Sales administrator vs inside sales associate

The differences between sales administrators and inside sales associates can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 6-8 years to become a sales administrator, becoming an inside sales associate takes usually requires 2-4 years. Additionally, a sales administrator has an average salary of $41,404, which is higher than the $40,687 average annual salary of an inside sales associate.

The top three skills for a sales administrator include customer service, sales support and powerpoint. The most important skills for an inside sales associate are inside sales, sales associates, and strong customer service.

Sales administrator vs inside sales associate overview

	Sales Administrator	Inside Sales Associate
Yearly salary	$41,404	$40,687
Hourly rate	$19.91	$19.56
Growth rate	5%	4%
Number of jobs	82,712	320,863
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 60%	Bachelor's Degree, 63%
Average age	46	47
Years of experience	8	4

What does a sales administrator do?

A sales administrator supports sales representatives to make customer deals. Aside from that, tasks such as answering customer queries, checking stock availability, processing deliveries, sending out invoices, and maintaining records and databases are a sales administrator's duties. Overall, a sales administrator focuses on orders, communicating to customers via telephone or face-to-face, invoicing, targeting sales, and record keeping.

What does an inside sales associate do?

An inside sales associate is responsible for selling the company's goods and services through remote communication. Inside sales associates make calls to potential customers, demonstrate the products' features, take orders, process payments, and inform the customers of the delivery details. They strategize the most effective sales pitches to attract the customers on purchasing more services that would generate revenues and increase the company's profitability and brand image. An inside sales associate also supports the marketing team in developing marketing campaigns and promotional offers depending on customer demands and requests.

Sales administrator vs inside sales associate salary

Sales administrators and inside sales associates have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Sales Administrator	Inside Sales Associate
Average salary	$41,404	$40,687
Salary range	Between $29,000 And $58,000	Between $30,000 And $54,000
Highest paying City	San Francisco, CA	Seattle, WA
Highest paying state	California	Washington
Best paying company	KLA	MSCI
Best paying industry	Technology	Health Care

Differences between sales administrator and inside sales associate education

There are a few differences between a sales administrator and an inside sales associate in terms of educational background:

	Sales Administrator	Inside Sales Associate
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 60%	Bachelor's Degree, 63%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	University of Southern California	SUNY College of Technology at Alfred

Sales administrator vs inside sales associate demographics

Here are the differences between sales administrators' and inside sales associates' demographics:

	Sales Administrator	Inside Sales Associate
Average age	46	47
Gender ratio	Male, 21.0% Female, 79.0%	Male, 57.3% Female, 42.7%
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, 3.8% Unknown, 3.7% Hispanic or Latino, 14.0% Asian, 5.1% White, 73.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%
LGBT Percentage	7%	6%

Differences between sales administrator and inside sales associate duties and responsibilities

Sales administrator example responsibilities.

Manage distributor accounts including inventory management, allocations, and communicating internally with purchasing, logistics, finance and shipping departments.
Work with operations to expedite deliveries, or track shipments as requested by customer.
Confer with sales, shipping, and warehouse to expedite or trace missing or delay shipments.
Publish POS materials and create correspondence to distributors for seasonal promotion items.
Design and produce consumer/distributor incentive programs, POS materials and retail display systems.
Manage distributor accounts including inventory management, allocations, and communicating internally with purchasing, logistics, finance and shipping departments.

Inside sales associate example responsibilities.

Manage individual sales activities by developing highly effective, communications focuse relationship with multiple sales channels.
Provide awareness to customers of the benefits of moving to a cloud platform for intra/customer facing web applications.
Develop a standardize, customize CRM system to track sales and marketing ROI that link into operational and financial ERP systems.
Calculate roofing amounts/square footage etc.
Maintain cleanliness and organization of stockroom shelves.
Conduct effective outbound telemarketing calls to potential and existing clients.

Sales administrator vs inside sales associate skills

Common sales administrator skills

Customer Service, 37%
Sales Support, 13%
PowerPoint, 5%
Data Entry, 5%
CRM, 4%
Salesforce, 4%

Common inside sales associate skills

Inside Sales, 13%
Sales Associates, 7%
Strong Customer Service, 6%
Sales Process, 5%
Customer Satisfaction, 5%
Sales Floor, 5%

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Executive Management Industry
Sales Administrator
Sales Administrator vs Inside Sales Associate

Updated January 8, 2025

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