When Hugo Mahoney joined LexisNexis three years ago he knew it was going to be a challenge.The company had been selling books, journals and other information to legal and tax professionals for over 200 years, and, in simple terms, it needed to change.

Director of Consumer Sales at Vodafone UK, Tom Devine is in charge of a division of 3,300 people with an annual turnover of £1 billion a year.

Tom Devine left school at 16 with very few qualifications, and began work as an apprentice service engineer for British Gas. Today he is Director of Consumer Sales at Vodafone UK, in charge of a division of 3,300 people with an annual turnover of £1 billion a yearTom Devine left school at 16 with very few qualifications, and began work as an apprentice service engineer for British Gas. Today he is Director of Consumer Sales at Vodafone UK, in charge of a division of 3,300 people with an annual turnover of £1 billion a year

Liz Jackson is owner-manager of Great Guns Marketing, a telemarketing company that employs 130 people across six locations throughout the UK. She recently appeared on the BBC's 'The Secret Millionnaire' and has an obvious passion for sales, but what has she got to say about sales and the impact of sales in her organisation?

When David Mitchell left the Royal Air Force and joined BT the Berlin wall was still standing, no one had heard of the internet, and BT was a recently privatised national provider of fixed telecommunications services operating a virtual monopoly.

32 year old Mark Botha is now the Sales & Marketing Director at Leisure Connection, heading up a team of four salespeople who are bringing in revenues of around £50 million a year. It is a far cry from the commission-only sales jobs he began his career with back in South Africa 15 years ago.

"2010 will be the year when cloud computing really takes off," says Tim Pullen, Sales Director of Dublin and London-based IT concultancy Saaspoint. So what will Tim be doing to ensure that his sales team rises to the challenge?

Some people know they're sales professionals from the moment they enter the world of work, for others, sales is something they come to relatively late in their careers bringing a broader perspective on the business world.

Sales is never an easy job, as Sales Director of a company moving from selling highly technical products to a niche audience to one selling mass market products, competing with well-known international brands, you can say with some justification that you have taken on a challenge.