Sales and Marketing skills for Jobs in South Africa – No 1 approved

Sales and marketing skills for Jobs in South Africa guide

The sales and marketing employment sector is massive, and offers a wide variety of jobs, entry-level to executive, technical, or managerial. Both sales and marketing personnel aim to promote and sell products or services. Sales representatives are responsible for the execution of sales strategies and reaching targets. Marketing skills build brand awareness, design and execute advertising campaigns, communicate and grow their target audience.

What sales and marketing skills are employers looking for in resumes? Different sales and marketing career paths all have individual skill requirements. Typically, marketing and sales jobseekers have fantastic communication skills, are passionate about customer service, and have an understanding of communicating to a target audience. They build connections and relationships.

When a sales job is commission-based, the commission may be paid in one of the following ways:

The position is bonus-based, when you receive your pay plus an extra bonus, based on your sales
Base pay, or salary plus commission, is calculated on the total sales generated
When you are paid as a draw against future commission earnings, you are provided with income that is taken off from commission after it is earned.

We will show you how to match a sales or marketing title with your unique job skills, to establish which positions you can search for and how to highlight vital keywords in your CV Understanding and effectively pointing out skills, helps you get hired fast.

In this marketing skills guide, we cover the following:

Sales career paths
Sales, communication and marketing jobs
Sales management
Administrative sales
Sales representative
Sales account executive
Executive level management
Sales engineers
Travel agents
Advertising sales agent and representative
Wholesalers and manufacturing sales representative
Insurance sales
Securities, commodities and financial services
Financial sales jobs
Real estate brokers and sales agents
The job skills that are frequently needed in sales jobs
Marketing and promotion jobs in South Africa
Retail and sales job titles

Sales career paths

To choose a sales career path, consider the skills that you currently have and write them down. Separate the list into 2 parts:
1) list the qualities that are taught (hard skills), and
2) behaviors or attitude-based qualities (soft skills).

Now familiarize yourself with the skill requirements of the different industries and sales roles. Which positions mirror your keywords?

It is possible to upskill for a dream job. Consider a TVET or free online course.

Sales, communication and marketing jobs

In marketing skills, you are responsible for market research, planning, creating, and executing marketing campaigns plus brainstorming strategies that will, ongoingly, expand the business, product or service visibility. The objective is to create and develop brand awareness to a growing target audience.

The marketing skills that are required to find employment in sales and communication:

Account/ project management
Advertising and branding
Client acquisition
Client retention
Customer relationship management (CRM)
Emotional intelligence and self management
Leadership / team management
Listening
Negotiations and networking
Outbound sales
Pitch and persuasion
Public speaking
Relationship and engagement

TOP TIP: interviewers will look for the above marketing skills – both on your resume and also in the interview. Understanding the importance of skills, is extremely important when you want to get hired fast.

Sales management

Management positions exist to supervise sales employees, overlook the growing of new audiences, maintain existing client accounts, and to develop new sales strategies.

Sales manager job titles:

Account manager
Area sales manager
Business development manager
Direct sales manager
District sales manager
Franchise development manager
Group sales manager
Inside sales manager
Manager, business development
Market development manager
Marketing manager
National sales manager
Regional manager
Regional sales manager
Retail store manager
Sales and community marketing manager
Sales manager
Territory manager
Territory sales manager
Wholesale sales manager

The job skills that are required by sales managers and accounts managers, territory managers, and public relations, marketing directors, and client acquisition positions:

Hard skills required:
Customer relationship management (CRM)
Leadership and team management
Account management and project management
Bidding
Management
Client acquisition and client retention
Advertising, direct marketing and pitch creation
Public relations
Territory management
Scheduling
Software presentation

Sales management qualities, or soft skills, include:

Problem solving and sensitivity
Good at managing time
Communication, written and speech
Leadership
Interpersonal
Friendly

Administrative sales

Administrative sales assistants take care of phone calls, and create the environment for an efficient sales office through communication, organization, appointment scheduling, admin and clerical support.

Administrative sales job titles:

Business development; Representative
Enterprise resources planning; representative
Financial sales assistant
Fixed income specialist
Industry representative
Investments representative
National accounts sales analyst
Regional dealer recruiter
Sales coordinator
Sales operation coordinator
Sales representative
Territory lead

Sales representative

Sales representative positions are often entry-level, customer-care vacancies or business-to-business sales jobs. The main objective is to sell products or services.

Typical sales representative jobs titles:

Account representative
Advertising sales representative
Automotive sales representative
B2B corporate sales
Brand Ambassador
Customer care representative
Direct salesperson
Distribution sales representative
Enterprise sales representative
Equipment sales representative
Equipment sales specialist
Healthcare sales representative
Industrial sales representative
Inside salesperson
Insurance sales representative
Medical sales representative
National accounts sales; representative
Outside sales representative
Retail sales representative
Route sales representative
Sales assistant sales associate
Sales representative
Sales trainee
Salesperson
Specialty sales representative
Territory sales representative

Sales account executive

An account executive (AE) work to close sales by looking after leads. They must keep existing customers by taking care of their needs and grow the pool with new customers. They are often paid in commission per sale.

Job titles include:

Account executive
Channel partner sales executive
Corporate sales account executive
Financial advisor
Financial planner
Group and events sales coordinator
Key account manager
Major accounts manager
National accounts sales general manager
Regional sales account manager
Regional sales executive
Sales account executive, small and medium business
Strategic account manager
Territory business manager
Wealth management advisor

Executive level management job titles:

Director of inside sales
Director of national sales
Director of sales
Executive vice president of sales

Sales engineers

Sales engineers sell technological products or services. Scientific and technical knowledge is essential to sell product functions to business clients and to help problem-solving during installation

Sales engineering jobs is firmly on the list of high demand jobs of the future and expected to keep growing, especially in the computer software and hardware industries.

Travel agents

A travel agent books transportation, accommodation, tours and trips and to make sure every leg of the trip runs smoothly.

Advertising sales agent and representative

Advertising sales representative jobs sell online, print and broadcast advertising. The advertising sales rep has to be good at building relationships and maintaining them, plus being a successful matchmaker between audiences and advertisers. They have to contact existing and potential clients, maintain accounts and create sales presentations.

Wholesalers and manufacturing sales representative

Wholesalers and manufacturing sales representatives may do bulk sales for a manufacturer, or companies, and even Government agencies. They work with large numbers and logistics experience or understanding is advantageous.

Insurance sales agents

As the title suggests, insurance sales jobs include selling insurance and financial cover. Insurance agents may sell one type, or multiple insurance policies, including: life insurance, health insurance, property insurance, etc. An insurance sales agent’s job duties are to contact existing and potential clients, manage policy renewals and keeping records updated. Good communication is an important skill as they need to discuss and explain policies, and help customers during their selecting process.

Financial sales jobs

In finance positions, you are
Observing financial markets such as stock markets;
Give sound financial advice to companies;
Selling of securities

Financial sales positions may include securities, commodities and financial services sales agents who, for example, buy and sell stocks of commodities, like gold.

Clients rely on the knowledge and expertise of a financial sales service provider to choose the right financial product, insurance or investment, for banking, debt management, loans and similar financial services.

Real estate brokers and sales agents

The duties of real estate brokers and sales agents are to help clients buy, sell, and rent property. The difference between a real estate broker and a real estate agent: The real estate broker can work in the same way as a real estate sales agent, but is licensed to manage their own real estate business. Whereas, a real estate sales agent sells and rents out properties for brokers on a contract basis.

The marketing skills that are frequently needed in sales jobs

Sales agents and sales representatives need good communication for potential and existing clients and customers, suppliers and vendors. Salespeople do well with friendliness, warmth and approachable soft skills.
Depending on the type of sales job, the candidate may also need certain hard skills to be specific, technical and knowledgeable.

The complex capabilities that you will need in sales jobs and customer service jobs, include these harder and softer marketing skills below. TIP: As recruiters receive hundreds of resumes, they often start the sorting process by means of software that looks for the required skills on a sales agent’s CV.

30 x Sales hard skills:

Customer relationship management (CRM)
Key performance indicator (KPI) software
Customer service
Branding
Managing social media
Data analysis
Data entry skills
Information management
Basic sales skills
Consultation
Contracts management
Demonstrating products and explaining product function
Directing customers
Product display
Event coordination and planning meetings
Estimating and forecasting
Identifying target audience and consumer behavior
Generating lead
Microsoft Office
Monetary exchange
Setting prices
Recordkeeping
Order processing and inventory management
Bilingual
Pitch delivery and closing
Telesales
In store and door to door sales
Negotiation
Networking
Writing reports

The softer, “attitude” marketing skills, are the qualities of a person. It tells the hiring manager how the job will get done:

Confidence
Critical thinking
Interested
Relationship building
Problem sensitivity
Problem solver
Great telephone manner
Effective email management
Achieving results
Compose proposals and suggestions
Manages time well
Fast learner
Communication and active listening; Persuasion
Reasoning or debating
Public speaking
Diligence
Engagement
Personal ethics
Driven and with own initiative
Sincerity
Goal-oriented
Team player

The candidate applying for an inside sales representative position will benefit from including the following experience (hard marketing skills) on the CV:

Telemarketing
E-mail sales
Social media marketing
Sales for B2B products and services
SaaS

The cover letter is a great space for including soft marketing skills:

Passionate
Goal-oriented
People’s person and loves building personal relationships
Team player
Good at communicating and listening

Follow the SIMPLE STEPS exactly to get hired fast by incorporating the right keywords. Without them, your chances of making it on to a short list, is nearly zero.

Marketing skills and promotion jobs in South Africa: