Sfs_Technical Inside Sales Advisor (Solar Solutions)

Smollan; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 201,000 - 268,000; Full time

Job summary

Smollan is seeking an experienced Inside Sales Advisor on a fixed term contract to convert leads into signed energy solutions over the phone. The role demands consultative selling, a solid understanding of subscription-based products, and the ability to educate customers on financial value and ROI.

Ideal candidates will manage a multi-step journey from lead to contract, maintain CRM discipline, and collaborate with credit, scheduling, and installation teams to ensure a seamless customer

Qualifications

• Demonstrated consultative selling skills across energy or tech products.
• Ability to educate customers on complex value propositions and ROI.
• Strong closing skills with a disciplined sales process.
• Experience maintaining CRM data and pipeline hygiene.

Responsibilities

• Convert qualified leads into signed contracts via structured, phone-based sales.
• Sell residential and light commercial energy products, including subscription-based offerings.
• Explain pricing, savings, and contract terms clearly to customers.
• Maintain an accurate CRM pipeline, track activity, and record notes and outcomes.
• Collaborate with operations to ensure smooth handover from sales to delivery.

Skills

Consultative selling

Phone-based sales

CRM pipeline management

Closing ability

Customer education

Ethical selling

Job description

Please note that this is a Fixed Term Contract (ideal for unemployed and immediately available candidates).

We are looking for high-performing inside-sales professionals who can sell subscription-based, financial-value, and technically enabled energy solutions over the phone. This is not a basic tele-sales role. Experience in insurance, telecoms, SaaS, financial services, Solar, Energy, Fibre, or other contract-based product categories will be highly advantageous.

Residential and Light Commercial Energy Solutions

Role Purpose

The Inside Sales Advisor is responsible for converting qualified leads into signed customer contracts through a professional, consultative, phone-based sales process. The role requires a commercially sharp sales professional who can sell subscription-based, financial-value, and technically enabled energy products to customers who may be skeptical, price-sensitive, comparison-shopping, or unfamiliar with solar and prepaid-led energy solutions. This JD builds on the original tele-sales profile, but raises the caliber requirement from basic tele-sales to technical inside sales, while retaining the core requirements around consultative selling, closing, CRM pipeline management, and customer experience.

Preferred Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate is not simply a call-center agent. The ideal candidate is a commercially mature inside-sales professional who can:

• Sell a product where the customer needs education before they buy.

• Explain financial value, aUordability, savings, return on investment, and long-term benefit.

• Build credibility with customers who may be skeptical about solar, savings claims, subscriptions, or contracts.

• Manage a multi-step customer journey from lead to signed agreement.

• Maintain clean CRM discipline and take accountability for personal sales metrics.

• Balance strong closing ability with responsible, ethical selling.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Sales Conversion and Pipeline Management

• Convert qualified inbound, outbound, referral, and campaign leads into signed customer contracts.

• Sell across residential and light commercial energy products, including solar, backup, prepaid-led, subscription, and adjacent energy solutions.

• Run a structured consultative sales process to understand customer needs, electricity usage, property profile, aUordability, decision drivers, and objections.

• Recommend the right product based on customer requirements and product fit.

• Explain pricing, savings, subscription value, contract process, credit requirements, installation journey, and customer obligations clearly.

• Close customers eUectively into signed contracts.

• Maintain an accurate and up-to-date pipeline in the CRM system.

• Create follow-up tasks, capture call notes, update sales stages, and record lost reasons accurately.

• Proactively manage customer follow-ups to prevent leakage between interest, qualification, contract sent, and contract signed.

2. Customer Education and Trust Building

• Build trust with customers who may be skeptical, cautious, price-sensitive, or comparing alternatives.

• Explain complex product value propositions in simple, commercially compelling language. Handle objections related to price, aUordability, savings, contract terms, installation, product reliability, and service expectations.

• Provide a professional and confidence-building customer experience from first contact through to signed agreement.

• Avoid overpromising or misrepresenting product capability, savings, timelines, or contractual terms.

• Ensure customers understand what they are signing and what happens next in the journey.

3. Financial and ROI-Based Selling

• Hold confident conversations about monthly cost, savings, value, aUordability, and return on investment.

• Help customers understand the financial benefit of the recommended product versus their current energy cost or alternative solutions.

• Position subscription-based products in a way that is clear, credible, and customer-relevant.

• Use financial-value framing to support conversion without creating unrealistic expectations.

• Identify when a customer is not financially or operationally suitable and upscale or qualify out appropriately.

4. CRM, Data, and Performance Discipline

• Use CRM consistently as the single source of truth for lead status, customer notes, next steps, and pipeline movement.

• Maintain accurate records of contact attempts, customer interactions, qualification outcomes, objections, lost reasons, and contract status.

• Track and understand personal sales metrics, including contact rate, conversion rate, close rate, pipeline age, follow-up completion, and reasons for lost sales.

• Use performance data to improve personal sales eUectiveness.

• Participate in coaching, pipeline reviews, call reviews, and performance discussions.

• Take ownership of personal sales activity, productivity, and conversion outcomes.

5. Brand Representation and Customer Experience

• Represent the company professionally in every call, WhatsApp, email, and customer interaction.

• Deliver a consistent, high-quality sales experience aligned to the brand promise. Communicate clearly, respectfully, and confidently.

• Collaborate with sales supervisors, operations, credit, scheduling, installation, and customer success teams where required.

• Support a smooth handover from sales to downstream operational teams.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Strong professional selling capability in a phone-based or remote-sales environment.

• Ability to rapidly learn and confidently articulate complex product value propositions.

• Strong consultative selling and closing ability.

• Financial and ROI-based conversation skills.

• Strong objection-handling skills.

• Ability to build trust with skeptical customers.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

• Strong CRM and pipeline management discipline.

• Good commercial judgement.

• Ability to explain subscription, contract, aUordability, and service-related concepts clearly.

• High resilience in a target-driven and commission-led environment.

• Self-awareness of personal sales metrics and performance.

• Strong follow-up discipline.

• Customer-focused mindset.

• Ethical and responsible selling approach.

• Ability to work independently while following structured sales processes.

Key Competencies

• Consultative selling and needs diagnosis.

• High-conversion closing.

• Ability to rapidly learn and confidently articulate complex product value propositions.

• Financial and ROI-based conversation skills.

• Trust-building with skeptical customers.

• Objection handling.

• CRM and pipeline discipline.

• Customer focus and service excellence.

• Self-awareness of personal sales metrics and performance.

• Results-driven and commission-oriented mindset.

• Ethical and responsible selling.

• Resilience and accountability.

• Structured follow-up and pipeline ownership.

Performance Measures

Success in the role will be measured through:

• Lead-to-contact conversion.

• Contact-to-qualified conversion.

• Qualified-to-contract-sent conversion.

• Contract-sent-to-signed conversion.

• Overall signed contract volume.

• Quality of signed contracts.

• CRM hygiene and pipeline accuracy.

• Follow-up task completion.

• Speed to first contact.

• Pipeline aging.

• Lost reason accuracy.

• Customer experience quality.

• Compliance with sales process and responsible selling standards.

• Personal improvement against sales metrics over time.