Account Executive

Position: Account Executive - People
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne

Job Description About the role

Are you a driven SaaS sales professional who enjoys opening doors, solving complex customer challenges and taking opportunities all the way from first conversation to signed contract?

We’re looking for an Account Executive to join Sage People, focused exclusively on winning new customers across the UKYou’ll take ownership of qualified opportunities from discovery through to solution development, commercial negotiation and contract signature. But this isn’t a role where you’ll simply wait for leads to land. You’ll also build your own pipeline, develop relationships with prospective customers and create new opportunities through targeted outreach, referrals, events, partners and your professional network.

Selling across the Sage People portfolio, you’ll work with customers to understand their HR and Payroll challenges and bring together the right solutions to deliver meaningful business outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

What you’ll be doing
• Own and convert a qualified pipeline of new business opportunities across the UK and Ireland.
• Build and execute your own prospecting strategy, with self-generated business expected to contribute around 15–20% of your annual quota.
• Generate opportunities through direct outreach, social selling, events, referrals, partners and your existing network.
• Partner closely with Marketing and SDR teams to turn campaigns and leads into high-quality sales opportunities.
• Lead consultative discovery conversations to understand a prospect’s business needs, existing technology, priorities, budget and buying process.
• Build relationships with stakeholders across HR, Payroll, Finance, IT, Procurement and senior leadership.
• Develop compelling business cases that connect Sage People solutions with clear, measurable customer outcomes.
• Sell across the wider Sage People portfolio, including Sage People HCM, Sage People Payroll, Sage People with AI, Uptime and Sage People AI Academy powered by Uptime.
• Bring together Solution Consultants, product specialists, partners and delivery teams to create the right solution for each customer.
• Lead demonstrations, proposals, commercial negotiations, procurement processes and contract completion.
• Maintain strong commercial and pricing discipline throughout the sales process.
• Manage your pipeline and forecast accurately, with clear customer evidence, actions and next steps.
• Maintain high-quality opportunity data within Salesforce and use Copilot for Sales and other sales tools effectively.
• Provide a clear handover to delivery and customer teams, remaining engaged through go-live readiness to ensure a great customer experience.

What we’re looking forYou’ll be a commercially minded salesperson who is comfortable balancing prospecting and pipeline creation with complex, consultative deal management.

Ideally, you’ll bring:
• A successful track record in B2B SaaS or technology new-business sales.
• Experience owning opportunities through the complete sales cycle, from discovery to contract signature.
• Confidence generating your own opportunities rather than relying entirely on inbound or SDR-generated pipeline.
• Strong discovery and qualification skills, with knowledge of methodologies such as BANT and MEDDIC.
• The ability to engage and influence multiple stakeholders at different levels of an organisation.
• Experience developing business cases and communicating commercial value and ROI.
• Strong negotiation skills and confidence navigating procurement and commercial discussions.
• The ability to manage multiple opportunities while maintaining accurate pipeline and forecast information.
• A collaborative approach, working effectively with SDRs, Marketing, Solution Consultants, product teams and partners.
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