Sales Cover Letter Templates and Examples for the UK in 2024

Understanding people is more important than anything else in sales, so it doesn’t matter what you’ve been selling up to now, it only matters whether you understand why you have been successful.

The reason you have been successful is that you have gotten across to the real desires, needs and fears of the client. You’ve done it once, you can do it again. All you need to do is do your best to understand them.

The same is true for your cover letter. It’s a pitch for your flagship product: you. With this sales cover letter guide, you will be able to focus on addressing your employer’s needs, desires and fears, instead of just tooting your own horn. 

Use the LiveCareer cover letter builder and your cover letter will write itself. Choose a professional template, answer a few easy questions and the creator will generate a professional cover letter for you with just one click.

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 Need a different cover letter? Check these samples:

• Barista Cover Letter Example
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• Investment Banking Cover Letter Example
• Marketing Cover Letter Example
• Lidl Cover Letter Example
• Retail Cover Letter Example
• Sales Assistant Cover Letter Example

Haven't found what you're looking for? Check all our cover letter examples.

Sales Cover Letter Example

Now let’s write your own sales cover letter that will be flying off the shelves.

1. Use a business header and a proper salutation

Standard business letter rules apply so: 

• Align your contact details (incl. email and phone) to the right
• Align your hiring manager’s details to the left
• Record the date
• Record the subject (i.e. the position) of your sales cover letter

Find out who the person dealing with your application will be, so that you can address your cover letter directly instead of ‘To whom it may concern’. If the job ad, website and LinkedIn don’t have the answer, do what good salespeople do—pick up the phone. 

Check against this sales cover letter example to make sure you haven’t missed anything:

Sales cover letter template—header

You can adjust every cover letter created in the builder to meet the job requirements. Choose the name of your profession and the company to which you’re applying, and the LiveCareer cover letter builder will automatically adapt the content for you. Create a cover letter faster than you ever thought possible and apply for the job in record time.

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2. Sell yourself in your sales cover letter

Princeton researchers have found that we rate trustworthiness of a person in the first 100ms of seeing their face. With time, only the confidence in our judgement increases. With text, people will usually give you the benefit of a doubt for the length of a paragraph.

Unless you start with ‘I’m very excited to be applying for a sales executive position at Company X’. They know what their company is called, they probably also have a system that lets them know what the application is for. Get to the point.

The first paragraph of your cover letter only has between 40 and 80 words, so clearly state your years of experience, and your most convincing selling point. That would in most cases be a proven track record of being able to sell similar things, or to similar people.

According to Retail Economics, there are 2.9 million people working in UK sales. That’s thick competition for the job you want. Be better than them. Don’t mince words, don’t placate, get to the point of what you can do for them. It’s the only thing they care about.

Sales cover letter—opening example

3. Display your sales skills and passion in the second paragraph

The second paragraph usually counts between 120 and 200 words that explain the most important 2 to 3 reasons for you being the perfect hire. In sales, numbers are king. How much did you exceed the sales targets by? How much did you improve year-on-year?

Number of units sold? Total turnover? Anything that will show you didn’t just stumble into that suit. With certain products or niches, it can be useful to explain your passion that drives you to work for this company, such as we did in the example below.

Of course, you won’t always be passionate about what you’re selling. Then, a good thing to do would be to explain how you’re going to make the customers passionate about what you’re selling, what angles you’re going to hit, and what problems you want to solve for them.

Sales cover letter—main paragraph example

You don’t have to create any content yourself. The LiveCareer cover letter generator will automatically suggest the best content for your cover letter with ready-made examples and expert tips.

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4. Seal the deal with a call to action in your sales cover letter

The last paragraph of 60-80 words should tie everything up. Explain how your skills and passion will combine to produce outstanding results for your new employer. Spell it out for them. This is the last chance you may get to convince them.

You’re a salesperson, so seal the deal. Below, ask for a call or a meeting, justifying it with a discussion about a finer point of the job or your experience.

End your cover letter formally and respectfully, with ‘Best regards’.

Sales cover letter—closing example

5. Use a proper sales cover letter format

Good salespeople can sell someone something with their flies undone and smelling like last night’s escapism. The best salespeople never let a customer see a single hair out of order. The same control should be exhibited in your professional cover letter format.

Sales cover letter length rules

How long can a cover letter be and what should it include? 

• 1st paragraph—60-80 words
• Main Paragraph—120-200 words
• 3rd paragraph—40-60 words
• Call to Action
• Formal Closing
• 200 words minimum — 350 words maximum
• Half a page of A4 minimum, no more than 1 page of A4

Match the CV format

Your sales CV and cover letter are like your suit jacket and your trousers. Don’t mismatch them. They form a whole.

Choose a legible font

Choosing the wrong font, too fancy, too silly, or too small, is like slurring your words while pitching. Respect their attention span and choose a readable font like Arial or Didot in a size 10-12.

Use even margins

Space your sales cover letter by using 1-inch margins on all sides. If your cover letter is shorter than you’d like, instead of increasing font size past 12, you can increase the margins to 1.5-inch to improve the framing.

Guide their eyes with white space

Structure the cover letter with empty lines between sections and paragraphs. If your main paragraph looks too blocky, consider summarising something in bullet points. Avoid fancy templates with infographics, basic cover letter templates enhance readability.

One cover letter for one job

You can not apply for a sales job without researching the company. And once you’ve done that, you are very well-equipped to write a cover letter that will match their values and expectations. So tailor one motivation letter for one job.

Save as PDF

One last tip. Save your letter in the PDF format to protect your formatting, unless specified otherwise.

A cover letter alone simply won’t be enough—you need an impactful CV, too. Create your CV in minutes. Just follow our wizard and fill in every CV section with ready-made content. Get started by choosing a professional CV template.

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Does this answer how to write a cover letter for a sales job? Got any more questions on what to include? Did you find the sales cover letter example helpful? Perhaps you’re writing a sales cover letter with no experience? Let us know in a comment!

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Our editorial team has reviewed this article for compliance with Livecareer’s editorial guidelines. It’s to ensure that our expert advice and recommendations are consistent across all our career guides and align with current CV and cover letter writing standards and trends. We’re trusted by over 10 million job seekers, supporting them on their way to finding their dream job. Each article is preceded by research and scrutiny to ensure our content responds to current market trends and demand.