I have a conversation at least once a week that goes like this:
A candidate sits across from me (well, on Zoom). Their CV looks good. They have done an internship analyzing market data. They ran a university society's commercial partnerships. They have worked in customer service. They are clearly smart, driven, and commercial-minded.
I ask them about sales roles. Their eyes light up talking about revenue and customers, but then something shifts when we get into the details of being an SDR. The 80 cold calls a day. The same pitch, repeated. The narrow focus on one metric: meetings booked.
They are too polite to say it, but I can see it. They are thinking: "Is that really it?"
And here is what I have learned after placing hundreds of people into sales roles: some people are too capable across too many things to thrive in traditional sales positions.
That is not an insult to sales. Sales requires extreme focus, resilience, and mastery of a specific craft. The best SDRs and AEs are specialists who love perfecting their domain.
But some of you are wired differently. You are commercial-minded but restless. You can analyze data, build relationships, spot patterns, create campaigns, and solve problems across multiple domains. Locking you into 80 daily cold calls feels like asking a Swiss Army knife to only ever be a bottle opener.
If that sounds like you, let me tell you about Commercial Associate roles. Because honestly, they might be exactly what you are looking for.
What Is a Commercial Associate? (The Honest Version)
A Commercial Associate is what happens when a startup needs someone commercial and capable but cannot afford to hire five specialists.
You become the person who does whatever the commercial team needs to grow faster. Some days you are on sales calls closing deals. Other days you are building a dashboard to figure out why conversion rates dropped. Other days you are researching a new market or launching a partnership program or training new SDRs or building a go-to-market campaign.
The common thread: everything you do connects to revenue.
You are not carrying a quota like an AE. You are not prospecting 80 times a day like an SDR. But you are absolutely in the commercial engine, helping it run smoother and faster.
Think of it this way: if the commercial team is a kitchen, AEs are the chefs cooking dishes, SDRs are prepping ingredients, and you are the person who notices the oven is broken, fixes it, redesigns the menu based on what is selling, trains the new staff, and somehow still finds time to help cook during the dinner rush.
Chaotic? Yes. Varied? Absolutely. Boring? Never.
Why This Role Even Exists
Startups between 20 and 200 people hit this awkward growth phase. They are too big for founders to do everything, but too small to hire specialists for every function.
The sales team needs help. Partnerships need managing. Someone needs to analyze why deals are stalling. Marketing campaigns need launching. Revenue forecasts need building. Processes need creating.
Hiring a Head of Revenue Ops, a Partnerships Manager, a Commercial Analyst, and a Marketing Manager would cost £250,000+ in salaries alone. Most startups cannot afford that yet.
So they hire a Commercial Associate for £35,000 to £50,000 and get someone who can do all of it reasonably well, learn fast, and grow with the company.
For you, this means something rare: genuine strategic exposure without waiting five years for it. You are in the room where decisions happen. You see how commercial strategy gets set. You learn what actually drives revenue.
And crucially, you get to use all your capabilities, not just one narrow slice.
What You Actually Do (The Real Picture)
Let me paint you a realistic picture of what your weeks look like:
Monday morning: The Head of Sales asks why conversion rates from demo to closed-won dropped 8% last month. You spend the day pulling Salesforce data, analyzing it by rep, segment, and deal size. You discover deals from one specific lead source have terrible conversion. You recommend cutting that channel, saving £15,000 monthly.
Tuesday: An AE has a demo with their biggest prospect of the quarter. The technical founder gets pulled into a production issue. You jump on the call, run the demo, handle objections, and help close a £45,000 deal. Later that afternoon, you train three new SDRs on objection handling.
Wednesday: You are researching whether the company should enter the healthcare vertical. You analyze market size, identify potential customers, research competitors, and build a business case. Your research directly informs a £500,000 investment decision.
Thursday: You launch a partnership program you have been building for three weeks. You have identified five potential partners, created the pitch materials, and scheduled intro calls. You also sit in on a commercial strategy meeting with the founders, presenting your analysis on pricing optimization.
Friday: You are building a forecast model for next quarter's revenue while simultaneously helping marketing refine their messaging based on customer interviews you conducted last week. Oh, and you jump on a last-minute sales call because an AE needs backup.
No two weeks look the same. That is the point.
The Truth Nobody Tells You
The title means absolutely nothing. One company calls it Commercial Associate. Another calls it Revenue Operations Coordinator. Another calls it GTM Associate. Another just says "you will do commercial stuff." Focus on the actual work, not what it is called.
You will definitely do grunt work. Building spreadsheets at midnight before a board meeting. Taking notes in partnership calls. Updating Salesforce because nobody else will. Formatting presentations. If you need every single task to be strategic and glamorous, this will disappoint you.
The flip side: you also get genuinely strategic projects that your friends in corporate graduate programs will not touch for three years.
You become the translator. Sales speaks one language. Product speaks another. Finance speaks a third. Marketing speaks a fourth. Half your job is translating between them and being the person who actually makes things happen. This sounds simple but it is incredibly valuable.
The learning curve is intense. Week one you feel completely lost. Week four you are contributing. Week twelve you are leading projects. The pace is relentless but that is exactly why the role works. You learn more in 18 months than most people learn in three years.
Nobody really manages you day-to-day. Your manager is probably the Head of Sales or CRO who is slammed. You get broad direction ("we need to understand why deals are stalling") and then you figure it out. If you need hand-holding or constant direction, you will struggle.
The role has an expiration date. This is not a career destination. This is commercial school that pays you. Most people do 18-36 months, learn everything they can, then move into a specialized senior role. Companies know this. You should too.
You will see broken things you cannot fix. Startups are messy. Processes do not exist. Systems are held together with duct tape and hope. You will spot ten problems but only have time to fix two. You need to be okay with that.
Who This Role Is Actually For
I see three types of people who thrive in Commercial Associate roles:
The Capable Graduate: You just finished university. You are smart and commercial-minded but not entirely sure which lane you want. You considered consulting but it felt too removed from real business. You considered pure sales but worried about the narrow focus. You want to get your hands dirty across the commercial engine and figure out what you love. Starting salary: £30,000-£40,000.
The Restless SDR: You have been an SDR for 6-18 months. You hit your numbers. You understand the sales motion. But you keep noticing things beyond your role. Why does the marketing messaging not match what actually converts? Why does the proposal process take so long? Why are we targeting this segment when another one clearly has better economics? You want to work on those problems, not just make more calls. Salary: £35,000-£50,000.
The Strategic AE: You have closed deals. You carried quota. But you realized you love the strategic side more than grinding pipeline. You want to move toward commercial leadership (CRO, VP Revenue Ops) rather than pure sales management. A lateral move into Commercial Associate can actually accelerate that path. Salary: £45,000-£60,000.
The common thread: you are commercial-minded, capable across multiple areas, and frankly a bit restless when locked into doing just one thing.
If you are the type of person who gets energized by variety and bored by repetition, this might be your lane.
What You Need to Actually Succeed
Comfort with data. You will build models, analyze pipeline, create forecasts, and translate numbers into business insights. If opening a spreadsheet makes you miserable, this role is not for you. If you find patterns in data satisfying, you will be fine.
Commercial instinct. You need to understand how businesses actually make money. Not in theory. In practice. You should be able to look at a business model and spot the key drivers, the risks, and the opportunities.
Clear communication. You need to write well and present confidently. Half your value comes from explaining complex things simply to people who just want to know what to do differently.
Ownership mentality. Nobody tells you what to do every hour. You spot problems and fix them. You identify opportunities and chase them. You ask for help when needed but default to figuring things out yourself.
Genuine comfort with chaos. Your priorities will change weekly. You will juggle five projects simultaneously. You will switch from building a forecast model to jumping on a sales call to presenting to founders, all in one afternoon. If you need structure, clear boundaries, and predictable days, this role will break you.
Where This Actually Takes You
Here is the part nobody explains clearly: Commercial Associate is not a destination. It is a launchpad.
After 18-36 months, you will have seen inside the entire commercial engine. You will understand what actually drives revenue, what different functions do, and what you personally find most interesting.
Then you specialize. Common paths include:
Revenue Operations - You own the commercial tech stack, build all the systems, and enable the sales team to perform better. Senior roles pay £70,000-£100,000+.
Partnerships - You own strategic relationships that drive significant revenue. Senior roles pay £60,000-£90,000+ with strong commission.
Commercial Strategy - You work directly with founders on the biggest commercial decisions. Often leads to Chief of Staff or VP Strategy roles.
Account Executive - You move into sales but with much broader commercial knowledge, making you a future sales leader rather than just another AE.
Product or Marketing (Commercial Side) - You move into the go-to-market side of these functions, which is often where the money and influence are.
The real advantage is not the salary bump (though that is nice). It is the optionality.
After a pure sales path, your options are senior AE or sales manager. After a Commercial Associate role, you can move into ops, strategy, partnerships, enablement, or sales leadership. You choose based on what you actually enjoyed, not what was on your CV at 22.
Companies Hiring Commercial Associates
These startups and scale-ups regularly hire for these roles:
Fintech & Banking:
- Revolut - https://www.revolut.com/careers/
- Stripe - careers.stripe.com
- Monzo - https://monzo.com/careers
- Starling Bank - https://www.starlingbank.com/careers/
- Wise - https://wise.jobs/
- Klarna - https://www.klarna.com/careers/
- Zopa - https://careers.zopa.com/
Delivery & Marketplace:
- Deliveroo - https://careers.deliveroo.co.uk/
Energy & Sustainability:
- Octopus Energy - https://octopus.energy/careers/
SaaS & Tech:
- Aircall - https://aircall.io/careers/
- Intercom - https://www.intercom.com/careers
- Miro - https://miro.com/careers/
- Contentful - careers.contentful.com
Also search "Commercial Associate," "Business Operations Associate," or "Revenue Operations Associate" on job boards. Many startups hire for this role but call it something slightly different.
Is This Actually You?
Look, not everyone should do this. Commercial Associate roles suit a specific type of person.
This is probably you if:
- You get bored doing the same thing repeatedly
- You are genuinely curious about how the whole commercial engine works, not just your piece
- Variety energizes you rather than stresses you
- You want career options in three years, not a linear path
- You are comfortable with ambiguity and figuring things out as you go
- You are commercial-minded but not ready to lock into one lane yet
This is probably not you if:
- You thrive on structure, routine, and clear daily expectations
- You want to become an expert in one domain as fast as possible
- You prefer execution over strategy
- You need extensive training and hand-holding
- Chaos and constantly shifting priorities make you anxious
- You find satisfaction in mastering one craft deeply
Neither is better. They are just different.
Final Thoughts From Someone Who Has Seen Both Sides
I speak to candidates every week who are clearly capable, clearly commercial, but something feels off about putting them in a traditional SDR or AE role.
They are too versatile. Too curious. Too interested in the bigger picture. Locking them into 80 daily cold calls or a purely quota-focused role feels like wasting their potential.
For those people, Commercial Associate roles can be transformative. You get to use all your capabilities. You learn how the commercial engine actually works. You build judgment across sales, operations, partnerships, and strategy. And you figure out what you love without committing to one path forever.
The trade-off: you work harder, deal with more ambiguity, and need to be comfortable with chaos.
But if you are wired that way anyway, this is not really a trade-off. It is just finally being in the right seat.
At meritt, we assess candidates on curiosity, coachability, grit, and communication because those traits predict success better than any specific job title or years of experience. If you have those traits and a commercial mindset, whether you become an SDR, an AE, or a Commercial Associate depends entirely on what energizes you.
The question is not "which is better?" The question is "which is better for you?"