Senior Sales Professional - £85-100k realistic OTE

Advancing People have the pleasure of assisting our Northampton based client, who's core business is based in the Milton Keynes, Northamptonshire and Bedford region. Our client is one of the largest independently owned hybrid commercial finance broker-lenders in the UK, having financed almost quarter of a billion pounds of finance for UK SME's in the last year. They are also strategically expanding, with their own lending arm already hitting significant lending targets.

They are looking to recruit highly skilled and successful salesmen and women onto their 'fast-track' senior management programme. This programme has been set up by our client with the singular aim of identifying top sales talent from outside of the commercial finance industry who can be hand-picked to join their business on a fast-track management programme.

Our client has previous experience of recruiting exciting, dynamic and excellent sales talent from outside their sector, and then rapidly bringing them up to speed on their commercial finance products, processes and sales techniques. By combining this with their wealth of more generalist sales experience from other industries, our client finds that this creates a much better 'all-round' candidate, better suited to a senior leadership role in the firm as 'sales manager'.

The goal is that successful candidates, of which there are hoped to be more than one, will progress through the ranks on a fast-track promotion scheme, to be made a Sales Manager within 18 months, operating their own team within the business over whom they benefit from an override commission on earnings generated by the team, as well as many other market-leading benefits.

The individual will sit directly with the Managing Director or Sales Director to be given first-hand training from the most senior sales individuals in the firm. They will seek to invest significant amounts of senior resources into the employees on the Fast Track programme, as they see these individuals as an integral part of the businesses ambitious growth plans. You will therefore benefit from this direct exposure to the most senior individuals within the firm, learning first-hand from the best in the business, accelerating your learning, growth, sales acumen and earning potential.

The role:

This is a B2B financial services role that is suitable for somebody who really enjoys building and developing new and existing customer account, acting as a broker procuring their commercial finance needs. You wear two hats in this role which means you will be "hunting" for the new business via warm leads which will then turn into your accounts which you will "farm" moving forwards.

You will need strong commercial awareness, in order to be able to quickly identify and understand a customer's needs. You should even be able to identify ways in which finance could benefit their business which perhaps the customer themselves had not yet identified.

You will also need to be able to work well in a high-pressure environment, where you may have up to 30-40 active deals at any one time, ensuring that all are progressed in a timely manner, with the most promising and rewarding deals prioritised accordingly.

Whilst the ability to understand company accounts, corporate taxes and commercial finance products would be beneficial, this is not a must. What is, however, is a passion for understanding and getting to know businesses and business owners. Understanding quickly what makes their business tick and how finance could help unlock growth, additional profit or cashflow. These businesses will all have different commercial finance needs which could span a lot of different industry sectors and several years. You will need to rapidly develop your understanding and knowledge of the client's lending products, their benefits, customer eligibility and use cases.

The client's business operates across several different finance products, from lease and hire purchase asset finance to secured and unsecured commercial loans and car finance. In addition, the business operates across multiple verticals from agriculture and forestry to IT providers and hospitality, as well as from new starts to more established business. The ability, therefore, to communicate across a spectrum of business owners is a critical skill to possess, with customers ranging from a small wine-bar owner seeking to finance new refrigeration units, to the FD of a £10m revenue business looking to finance a fleet of new heavy machinery.

You will develop your professional network and understanding within financial services and specifically the SME lending market.

Person Specification

• Minimum A level/HND/University degree education
• Commercially aware, numerate and analytical
• Solid demonstrable commercial negotiation skills
• Strong experience in generating new business and retention.
• We are open to industry sector however you would need to have a consultative and transactional sales approach
• Clean driving licence
• Willingness to study for the LIBF Diploma in Asset Finance (DipAF)

Hours Monday - Friday 8.30 - 5.30

Advancing People - Recruitment Specialists

Advancing People Ltd is an Equal Opportunities Employer and acts as both an Employment Business and Employment Agency