Meet Leah and Kharis! đź‘‹
 They’re 2 of our sales managers working in our outbound sales team, and they’ve been at AO for almost 8 years.
They’re also award winners 🏆 Kharis was “Sales Manager of the Year 2022” and Leah recently won “Sales Manager of the Year 2024” – what an achievement 👏
Both started as Sales Executives, and have worked up to Assistant Sales Managers and then Sales Managers – so we recently sat down with them to find out about their own journey with AO and the top 5 reasons they love working in sales!
5. Culture and Environment
Despite working from home, we still maintain a solid culture. We do a lot of annual awards and love to celebrate our successes and wins! Our recent awards were hosted at the Black Cat Club in Manchester – I’d 100% recommend it there! We also do quarterly engagement nights, whether it be the whole departments of individual teams. Some of the best ones in my opinion have been Flight Club, Point Blank and Thaikun. They keep the team really connected and engaged and it’s always a great night!
4. Earning Potential
One of my favourite things about working at AO is the financial reward. I really think we pay competitively across the market, even just when it comes to base salary, and that’s on all levels from Sales Executives , Assistant Sales Managers and Sales Manager. But then when you add the commission on top, it’s next level!! I remember when I started as a Sales Executive, I was amazed by the fact I could earn at least £50k a year on average, but some people earn even more! And it means people can do things like buy a house, go on multiple holidays a year, or buy a new car!
3. Warm leads
In a lot of sales roles, people have to source a lot of their own data, get past gate keepers and cold call all day and it means you could make 100 calls a day just to get 1 pitch. What I love is that AO isn’t like that! All of the team call warm leads, because we ring out to existing customers who love our brand and service already, so there’s no cold calling at all. We also work on an automatic dialler system, so rather than spend all day calling out and leaving voicemails, we get a chance to speak to every customer and really try to maximise our sales.
2. Progression
We’ve got about 120 Sales Executives across the department, and as you can imagine everyone’s hungry for progression and driven to succeed . Since I have worked here, the business has grown substantially over the years and I am sure that will continue. 11 out of the 13 sales managers have been promoted internally, going from Sales Executives to Assistant Sales Managers to now Team Managers. We also run management training programmes for aspiring managers, that give them all the help and support they need for when an opportunity does come up.
1. The people
The people we work with make the job genuinely enjoyable. We always make sure we get the job done but it’s also about the camaraderie, the shared laughs, and the sense of belonging. From the team meetings, manager meetings and engagement events, every interaction with my colleagues adds a sprinkle of joy to our day. Their support, encouragement, and friendship make the workplace feel like a second home, where we celebrate each others successes and lift each other up during setbacks. We’ve created a team that look out for everyone and it really cements a friendship and team bond that lasts outside of work too.