Director of sales vs commercial director

The differences between directors of sales and commercial directors can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 6-8 years to become a director of sales, becoming a commercial director takes usually requires 8-10 years. Additionally, a commercial director has an average salary of $143,615, which is higher than the $111,068 average annual salary of a director of sales.

The top three skills for a director of sales include sales process, customer service and customer satisfaction. The most important skills for a commercial director are project management, kpis, and healthcare.

Director of sales vs commercial director overview

	Director Of Sales	Commercial Director
Yearly salary	$111,068	$143,615
Hourly rate	$53.40	$69.05
Growth rate	5%	10%
Number of jobs	91,891	97,667
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 77%	Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Average age	46	39
Years of experience	8	10

What does a director of sales do?

A sales director is responsible for managing the sales operation of the team, ensuring that members comply with the sales strategies and procedures in meeting sales goals. Sales directors' duties include maintaining consistency of sales targets, providing reports and important updates for sales improvement, managing customers' inquiries and resolving complaints, launching new services to expand product offers, researching the current market trends, and improving sales plans. A sales director must have excellent leadership and decision-making skills to support and acknowledge the team's best efforts.

What does a commercial director do?

Commercial Directors are executives who manage the performance and subsequent growth of the company. They lead activities related to the commerce side of the business. Commercial directors study the current trends in both the economic market and in the industry that the business operates in. They also study their target market. With this research, they devise ways to ensure that a company's performance will not decline as they navigate the changing market landscape. Commercial Directors should have good foresight and strong analytical skills to make sense of the current trends and how they would affect their future.

Director of sales vs commercial director salary

Directors of sales and commercial directors have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Director Of Sales	Commercial Director
Average salary	$111,068	$143,615
Salary range	Between $73,000 And $168,000	Between $93,000 And $221,000
Highest paying City	San Francisco, CA	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	New York	Massachusetts
Best paying company	Mayo Clinic	Emergent BioSolutions
Best paying industry	Finance	Manufacturing

Differences between director of sales and commercial director education

There are a few differences between a director of sales and a commercial director in terms of educational background:

	Director Of Sales	Commercial Director
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 77%	Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	University of Southern California	University of Georgia

Director of sales vs commercial director demographics

Here are the differences between directors of sales' and commercial directors' demographics:

	Director Of Sales	Commercial Director
Average age	46	39
Gender ratio	Male, 69.4% Female, 30.6%	Male, 80.9% Female, 19.1%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 3.2% Unknown, 4.4% Hispanic or Latino, 9.8% Asian, 4.1% White, 78.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%	Black or African American, 3.0% Unknown, 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Asian, 8.2% White, 74.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage	7%	10%

Differences between director of sales and commercial director duties and responsibilities

Director of sales example responsibilities.

Lead the OEM business transformation.
Manage projects & action items for EVP.
Manage during periods of dynamic challenge and change relative to start-up, turnaround and revitalization situations.
Manage relationships with toll manufacturers and logistics providers to exceed cost reduction and inventory turn targets.
Cultivate and manage business relationships with wholesale distributors creating positive impact for newsstand product sell at retail.
Full responsibility for all sales activities for a start-up electronic commerce company managing electronic data flow in the healthcare industry.

Commercial director example responsibilities.

Monitor and manage budgets on each account to ensure high ROI and biggest bang for each buck.
Lead start-up of new far-east OEM partner, including selection process, technical & manufacturing management and relationship development.
Lead global project to commercialize expand portfolio of adhesive utilizing company synergies to establish a strong, highly-competitive distribution channel.
Define and implement the CRM and phone systems and infrastructure need to support commercialization efforts.
Create and maintain adoption measurement for SFDC resulting in increase usage of CRM tool, globally.
Institute metrics to document cost savings, purchase requisition turnaround, and number of POs issue.

Director of sales vs commercial director skills

Common director of sales skills

Sales Process, 7%
Customer Service, 7%
Customer Satisfaction, 6%
Sales Management, 6%
Healthcare, 5%
CRM, 4%

Common commercial director skills

Project Management, 9%
KPIs, 8%
Healthcare, 8%
Business Development, 8%
Customer Service, 7%
Lead Generation, 5%

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Director Of Sales vs Commercial Director

Updated January 8, 2025

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