revenue through telephone contact with end users in the Mid Market space, and partnering with Cisco Resellers to achieve revenue targets for sales within their given territory.

The Inside Sales Account Manager in the UK will be given a list of “Named Accounts” to work on, and also a geographical territory to cover. From time to time, the ISAM may be given additional data sources for end users within the territory which are not currently named to them, and these they must profile and add to their Named Account List as appropriate.

In this role, the ISAM will NOT be taking orders directly from End Users, but will work with Cisco Reseller Partners, who will quote and supply the end user. It is therefore important that a successful ISAM has an understanding of the Channel model, and ideally, experience with working with Partners.

The successful applicant will also have the following skills:
• Ability to develop relationships with end user decision makers, understand their IT / Networking requirements, and define solutions which Cisco can offer to meet these requirements.
• Knowledge of Cisco competitors and the ability to position Cisco against the competition wherever appropriate.
• Qualification skills are essential, as are accurate forecasting skills, as each ISAM must produce a weekly forecast, which is submitted to senior management within Cisco.

The Inside Sales Rep will be measured on:

• Weekly Pipeline generated
• Bookings revenue against target
•
• Number of conference calls involving Systems Engineers
• Number of Accounts Contacted per week.
• Activity with Reseller Partners


A Successful Inside Sales Account Manager will have the following:

• Articulate telephone manner.
• Experienced user of MS Office applications
• Previous usage of Contact Management Systems
• Previous usage of web based applications
• Knowledge of the IT industry
• Power of persuasion, and ability to overcome objections
• Formal sales training history
• Previous experience in a target carrying role, and ability to demonstrate a successful track record of achievement against targets
• Knowledge or experience of selling through Channels
• Good work ethic, reliability, punctuality, integrity
• Good communication and listening skills
• Aptitude for learning
• Ambition and will to succeed


Salary is 26k basic, 38k OTE (ie, if you are hitting your tagets), and it is GBP.
It will involve a relocation if you live in ireland, but the role is to cover the irish territory, so it means there will be plenty of visits home!
this is not a sales admin role, make no mistake, this is Account management first and foremost, and you do need experience in actual development of end users and channel partners and influencing sales and solutions. just being involved in fulfillment sales is not enough.

any questions post up or PM me if you want to submit a CV.

oh, and the biggest benefit is you will get to work with me!

monkey24

Hi

I would be very grateful if you could answer some of my questions based on the role you just posted up.

I have been seeking advice on how to make the switch from a Technical IT role into an (Sales) IT Accounts Manager role. I have done a lot of research on what these roles can entail and have also seen a career councillor who pointed out my strengths would be geared towards this sort of role.

So basically I would just like to know:

1) How would I go about getting a foot in the door so I could move into a role like this. I have 5yrs commercial experience in the IT industry. Would I need to take on some formal Sales training to be able to apply for a role such as this. If so could you recommend any that would stand out to you when looking over potential CVs ?

2) Also, would anyone who applies for a role such as this, need to have a full driver license ?

In general, if you have any tips on what I could do to make myself more appealing for a role like this, I would be extremely grateful for them. The only real sales experience I have, was whilst working for a company myself and a friend set up. We meet potential customers and tried to sell them advertising space on our website.

I am not trying to suck up to appy for this job just would love to get some real advice on how to make the switch to this sort for role.

As NLP teaches, being curios and getting as much info as possible provides us with the correct tools to make the right decisions.

Thanks for any help provided.


by the way, any recruitment agencies that feel they have a candidte may also contact me by PM

WhiteWashMan

monkey24 wrote:

1) How would I go about getting a foot in the door so I could move into a role like this. I have 5yrs commercial experience in the IT industry. Would I need to take on some formal Sales training to be able to apply for a role such as this. If so could you recommend any that would stand out to you when looking over potential CVs ?

i guess it depends on what sort of role you have been doing. if you have been in a customer facing role, chances are you are already doing some sort of selling.
i dont think formal training is needed, but you definately need to understand the role of the sales person, their aims and what you are doing. ive met sales guys with years of experience that are still rubbish, and i have met people who just have 'it'.

being able to cite examples fo influencing sales such as in a pre-sales role would be useful, and being able to understand the various technologies and the understand the influences that would make someone chose a specific solution would be beneficial. deep indepth knowledge of ms exchange server probably wont get you far except as in an admin role...
you get the idea.

monkey24 wrote:

2) Also, would anyone who applies for a role such as this, need to have a full driver license ?
.

as inside sales, no. my last role was as territory manager for UK and Ireland, and involved a lot of travel and face to face meetings. field sales really. that requires a car and a licence
however, ona personal note, everyone should be able to drive. its one of those life skills

monkey24 wrote:

In general, if you have any tips on what I could do to make myself more appealing for a role like this, I would be extremely grateful for them. The only real sales experience I have, was whilst working for a company myself and a friend set up. We meet potential customers and tried to sell them advertising space on our website.
.

again, an understanding the technology is useful, but not neccesary, but being able to understand the sales role, the cycles, understand what drives purchases. its not just about fullfillment of a purchase order, or selling a kit list. its about trying to influence decision makers, to act as an advisor and consultant to IT managers, and to talk about the benefits of whatever you are selling to the FD and how they will save money.

If you want to send me your CV i will happily pass it along, if you get anything out of it, i have no idea. If you have very little sales background, i dont fancy your chances tbh. but im being realistic.

if you want to get into technology sales, then your best bet is to get into a pre-sales role where you can learn. there are plenty of small technology outfits in ireland where you can probably learn this.

monkey24 wrote:

I am not trying to suck up to appy for this job just would love to get some real advice on how to make the switch to this sort for role.

As NLP teaches, being curios and getting as much info as possible provides us with the correct tools to make the right decisions.

Thanks for any help provided.

sales is all about being prepared.
its not about being deperate, being a the catchy whizz kid, or shouting 'show me the money' down the phone. its about being patient, understanding your customers needs and expectations, personality, experience and most importantly, preperation.
oh, and its a lot of hard work.

the rewards can be exceptional. you will get paid far more in sales than in a technical role in general, and you get to go to better dinners, and play golf

Magic Monkey

monkey24 wrote:

1) How would I go about getting a foot in the door so I could move into a role like this. I have 5yrs commercial experience in the IT industry. Would I need to take on some formal Sales training to be able to apply for a role such as this. If so could you recommend any that would stand out to you when looking over potential CVs ?

Coincidentally enough, there was a small article about this in yesterdays "Jobs & Careers" supplement with the Irish Independent. See if you can find it. To answer your first question, it mentioned some course(s), run by the School of Sales, to teach the necessary skills; I think they run them both full and part-time.

monkey24

WhiteWashMan

Thanks a lot for taking the time to reply. I have been busy researching this over the summer and your advice is very much appreciated.
I think I will look into pre-sales here in Dublin and maybe London. I may shoot my cv off to a few recruitment companies and see if they can suggest any roles that would be a good starting point. I am prepared to work my way from the bottom up.

I will hold off on sending the CV. As you say, I have no sales experiences. I like to prepared and ready for any challenge I undertake. So will go about trying to get the relevant experience first.
Plus I am taking a break from it all first, I am going travelling for a while. I think its a good time to do it, so when I get back, I can really concentrate on getting into a role like this.

Yep I know I have to get myself on the road. I just haven't taken my test yet , thats the first thing I will be doing when I get back.

Magic Monkey

Thanks a lot for that. Again its really appreciated. I have posted on here a few times about this topic and never got anything back. So both your posts are great.

Cheers
monks

nesf

I think the most important part of WWM's posts was the line referring to a lot of hard work. Sales is hard. It requires a lot of energy and a lot of dedication.

The hardest part about sales, in my opinion, is the fact that you don't win every contract and you can have days where nothing goes right. You can have weeks like that where things don't fall into place. Going back in every day and still working harder on the back of a week like that is tough. You need a lot of focus to be able to do it. Most jobs do not involve the highs and lows you will experience in sales.


However. If you can work through this and develop the necessary skills (which tbh no course can teach you, you can only learn them in the field) then you can do very well for yourself and get a lot of job satisfaction. There are few feelings like being faced with a problem and flipping open your mobile and having a large network of contacts that you can call on. It's a very reassuring feeling

whippet

that job sounds like a great opportunity for someone who wanted to 'formalise' their sales skills. I would imagine the pressure would be fairly tough .. especially in the UK.

With in IT in ireland I have come across quite a few 'techies' that decided that a move to sales would be their thing. I would say the 'success rate' would be in the region of about 50%. Most of the time the downfall is that they have totally underestimated the workload involved.

The first few months in any sales position is demoralising and stressful. Waiting for that first good quarter, first big sale .. it takes a while to build up customers and getting to the end of the first proposal to close cycle seems to take forever.

There are plenty of two or three day sales courses which my be of use but from my experience the most sucessful reps are those who are organised, hard working, somewhat charismatic (not over the top) and genuinely have the best interests of the customer at heart.

Sales is a lot of fun and is a great way to make contacts that can be used well into the future !!

WhiteWashMan

i absolutely agree with all of that.

by the way, any agencies who are interested in filling this position can contact me also

WhiteWashMan

*bump*

this is still available by the way, just in case anyone was like, wondering and stuff