Meet the expert Julie Neill

Julie Neill is a TV star of a very different kind. She works as a Sales Executive for Sky Media; Europe’s biggest entertainment brand and her mission is informing customers about AdSmart from Sky.

“Adsmart is the revolutionary approach to TV advertising from Sky that levels the playing field so businesses of all shapes and sizes can benefit from the unrivalled power of TV,” she says.

“With AdSmart, different ads can be shown to different households watching the same programme. This means brands and businesses can now advertise on some of the nation’s favourite channels but only to households and audiences that are relevant.”

Julie points out before AdSmart TV advertising was mostly mass market and usually required a big investment.

“AdSmart’s controllability and precision radically reduces the outlay required, making TV advertising possible for almost any business,” she says. “In fact, more than 70% of advertisers using AdSmart are new to TV or Sky. Selling this product is fantastic as it’s revolutionary and customers, once they understand how it works, love it.”

With qualifications in accountancy, Julie had no initial sales training before moving into the sector.

“I effectively learned on the job,” she says. “Once in an organisation you’re given training to develop your sales skills.”

A typical working day is 9am until 5.30pm and kicks off with something we all know about: checking emails.

“If I have customer appointments, I make sure I’m prepared before the meetings. We have five calls a week to complete, however most days I have at least two face-to-face calls. I’m remotely based, which is fantastic. I have an office set up at home which I work from after meetings.”

Julie believes customer service is an integral part of the sales function.

“When I’m speaking with customers, I’m the voice of Sky Media and at all times I must have a professional and informative manner,” she says.

One of the biggest challenges is time management, so Julie allocates daily time slots in her calendar and these keep her on track throughout the day.

Another challenge is handling objections from potential customers.

“I use this as an opportunity for improvement,” says Julie. “I find out where I went wrong and what I could have done better and try again the next day.”

When it comes to recruiting more young people into sales and customer service, Julie says the description of sales simply isn’t attractive anymore.

“Companies need to align with the talk of the young people of today,” she says. “They now use words like product consultant, which sounds much more interesting than a sales advisor.”

When first moving into sales herself, Julie was able to bring a variety of hard and soft skills to the role.

“Excellent selling skills are a must, of course, and being highly experienced in new business and account management means I’ve been able to utilise communication and selling skills in order to achieve my targets.

“It’s also important to be adept at organising efficient communication links and collaborating effectively with people at all levels, both internally and externally.”

Essential computing skills – experience in the use of desktop packages such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint – are immensely beneficial. So, too, are strong process development skills through experience in managing projects.

So, what advice would Julie give to anyone who’d like to take up a similar job and rise to the top in sales?

“There are many benefits of choosing a sales career. The compensation is usually at the top level, with many opportunities to earn more, if you’re great at your job. There are limitless opportunities in the industries you can work in and the products or services you can sell.

“You get added job freedom and flexibility and so much more. I’ve spent 24 years in sales and I still get a great sense of achievement when targets are hit!”

If you’d like to hit targets and enjoy that same sense of achievement, why not take a look at the vacancies in the Sales, Customer Service and Call & Contact Centres sectors on jobs24.com?

Posted on October 1, 2019