I've done some sales jobs when I was younger and have been involved in helping sales teams later on too - "sales" is a rather broad area tbh...
I've not got direct experience of recruitment (though like most people I've dealt with recruiters) - I'd be a bit wary of it, especially later in life as a career change, unless you've got sales experience and are confident of doing well as you could find yourself in a rather stressful situation. It could be quite a high pressure/short term performance driven environment in a lot of firms.
Software/tech sales, for example, tends to be rather a longer process, especially when dealing with enterprise systems that could involve big implementation projects etc.. and the process involves plenty of pitches/demos etc.. and a whole sales team getting involved. You'd probably not be able to get a sales job specifically in this field without some significant relevant experience/track record though depending on relevant experience you might land a pre-sales role - these can be quite well paid regardless.
If you've got experience with relationship management then perhaps look at account management type roles - they're often partly sales too - for example, bringing it back to tech companies, an account manager would sell upgrades, sell consultancy services/additional support etc.. to the existing clients in addition to being the point of contact for the people at the senior exec level at the client. You also get technical account managers who are contacted for more day to day stuff by people at a lower level at the client - supervisors/support managers etc.. but will also be involved in some level of sales along with the account manager and/or providing billable consultancy or project management of smaller projects etc..
As for day in the life - a job I took very briefly to tide me over after quitting working rather abruptly at a rather unethical employer essentially involved selling training course - This was quite a few years ago mind... I'd phone up leads and basically give them the same pitch... would follow up people who had either expressed an interest on a previous call or who had placed a deposit and were yet to pay the balance. We'd also get the odd inbound call too. But basically it was bashing the phones, calling up people who'd expressed and interest and then trying to close them... the colleagues were the type of people you'd expect in a sales job and the manager was exactly what you'd expect too. and yes there was a board with peoples names and their performance and various additional incentives dished out etc.. but it is just phone bashing and very repetitive. I know from some acquaintances who work in recruitment that their firms were basically phone bashing too - in fact some of the people who worked in the place I worked in back then had also worked in recruitment, holiday companies, estate agencies even one from a boiler room in Spain etc..
edit - I guess one thing that you could do these days is make use of linkedin and search not just for current employees but former employees - does the firm have a high turnover? Also check out glassdoor.co.uk for the employee reviews.
