What does a senior sales representative do?
A senior sales representative's role is to oversee operations that mainly revolve around engaging with clients to pursue sales targets. Their responsibilities also include devising strategies that would help colleagues to attain quotas and discover new opportunities and trends that would be of help in building a more substantial client base. There are also instances where they must reach out to clients, building rapport to secure sales. Furthermore, as a senior sales representative, they have to lead fellow skilled professionals as they reach their common goals.
Senior sales representative responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real senior sales representative resumes:
- Manage regional MRI techs and schedules.
- Manage educational speaker programs for physicians, nurses and pharmacists, introducing new oncology products.
- Generate leads and evangelize product to physicians in orthopedics, hematology, internal medicine, surgery, critical care and cardiology.
- Train new ISR's on purchasing skills.
- Field service representative for HMO and PPO accounts.
- Create and present PowerPoint presentations and train large groups of sales representatives.
- Drive member growth, retention and/or address the health plan priorities for Medicaid.
- Launch a drug/inhalant device to emergency rooms and inpatient psychiatry units in 2014 & 2015.
- Assist management in training and critiquing of new employees and handle escalations for other ISR's.
- Negotiate pricing and contractual agreement to close the sale, including upselling length of contracts and support level of contracts.
- Challenge and sell to c-level leadership to rethink blood testing process to maximize diagnostic throughput while reducing time to result.
- Market Medicaid insurance plan to qualify individuals and obtain applications.
- Utilize CRM technology to research accounts and uncover new business opportunities.
- Prepare and deliver presentations and demonstrations of a highly complex CRM software application.
- Call on several physician specialties including: cardiology, nephrology, endocrinology, internists and family practitioners.
Senior sales representative skills and personality traits
We calculated that 21% of Senior Sales Representatives are proficient in Customer Satisfaction, Product Knowledge, and Sales Consultants. They’re also known for soft skills such as Interpersonal skills, Physical stamina, and Self-confidence.
We break down the percentage of Senior Sales Representatives that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Customer Satisfaction, 21%
Administer exceptional customer service by effectively maintaining a variety of issues, concerns or fraud to assure complete customer satisfaction.
- Product Knowledge, 11%
Prospected new business in South Dakota territory and enhanced key business relationships through expert product knowledge and creative solution-oriented presentations.
- Sales Consultants, 8%
Key contact for Divisional Sales Manager to ensure consistent execution of business plans between External Wholesalers and Regional Sales Consultants.
- Customer Relationships, 8%
Generated new business building customer relationships, maintaining existing relationships and gained customer referrals through networking and customer service.
- Sales Process, 7%
Achieved personal sales and profitability goals by consistently and pro-actively engaging guests utilizing the Company's sales process.
- Customer Service, 6%
Managed and maintained the showroom for customer transactions and provided effective customer service in demonstrating mobile products and consumer agreements.
Most senior sales representatives use their skills in "customer satisfaction," "product knowledge," and "sales consultants" to do their jobs. You can find more detail on essential senior sales representative responsibilities here:
Interpersonal skills. The most essential soft skill for a senior sales representative to carry out their responsibilities is interpersonal skills. This skill is important for the role because "wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives must be able to work well with many types of people." Additionally, a senior sales representative resume shows how their duties depend on interpersonal skills: "applied strong interpersonal skills with customers, vendors, credit and a/r to quickly resolve customer service issues. "
Physical stamina. Another essential skill to perform senior sales representative duties is physical stamina. Senior sales representatives responsibilities require that "wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives are often on their feet for a long time and may carry heavy sample products." Senior sales representatives also use physical stamina in their role according to a real resume snippet: "pain mgmt clinics, anesthesiologists, physical medicine physicians, internal medicine, family practice, rheumatology. "
Self-confidence. senior sales representatives are also known for self-confidence, which are critical to their duties. You can see how this skill relates to senior sales representative responsibilities, because "wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives must be confident and persuasive when making sales presentations." A senior sales representative resume example shows how self-confidence is used in the workplace: "instilled confidence in doctors through product knowledge and the ability to communicate pertinent information. "
Customer-service skills. For certain senior sales representative responsibilities to be completed, the job requires competence in "customer-service skills." The day-to-day duties of a senior sales representative rely on this skill, as "wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives must be able to listen to the customer’s needs and concerns before and after the sale." For example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies to what senior sales representatives do: "apply consultative sales techniques to identify opportunities to upgrade existing customer accounts. "
The three companies that hire the most senior sales representatives are:
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Compare different senior sales representatives
Senior sales representative vs. Senior sales specialist
A senior sales specialist oversees and provides solutions to improve a company's sales operations. It is their responsibility to conduct market research and analysis, establish budgets and guidelines, generate leads, and develop sales strategies and sales forecasts. They also liaise and build positive relationships with vendors and suppliers, set sales targets, and resolve customer issues and complaints. Moreover, being a senior sales specialist, it is essential to lead and serve as a mentor to junior sales specialists while implementing and promoting the company's policies and regulations.
While similarities exist, there are also some differences between senior sales representatives and senior sales specialist. For instance, senior sales representative responsibilities require skills such as "sales consultants," "sales process," "portfolio," and "sales territory." Whereas a senior sales specialist is skilled in "virtualization," "client facing," "oncology," and "infectious disease." This is part of what separates the two careers.
Senior sales specialists tend to reach similar levels of education than senior sales representatives. In fact, senior sales specialists are 1.8% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.0% less likely to have a Doctoral Degree.Senior sales representative vs. Senior sales associate
A senior sales associate is responsible for overseeing the operations in a retail establishment's sales floor. They reach out to customers and respond to inquiries, help them obtain the product they are looking for, or recommend other goods should it be necessary. As a senior sales associate, they are in charge of mentoring less experienced colleagues and shaping them into more competent workforce members. They must also implement sales policies and regulations, devise strategies to reach sales targets, find new opportunities to strengthen client base, produce reports, and maintain inventory.
In addition to the difference in salary, there are some other key differences worth noting. For example, senior sales representative responsibilities are more likely to require skills like "pre sales," "sales consultants," "customer relationships," and "crm." Meanwhile, a senior sales associate has duties that require skills in areas such as "phone calls," "cleanliness," "powerpoint," and "pos." These differences highlight just how different the day-to-day in each role looks.
Average education levels between the two professions vary. Senior sales associates tend to reach similar levels of education than senior sales representatives. In fact, they're 2.9% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.0% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for senior sales representatives in the next 3-5 years?
Bill Thorne
Executive Director of the NRF Foundation and Senior Vice President of Communication and Public Affairs of NRF, National Retail Federation
Senior sales representative vs. Consultant and sales representative
A consultant and sales representative's role is to perform research and analysis to devise strategies for reaching sales targets and optimal services. Aside from providing consultations and business plans, they may also represent the company by reaching out to clients through calls and correspondence. They may offer products and services to secure sales, answer inquiries, and even arrange appointments to discuss and negotiate deals. Furthermore, as a consultant and sales representative, it is essential to build positive relationships with clients in adherence to the company's policies and regulations.
Some important key differences between the two careers include a few of the skills necessary to fulfill the responsibilities of each. Some examples from senior sales representative resumes include skills like "sales consultants," "customer relationships," "portfolio," and "patients," whereas a consultant and sales representative is more likely to list skills in "business relationships," "strong presentation," "lead generation," and "energy efficiency. "
Most consultants and sales representative achieve a similar degree level compared to senior sales representatives. For example, they're 0.4% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.1% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Senior sales representative vs. Sales/account representative
A sales account representative is responsible for managing and responding promptly to customer complaints and queries of clients. They focus on customer concerns and contact prospects. They work on upselling or cross-selling products and services, collaborating with account executives, and prepare reports to upper management. This job requires you to be a goal-driven person, energetic, and have excellent communication skills. Moreover, this is a challenging job; at times, it requires being extra polite and calm in handling customer complaints and other related situations.
Even though a few skill sets overlap between senior sales representatives and sales/account representatives, there are some differences that are important to note. For one, a senior sales representative might have more use for skills like "sales consultants," "customer relationships," "portfolio," and "patients." Meanwhile, some responsibilities of sales/account representatives require skills like "work ethic," "indirect sales," "sales support," and "enterprise resource planning. "
In general, sales/account representatives hold similar degree levels compared to senior sales representatives. Sales/account representatives are 1.9% less likely to earn their Master's Degree and 0.0% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Types of senior sales representative
Updated January 8, 2025
