Head of Sales, Aura

• An outstanding manager of people. You can name individuals whose performance and careers you changed, and explain exactly how you did it. You read people quickly, you have difficult conversations without damaging the relationship, and people do their best work for you
• A proven record of beating target through others. You have led a team to consistent over-performance. Personal production is not the evidence we are looking for
• A genuine coach. Structured call listening, precise diagnosis and repeatable coaching methodology are second nature to you. You enjoy the craft of making someone better at selling
• Data and performance led by instinct. You reach for the numbers before the anecdote. You are comfortable interrogating CRM and dialler data yourself, and you are actively using AI and analytics tools to raise team output rather than waiting to be shown how
• Commercially sharp. You understand the economics behind the activity: cost of acquisition, conversion value, average order value, margin. You can prioritise the intervention that moves money
• A real regard for the customer. You believe a well-sold plan is a service to a family, and you will not tolerate a sale that is not right for the person buying it. Not because compliance requires it, but because you would not want it done to your own parents
• Emotionally credible in this subject matter. You can hold conversations about death, dying and grief with warmth and without flinching, and you can build a team that does the same
• Sound judgement in a regulated environment. Experience of Financial Conduct Authority requirements and Consumer Duty, or the demonstrable rigour to master them quickly

Desirable

• The job
• Reports to: Chief Commercial Officer Team: Funeral plan and at-need sales agents (seven today, scaling) Location: Home based, with regular team and leadership meet-ups
• Role purpose: to build and lead the highest-performing sales team in the UK end-of-life sector
• You own three things at once and none at the expense of the others: the number, the culture and the quality of every conversation the team has with a family. You are accountable for revenue, volume and conversion, for how it feels to work on this team, and for how it feels to be a customer of it
• What this role really is: this is not a spreadsheet job and it is not a floor-walking job. It is a people job with a number attached, and we want to be explicit about that before you apply
• Our agents spend their days speaking with people who are planning for their own death, or who have just lost someone they love. That work carries real emotional weight, and the gap between a resilient team and a depleted one shows up immediately in conversion, in quality scores and in retention
• Your job is to build an environment where elite performance is the norm and where people can sustain it. That means unambiguous standards, honest and frequent feedback, coaching that visibly improves people, progress they can see, and a culture in which being held to account feels like being invested in rather than being watched. It means dealing with underperformance early, directly and fairly, and recognising genuine excellence loudly
• Get that right and the rest follows. Get it wrong and no amount of process design, dialler configuration or script rewriting will rescue the number
• What you will own:
• Performance culture and mindset. Define what elite looks like on this team and hold the line on it. Own the operating rhythm: daily focus, weekly one to ones, monthly performance reviews, quarterly resets. Make performance visible without making it punitive. Manage individual motivation as carefully as you manage the pipeline, and build the resilience the subject matter demands
• Coaching and capability. Be the best sales coach the team has worked with. Listen to calls, diagnose precisely, and change behaviour rather than simply commenting on it. Move each individual's numbers, not just the team average. Own the craft: discovery quality, objection handling, and how to hold a sensitive conversation that still reaches a decision. Build development plans that are specific, time-bound and followed through
• Data, analytics and intelligent tooling. Run the team on evidence. Know conversion by funnel stage, channel, agent, lead source and time of day, and act on what it tells you. Use AI call analysis, sentiment scoring, scorecards and dialler data to coach at scale rather than sampling a handful of calls by hand. Bring hypotheses, test them properly, and scale what works
• The number. Own team revenue and volume against target, currently around £9 million of revenue and over 5,000 units in 2026, growing materially each year. Own average order value and the shift towards higher-value attended services. Own the balance between funeral plan and at-need performance, and understand the different economics of each
• Pipeline, conversion and data discipline. Own pipeline health end to end. Same-day follow-up above 95% in office hours, no lead left to age, and allocation logic that puts the right lead in front of the right agent. Work with marketing on lead quality rather than complaining about it. Enforce customer relationship management (CRM) and call-tracking discipline inside the team so that our attribution is trustworthy, because we cannot invest behind channels we cannot measure
• Quality, compliance and customer outcomes. Every sale must be one we would be happy to defend to the family, the regulator and the board. Own quality assurance for the team within Financial Conduct Authority requirements and Consumer Duty, with particular rigour on identifying and protecting vulnerable customers. Treat complaint rate, Trustpilot rating and net promoter score as your metrics as much as the care team's, because most of a family's first impression of Aura is formed on your team's calls
• Building and scaling the team. Recruit, onboard and structure the team as it grows, protecting standards and culture as headcount rises. Contribute to the design of a commission structure that drives volume while reinforcing quality and compliance. Develop the people who will lead parts of this team after you
• Leadership contribution. Sit as a senior member of the commercial function. Report weekly and monthly with clear commentary on trends, risks and the actions you are taking. Bring the view from the front line into strategy discussions, and be willing to argue for it
• How success will be measured:
• First 90 days: you know every agent's strengths, gaps and motivations; a coaching and performance rhythm is running weekly without exception; you have a clear, evidenced diagnosis of where conversion is being lost and a plan to fix it
• Ongoing: team revenue and volume against target; conversion rate by funnel stage and by agent; average order value and attended service mix; lead response time and pipeline ageing; quality assurance pass rate; complaint rate below 2%; Trustpilot and net promoter score; agent retention and development plan completion; zero compliance breaches

• Introductory conversation with the Chief Commercial Officer
• Structured interview covering performance management and coaching, including a live coaching exercise on a recorded call
• Commercial and data task, presented to the Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Executive
• Meet the team