Complete iCan Qualifications Limited Occupational Qualification Marketing & Sales specification revision resources. Tailored syllabus coverage with topic breakdowns, quizzes, and practice questions.
Specification Topics
- Assessing customers’ credit status
- Competitor analysis in the sales environment
- Buyer behaviour in sales situations
- Develop, maintain and review personal networks
- Monitoring sales deliveries
- Understanding sales targets
- Developing and implementing sales call plans
- Understanding sales techniques and processes
- Developing and implementing sales support and customer service programmes
- Obtaining and Analysing Competitor Information
- Obtaining and analysing sales-related information
- Developing sales proposals
- Understanding the relationship between sales and marketing
- Understanding the sales environment
- Participate in meetings
- Lead and manage meetings
- Preparing and delivering a sales demonstration
- Leading a sales or marketing team
- Processing sales orders
- Manage own professional development within an organisation
- Managing the induction and probation of sales staff
- Selling at exhibitions
- Meeting customers’ after sales needs
- Selling by telephone - inbound
- Monitoring and managing sales team performance
- Selling by telephone - outbound
- Negotiating, handling objections and closing sales
- Selling face to face
- Communicate information and knowledge
- Assisting customers in obtaining finance for purchases
- Customer service in sales
- Supporting customers in obtaining finance for purchases
- Time planning in sales
- Organise the delivery of reliable customer service
- Preparing and delivering a sales presentation
- Pricing for sales promotions
- Prioritising information for sales planning
- Recruiting sales team members
- Support learning and development within own area of responsibility
- Principles of online selling
- Building and retaining sales relationships
- Communicating using digital marketing/sales channels
- Work with others to improve customer service
- Principles of personal responsibilities and how to develop and evaluate own performance at work
- Principles of personal responsibilities and working in a business environment
- Complying with legal, regulatory and ethical requirements in a sales or marketing role
- Principles of presentations and demonstrations in sales
- Deliver reliable customer service
- Principles of selling at trade fairs and exhibitions
- Generating and qualifying sales leads
- Inputting and accessing sales or marketing data in information systems
- Understanding business awareness in sales
- Understanding customers’ creditworthiness for sales purposes
- Contributing to the development and launch of new products and/or services
- Manage personal development
- Develop working relationships with colleagues
- Understanding legal, regulatory and ethical requirements in sales or marketing
Top Exam Board Tips
- When compiling your portfolio, include a variety of evidence types (e.g., completed credit application forms with your analysis notes, emails confirming references, screenshots of credit reports with annotations) to demonstrate holistic competency.
- Always reference your organisation's credit policy and explain how your assessment aligns with it, as assessors look for contextual understanding of internal procedures.
- For monitoring evidence, provide samples of regular review reports or meeting minutes showing you actively track customer payment behaviors and take appropriate action, not just initial assessments.
- In assignment responses, always structure your competitor analysis with a clear methodology: specify how data was collected, which tools were employed, and how findings directly fed into sales decisions.
- Demonstrate understanding of both internal and external data sources, and always justify your choice of analysis tools based on the nature of the sales information and business context.
- When presenting analysis results, explicitly connect each insight to a tactical sales move—e.g., if analysis shows a competitor's weakness in after-sales support, propose emphasizing your own superior support in customer interactions.
- Present a portfolio with diverse evidence types: observation records of you processing a credit application, witness testimonies, and copies of completed credit assessment forms with your annotations.
- When narrating your decision-making, explicitly reference the company credit policy clauses or risk criteria you applied to demonstrate underpinning knowledge, not just practical skill.
- Show proactive monitoring by including evidence like diary entries for periodic reviews, correspondence with customers requesting updated financials, and documented follow-up actions even when no change was necessary.
- Include at least one example where you identified a deteriorating credit situation and recommended or implemented a risk-mitigating measure, such as reduced credit limit or cash-on-delivery terms.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Relying solely on a credit score from one agency without cross-referencing other data or considering industry-specific risks.
- Misinterpreting financial statements, such as confusing turnover with profitability, leading to an overly optimistic credit assessment.
- Failing to set clear credit limits and terms based on the assessment, resulting in inconsistent application that may increase bad debt.
- Relying solely on easily accessible secondary data without verifying its recency or relevance, leading to flawed competitive insights.
- Overlooking qualitative factors like customer sentiment and brand loyalty, resulting in an incomplete competitive picture.
- Failing to link competitor analysis findings to concrete sales actions, instead producing descriptive reports that do not inform strategy.
- Failing to distinguish between personal and business credit when assessing sole traders or small partnerships, leading to inaccurate risk profiles.
- Relying solely on automated credit scores without considering qualitative factors such as industry downturns, management changes, or pending legal actions.
Key Terminology & Definitions
- Understand how to assess customer credit status, Be able to assess the credit status of customers, Be able to monitor the credit status of customers
- Understand the use of sales-related information, Understand the collection and storage requirements of sales-related information, Understand the use of tools and methods for analysing quantitative and qualitative sales-related information, Understand how the results of competitor analysis are used
- Understand the impact of different models of buyer behaviour on the sales cycle, Be able to respond to the buyer at each stage of the decision making process
- Understand the benefits of networking and the need for data privacy., Be able to develop a personal network of contacts., Be able to review networking relationships.
- Understand how to deal with sales delivery problems and queries, Understand how to maximise sales opportunities when dealing with sales deliveries and handovers, Be able to progress delivery of the sales order, Be able to complete sales delivery procedures
- Understand how sales targets are calculated, Understand the use of sales targets, Understand how to collect sales-related data, Understand how to evaluate sales performance
- Be able to develop a sales call plan, Be able to undertake a sales call
- Understand buyer behaviour in sales situations, Understand pricing for sales promotions, Understand the implementation of sales plans, Understand negotiation techniques in sales situations
- Understand the requirement to provide sales support and customer service programmes, Be able to develop sales support and/or customer service programmes, Be able to implement sales support and customer service programmes
- Understand the sales cycle, Understand the buyer decision-making process, Understand how to generate and qualify sales leads, Understand how to sell by inbound telephone call, Understand how to sell by outbound telephone call, Understand the principles of selling face to face, Understand how to close a sale, Understand how to process sales orders
- Understand how to validate information about competitors, Understand the uses of competitor information for sales-related activities, Be able to use competitor information for sales-related activities
- Understand the uses of sales-related information, Understand how to use tools and methods to analyse sales-related information, Be able to obtain sales-related information about customers, markets and competitors, Be able to use tools and methods to analyse sales-related information
- Understand how to write sales proposals, Be able to develop sales proposals, Be able to evaluate the proposal
- Understand the impact of different organisational structures on sales and marketing functions, Understand the interface between sales and marketing functions, Understand the impact of sales and marketing on product development processes
- Understand customer groups in the sales environment, Understand sales communication techniques, Understand time management in the sales environment