iXCells Biotechnologies is an innovative cell biology and cell technology company that provides preclinical drug discovery solutions with a focus on disease relevant cellular models, enabling technologies and services to the global academic, biotech and pharma communities to accelerate the pace of drug discovery.
The Director of Sales Operations (DSO) is responsible for leading the sales organization, monitoring the productivity and effectiveness of sales efforts, ensuring they are aligned with overall business objectives. Reporting to the VP, Corporate Development & Commercial Operations, the DSO is a key member of the company’s management team, facilitating sales pipeline development, driving revenue, generating sales forecasts, and making recommendations at strategic and tactical levels to deliver commercial performance.
Responsibilities:
1. Drive profitable revenue growth for iXCells’ products and CRO services
2. Collaborate with Marketing to ensure a smooth handoff of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) to the sales team for sales qualification (SQLs) and sales development according to established workflows.
3. Acquire new parent customers, apply prospecting techniques to acquire new child customers, build customer relationships, identify MSA opportunities to accelerate account growth, increase repeat orders and customer loyalty.
4. Actively engage with customers to advance the sales development process, generate price quotes, and capture P.Os, always maintaining a consistently high service level.
5. Closely track the sales development pipeline on a continuous basis, provide KPI data such as, but not limited to, total sales qualified leads (SQLs), opportunities (open quotes), closed won or lost sales, and sales funnel conversion rates; generate sales activity reports for management review.
6. Develop the sales budget, provide sales forecasts, make tactical recommendations as needed to ensure that sales objectives are achieved, work closely with executive leadership to ensure that all possible actions are taken to secure business in competitive situations.
7. Manage, coach, and mentor sales account managers to ensure in-depth knowledge of iXCells products and services, market applications, effective competitive positioning, delivery of the sales pitch and value propositions; identify and implement periodic training for the sales team to increase performance and professional development.
8. Collaborate with Marketing to develop content for marketing collateral that is utilized by sales staff for lead generation.
9. Provide input and recommendations to executive leadership regarding the development and administration of sales quotas and incentive compensation programs.
10. Hire sales staff, evaluate performance of each sales account manager according to established KPIs, make recommendations for adjustments to ensure staff meet or exceed their goals and estimated compensation targets.
11. Provide voice-of-customer feedback to management team, ensure complaints are documented and forwarded to appropriate staff for investigation/resolution, recognize opportunities for expansion of products or services according to customer or market needs and highlight such opportunities to the management team for possible development.
12. Assist management in understanding sales development process bottlenecks, make recommendations for additional resources, technologies, or tools to increase sales performance.
Requirements:
1. BS degree in a relevant Life Science field, M.S or Ph.D. preferred with experience in primary cells/stem cell research, cell engineering, and/or CRO services, especially in a Drug Discovery setting
2. In-depth knowledge of sales development pipeline management, key performance metrics, and generating sales activity reports
3. At least 10 years’ experience in customer-facing sales and/or business development role(s)
4. At least 5 years’ experience hiring, managing and evaluating sales staff, negotiating customer product/service contracts, developing sales plans
5. Knowledge of sales incentive compensation programs
6. Knowledge of strategic selling skills, cross-selling, up-selling, prospecting techniques, and track record of developing and growing key accounts
7. Excellent interpersonal and persuasive communication abilities in both sales and scientific settings.
8. Strong verbal and written communication skills, ability to deliver presentations to management team
9. Strong organizing skills and ability to track multiple projects
10. High proficiency in PC and app-based software applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, CRM application, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google application suite)
11. Preferred experience using Enterprise Resource Planning solutions, such as Oracle NetSuite, SAP, or alternative software platforms
12. Exemplify a growth mindset and demonstrate a bias for action and results, consistently self-evaluating and adjusting to improve performance
Ability to travel to business venues for multiple days, on occasion