Business Development Manager
Shift from leading a sales team towards identifying new markets, developing opportunities and building strategic revenue pipelines.
CAREER INTELLIGENCE
What careers can a Sales Manager move into?
Explore where your experience can take you next. Built around transferable capabilities, not job titles alone.
YOUR STARTING POINT
Sales Manager
Sales Manager develops more than selling ability. Leading targets, people, forecasts, strategy and customer relationships creates a combination of commercial judgement, leadership, analytics and negotiation. Those capabilities can transfer into business development, account management, commercial management, partnerships and sales operations.
POSSIBLE NEXT MOVES
Where this experience can take you
Key Account Manager
Use commercial judgement, negotiation and relationship skills to focus on growing and retaining high-value customer accounts.
Commercial Manager
Broaden sales leadership into pricing, contracts, forecasting, commercial performance and cross-functional revenue decisions.
Partnerships Manager
Apply negotiation, relationship management and commercial strategy to building partnerships that create mutual growth and value.
Sales Operations Manager
Lean into forecasting, CRM, performance data, process and planning to improve the systems behind a sales organisation.
TRANSFERABLE CAPABILITIES
Your title only tells part of the story.
Sales leadership, coaching, negotiation, forecasting, target management, commercial strategy, customer relationships, pipeline management, CRM systems, performance analysis, presentations, market awareness, recruitment and team development.
SALARY SIGNAL
£65k+
National Careers Service currently places Sales Manager salaries at around £28,000 to £70,000. Earnings vary significantly by sector, team size and incentive structure, and advertised packages may include performance-related pay. Senior commercial, strategic account and sales leadership roles can move beyond these ranges where responsibility is larger.
MARKET INTELLIGENCE
Search by capability, not just title.
Sales management skills transfer across industries because revenue growth, customer relationships and team performance are common business problems. The best adjacent move depends on whether you most enjoy opening new markets, developing strategic customers, broader commercial decision-making, partnerships or improving the processes and data behind sales.
READY TO GO FURTHER?
See where your sales leadership experience could take you
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