Talk the talk, walk the walk: A day in the life of Revolut Sales

It’s the engine that drives new business, engaging and acquiring customers across the globe. From prospecting to activation, this team does it all. They own the market with a solution-orientated approach, and use their industry know-how to grow our customer base at an incredible speed.

That’s right – we’re talking about the Revolut Sales team. But what’s their secret? What makes them special – and what qualities make a candidate a perfect match for this department?

To answer those questions (and a whole load more), we sat down with Patrick Hodge, our Head of Small and Medium Business Sales in the UK, to understand what makes this team tick.

Let’s dive in:

Talk us through your role. What does your work look like day-to-day, and how would you summarise your overall mission?

Our big focus is always to deliver WOW. We’re very much advocates for positive customer outcomes and, as Sales Manager, I coach my team to think of this in all of the work we do – from choosing the most appropriate products for customers and simplifying the onboarding journey to the post-sales customer experience.

One of the key parts of my role is enabling an already-talented team not only to maximise the departmental results, but to realise their potential. That’s at the core of what a Sales Manager is: approaching people, helping them grow, and helping them to improve their results.

How does the Revolut Sales department work? How is the team structured, and what are its main deliverables?

Each of the Sales Managers – who tend to manage up to 15 Account Executives – act almost as owners of their own business. By that, I mean that the managers have the remit to approach their work in their own individual way. We appreciate that people do things differently, and this is something that is encouraged at Revolut in general, not just the Sales team.

Of course, each manager works within the constraints we have from an ROI and governance perspective, but the main deliverables we work towards are centred around the origination of new business. The results speak for themselves: our top-down sales efforts are contributing increasingly to the growth of our business customers.

You’ve been at Revolut for nearly two years. How has the Sales department evolved in that time?

The easiest way to articulate this is our headcount. When I joined back in November 2020, it was a nascent team; 10 account executives, and one manager, me. Now, we’re a department of more than 800 people. The level of growth is crazy.

You can feel the excitement throughout the team, too. Growing at such a rate brings its own levels of complexity and problem solving, but everyone has bought into the journey. We’re all spurred on by what we think we can achieve in the coming months. It’s a great time to be a part of the team.

What is unique about working in Sales at Revolut?

The most important difference is our data-driven approach. Generally speaking, many organisations view sales as almost an art-form. At Revolut, through process and procedure, we empower account executives and managers with all the data they need to increase their potential.

The scale and velocity we're looking to work at in the Sales department means we're constantly looking to optimise our processes and put ourselves in the right spots to win. And data plays an integral role in all of that.

What skills are crucial to be successful in your Sales team? What are you looking for among candidates?

Often in sales, people can talk the talk, but not necessarily walk the walk. Here, we like people of action. Ultimately, it’s impossible to deliver on our goals without a huge amount of effort. So the #GetItDone mentality is extremely important to us.

We're always using a highly consultative sales approach to find tailored solutions to customer problems. Alongside that, working smart as well as hard is certainly a prerequisite for success. As a manager, I’m constantly collaborating with the team to make sure we're putting our energy in the right place at the right time.

It's very much about attitude – the way in which people hold themselves accountable and  ensure that they're working towards the goal in the right way. Taking initiative is important: reverse engineering targets to understand the best starting point, analysing the task at hand deeply – that’s the sort of mindset we’re looking for.

What’s your favourite thing about working at Revolut?

How dynamic the company is. Things are constantly evolving, and it makes my job extremely enjoyable. Our products are always changing and improving, which in turn unlocks new ways for our team to solve a customer’s needs.

What do you gain from working in the Sales team at Revolut? What can you learn, improve, explore?

We often say that a year at Revolut is like seven in the real world. And in Sales it's really no different.

I've already spoken about how we've scaled our team so quickly in the past year and a half, and how this brought its own challenges. But working with our incredibly talented Sales and Operations team, we've been able to overcome these challenges and retain focus on our ultimate goals.

I think the fact that we're still in the very early stages of Sales means that being part of the team now allows people coming in at this time to really flex their muscles, if you like, in terms of their own creativity and adaptability.

Everyone has a huge role to play in our journey. Being able to have a serious impact in a large team is a great thing to be a part of as a new joiner.

Join Patrick in Revolut's Sales team ➡️ Check out our open positions ⬅️