Job titles in sales mean a person is in charge of different areas of business, such as revenue, sales operations and nearly two dozen others both in the sales department and beyond – sales job titles have many nuances especially in 2024.
And with sales jobs more popular than ever (13% of all full time jobs in the US are sales jobs), it is crucial to understand each title. This guide will break down each and every sales job title, what they mean and a description of each.
What are Sales Job Titles?
A “title” in sales is a simple name given to the role that employees have in the sales field based on their job responsibilities. For example, someone can be a door to door sales rep or a pre-sales consultant, and both of these titles give you a general idea of the person’s job responsibilities.
Why Do Job Titles in Sales Matter?
Titles matter in sales because they’re often indicative of the person’s:
- Experience level
- Specialty in sales
- Hierarchy
Often your job title in sales is directly connected to recruitment and compensation. Ask any sales recruiter and they will say the same thing.
Sales Title Hierarchy Explained
Finally, sales job titles have a hierarchy, too. The sales titles hierarchy can be divided into the following categories:
- Senior Level Sales Titles: A senior sales leader will often be required to have a degree, Certified Sales Professional certification and previous experience in account and sales management.
- Mid-Level Sales Titles: After a few years in sales at the entry-level, greater opportunities open up at the mid-level tier. Staff in these positions may become sales managers or directors.
- Entry-Level Sales Titles: New sales staff with no experience will enter the field with entry-level sales titles. These professionals will have little-to-no experience, and they may or may not have a degree.
The many job titles in sales are listed below and categorized by the respective hierarchy we just discussed.
Senior Level Sales Titles
Senior-level sales titles are the highest paying in the industry, but these titles also come with the greatest responsibilities:
CRO
A Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) is responsible for overseeing:
- Sales teams
- All revenue-generation tasks
CROs work to create cohesion among teams and align all revenue-related functions together, including customer support jobs, sales, pricing and marketing. These professionals often have an investment mindset and work to maximize revenue in an organization.
EVP of Sales
An Executive Vice President of Sales will oversee the teams underneath the CRO. These professionals will be responsible for managing sales departments and teams to ensure they have the tools necessary to bring revenue into the company.
SVP of Sales
A Senior VP of Sales works underneath the EVP to monitor many aspects of the sales team, including:
- Performance
- Results
- Meeting targets
- Business function requirements
The SVP can lend their experience to sales teams to provide direction and offer leadership.
VP of Sales
The Vice President of Sales is responsible for creating strategies that are aligned with the organization’s goals. Strategies created by the VP of sales are designed to exceed goals and reach milestones. Often, a VP of Sales main focus is recruiting the best sales talent.
As a VP of Sales, you’ll oversee the entire company’s sales operations.
Most VPs of sales will have 8+ years of experience and have many managerial roles under their belt before being considered for the position.
VP of Customer Success
Customer success is crucial to the longevity and success of business operations. These professionals will be responsible for overseeing the Customer Success team and ensuring clients are retained and grow.
The VP of Customer Success will also work to segment customers and try to find areas of improvement.
VP of Sales Development
The VP of Sales Development is responsible for the organization’s sales development programs, including but not limited to:
- Overseeing the outbound sales function
- Day-to-day management
- Recruiting best in class sales development talent
VP of Account Management
A VP of account management is responsible for overseeing the Account Management function at a company. This includes management, strategy, and recruiting.
VP of Sales Operations
The VP of Sales Operations is responsible for both the effectiveness and productivity of the sales teams. This position requires close relationships with business stakeholders and will demand that the VP helps the business maintain efficient, successful operations.
VP of Revenue Operations
The VP of RevOps is responsible for collaborating with multiple teams to ensure that they’re aligned with the business’s revenue operations. You may work with the following teams:
- Customer success/Account management
- Finance
- Marketing
- Sales
- Operations
Professionals in this position will implement design and performance metrics as well as put strategies in place to maximize revenue generation.
Mid-Level Sales Job Titles: Sales Manager Titles
Mid-level sales managers help manage operations on the team level and will often include positions that demand answering to the VPs and CROs.
Director of Sales or Sales Director
The Director of Sales is at the highest level in mid-level sales, and they are responsible for the entirety of the business’s sales operations. Some of the many duties of these professionals include:
- Creating sales reports
- Running forecasts
- Managing managers
See how Sales Director vs Sales Manager compares and more Sales Director content.
Director of Revenue Operations
The Director of RevOps will be responsible for optimizing the organization’s sales funnel and operational metrics. As an integral figure in the business’s revenue operations, they’ll provide actionable insights to sales and marketing teams.
In this position, you’ll be responsible for the success of the revenue operations team.
Director of Sales Operations
These professionals focus on sales force productivity and will focus on quota setting, reporting, planning and all other sales-related activities. The main goal of a Director of Sales Operations is to find ways to meet and exceed sales goals while also aligning with key business objectives.
National Sales Manager
A National Sales Manager will supervise sales personnel and be responsible for the complete oversight of:
- Sales objectives
- Sales goals
- Revenue
These managers will spend a lot of time traveling to meet with various teams, develop new sales methods and attend industry conferences.
Director of Account Management
Account management is the key responsibility of these directors, and they’ll work closely with clients. These directors are responsible for building deeper business relationships with clients and will develop key strategies to grow the organization’s client business, improve quality and enhance cost-effectiveness. This is often a management role within the sales job title spectrum.
Sales Manager
A career as a sales manager is in high demand and expected to grow 5% per year. The job duties of a sales manager will be to hire and train team members, evaluate performance, develop and adjust sales processes and set quotas.
Regional Sales Director
Regional sales directors – in addition to the impressive sales job title – will manage a specific region’s sales. In their day-to-day responsibilities, they’ll:
- Manage sales training programs
- Work with multiple teams
- Create and refine sales processes
- Plan promotions
- Manage campaigns
- Analyze industry trends
Enterprise Account Executive
As an enterprise account executive, you’ll be responsible for nurturing relationships and closing business with enterprise accounts. You’ll spend a lot of the day meeting with clients, multi-threading, building consensus, and trying to close your companies largest prospects
Deal sizes for Enterprise Account Executives usually exceeds $100K.
Mid-Market Account Executive
Mid-market account executives will meet with clients who are one level below enterprise clients. These deal sizes are smaller than enterprise but can still be sizeable. Often in the $25K-100K range.
In addition to these tasks, the mid-market account exec may also manage opportunities in the pipeline and work on cross-selling and upselling existing accounts.
Sales Development Manager
A sales development manager helps oversee the outbound sales processes within a company. Their job is to manage the SDRs or BDRs who are focused on sales prospecting.
Sales Managers also:
- Hire, train and manage new sales staff
- Help team members reach out to new prospects
- Create outbound sales pitches
- Craft cold emails
Sales Account Executive
Account executives provide support to new clients. It’s their job to acquire new customers. They focus on almost exclusively on new business.
Duties and responsibilities may include:
- Client outreach and supporting relationships with existing clients
- Prospecting
- Closing new business
Sales Engineer
Sales engineers specialize in helping salespeople with more technical aspects of a product, usually during a demo. These individuals have advanced technical knowledge, which allows them to educate potential clients about these more complex products or services.
The job of a sales engineer is to help prospective clients make sense of complex technical products and choose solutions that best solve their problems. Sales Engineers is by far the most technical of all the job sales titles.
Pre-Sales Consultant
Pre-sales consultants are in charge of developing product demonstrations and answering questions from potential customers.
Responsibilities and duties for this role may include:
- Crafting a sales narrative
- Preparing the technology for a demo
Solutions Engineer
Solutions engineers use their technical knowledge to sell software products to customers. They work with other sales teams to answer technical questions and perform product presentations.
Duties for this role may include:
- Provide salespeople with a resource to manage technical challenges
- Providing technical support
- Troubleshooting problems and developing solutions for them
Sales Operations Manager
Sales operations managers create and oversee sales processes to facilitate growth in the company. Their duties include but are not limited to:
- Overseeing sales funnels
- Selecting and implementing sales automation tools
- Optimizing sales processes
- Creating sales forecasting reports
- Managing CRM data
- Coordinating with sales leadership to create organizational goals
Customer Success Manager
A customer success manager, CSM, helps a customer with the software they’ve purchased. They develop relationships with clients and help them find solutions that meet their goals for growth or problem-solving.
A CSM is, essentially, a mentor for customers. They help them understand the product and serve as a point of contact to help resolve issues after purchase.
Senior Account Manager
Senior account managers develop relationships with new customers to generate sales and maintain relationships with existing customers to retain their business.
A senior account manager’s duties may include:
- Account management, which may include arranging meetings, attending conferences, researching business opportunities, maintaining strong relationships with customers, etc.
- Maintaining client accounts, including updating client contact information, history, order preferences and other important details.
- Develop and execute plans to manage and grow accounts.
- Provide a high level of customer support.
- Helping sales teams improve their performance and reach their goals.
To enter this role, you will likely need at least two years of experience in sales, business development or account management.
Senior Customer Success Manager
A senior customer success manager works with clients individually to get a deeper understanding of their key objectives and strategic priorities. These individuals work closely with upper management to help improve customer retention and provide a positive experience with the brand.
Typically, senior customer success managers work with complex or high-potential customers. They will help manage SaaS renewals and are often the point of contact for negotiations.
Entry Level Sales Job Titles
Entry-level job titles in sales are those who are just getting started in the field. These individuals may have little or no experience in sales and minimal educational credentials.
Some of the top entry-level beginner sales titles from the sales title hierarchy include:
Sales Coordinator
Sales coordinators provide support to customers and teams throughout the sales process. They may help customers resolve problems and provide real-time support.
Sales Operations Associate
A sales operations associate reports to a sales operations manager. They work in retail settings, and their job is to help implement sales strategies and programs.
Duties for this role may include:
- Handling basic CRM build outs
- Documenting internal sales processes
- CRM data cleanup
Some associates also collect data to help build growth forecasts. Learn more about sales operations associate recruiting right here.
Revenue Operations Associate
Revenue operations associates help drive sales, set quotas and engage in sales performance management under a RevOps leader.
The duties of this role include but are not limited to:
- Identifying marketing strategies, ways to streamline the customer lifecycle and improvements for sales processes.
- Recommending tools to improve sales data analysis and reporting.
- Building revenue forecasts for sales teams to help them reach their goals.
- Oversee the rules of engagement for all revenue processes.
A revenue operations associate’s duties may vary from one company to the next. The larger the business, the greater the responsibility.
Customer Success Associate
A customer success associate acts as a liaison between a customer and the company. Their job is to work with internal teams to ensure customers have a positive experience.
Duties for this sales job title can include:
- Answering inbound calls from customers
- Working with management to resolve customer issues
In some cases, these associates provide technical support over the phone.
Outside Sales Representative
An outside sales rep works outside of the office. They sell products and services via face-to-face interactions. These sales representatives travel often and attend meetings with potential and existing customers.
Outside sales reps may also inform existing clients of updates, features and new products offered by the company. They may also be responsible for creating and submitting sales reports for management.
Door to Door Sales Representative
Just as the title suggests, a door to door sales rep visits people’s homes in order to sell products or services. Door to door sales is a method of direct selling and canvassing. They may provide product demonstrations, negotiate sales and close deals.
These individuals engage with potential customers in person.
Sales Development Representative
A sales development representative, or SDR, specializes in inside selling. Their only job is sales prospecting and qualifying leads.
SDRs help move prospects through the sales funnel by educating them, answering questions and sending resources. If they find that a prospect is a good match for the product or service, an SDR will schedule the next step, which may be a strategy call, demonstration, consultation or something similar.
Business Development Representative
A business development representative, or BDR, helps generate new business by prospecting through accounts to identify potential buyers and qualifying leads.
They may use cold calling, cold email, networking and social selling to generate prospects. Often, a BDR is the first point of contact for potential customers.
Sales Representative
Sales representatives sell products or services. They serve as a point of contact for potential customers, develop relationships with clients and help find products that meet a customer’s needs.
A sales representative’s duties may include:
- Researching the company’s target market to identify avenues for lead generation
- Creating a pipeline of leads
- Developing relationships with leads through email, phone calls and social media
- Closing deals and negotiating prices
- Educating prospects on the benefits and features of products
Sales reps often attend meetings with leaders in the sales department to stay on top of updated quotas and other department changes.
Business Development Manager
A business development manager’s job is to drive growth. Their duties include:
- Building lists of leads
- Pitching to prospects
- Developing and nurturing relationships with potential customers
- Preparing status reports
- Using customer relationship management software to manage relationships
The goal of a business development manager is to convert a prospect into a signed client or customer.
Sales Consultant
A sales consultant helps create strategies for marketing products or services. They also serve as the intermediary between a customer and a company. Their goal is to recommend services and products while meeting the customer’s requirements.
Sales consultants meet with clients regularly and educate them on how a company’s products or services work.
Retail Sales Associate
A retail sales associate is someone who serves customers by helping them find the right products. They engage with customers and may use suggestive selling to make sales. Associates also share product knowledge to help customers make informed decisions.
Retail sales associates are friendly, knowledgeable of the company’s products and persuasive.
Account Associate
An account associate helps provide support to sales teams and individuals. They may be responsible for maintaining records and schedules for marketing campaigns, providing clerical support and working with clerks in the office.
An account associate’s goal is to help the sales and marketing teams achieve their sales objectives.
Client Engagement Specialist
A customer engagement specialist is involved in prospecting, product marketing and customer relations. Their main goal is to get more consumers to use their products. They achieve this goal by developing and nurturing relationships with customers:
- Over the phone
- Online
- In-person
Those who excel in this role have experience with cold-calling and business analysis. They have a knack for identifying new prospects and, ideally, already have experience in sales.
Telemarketer
Telemarketers use cold calling to try and sell products. They may also answer incoming calls from potential customers.
Typically, telemarketers use scripts to explain the product’s features, benefits and pricing. Those who excel in this position are friendly, persuasive, patient and cool-tempered. They can quickly identify the prospective customer’s needs and explain how a product can solve their problems.
Along with persuading prospects to purchase a product or service, telemarketers may also:
- Deal with complaints
- Keep records of calls and useful information
- Have sales quotas that they have to meet
Our Parting Thoughts on Sales Titles
Understanding sales job titles can help you plan your career path and know what’s expected of you in the workplace. If your job title in sales doesn’t reflect your role, you may miss on a future role at another company. If you’re trying to recruit talent, if the sales job title isn’t accurate, you’ll likely focus on the wrong candidates. Check out this article on Marketing Job Titles.
THE TLDR: A List of Every Single Sales Job Title (38 in Total!)
- Account Associate
- Account Executive
- Account Manager
- Account Representative
- Business Development Manager
- Business Development Representative
- Chief Sales Officer
- Chief revenue officer
- Client Success Manager
- Collection agent
- Customer Care Representative
- Director of Revenue Operations
- Director of Sales Operations
- Door to Door Sales Representative
- Executive Vice President of Sales
- Franchise Development Manager
- Inside salesperson
- National Sales Manager
- Outside Sales Representative
- Partnership Manager
- Pre-Sales Consultant
- Regional Sales Manager
- Retail Sales Manager
- Sales Coordinator
- Sales Consultant
- Sales Development Manager
- Sales Development Representative
- Sales Director
- Sales Engineer
- Sales Executive
- Sales Manager
- Sales Operations Manager
- Sales Representative
- Salesperson
- Senior VP of Sales
- VP of Sales
- VP of Sales Development
- VP of Sales Operations
