Chief Sales Officer

Solid Ground Solutions • Full-time • Columbus, OH, US • 2d ago

Solid Ground Solutions is seeking a hands-on Chief Sales Officer to build a scalable, measurable sales operating system across its portfolio of home services businesses. This is not a headquarters-only strategy role. The CSO will own the system that turns leads into profitable revenue: talent, process, training, coaching, pricing discipline, financing, capacity, accountability, and continuous improvement.

The CSO will create consistency across operating companies without stripping local leaders of ownership. The standard is simple: every market should know what good looks like, measure it the same way, coach to it every week, and have a clear intervention plan when performance misses.

What This Leader Will Build:

One Sales Operating System

Codify a repeatable in-home selling process from pre-call preparation through discovery, inspection, presentation, financing, proposal, close, follow-up, and cancellation prevention. Define non-negotiable standards while allowing product- and market-specific adaptation.

A Performance Culture

Install daily and weekly scorecards, manager huddles, pipeline and issued-lead reviews, ride-along routines, call/video review where available, role-play, and monthly business reviews. Create visibility early enough to change an outcome—not simply explain it after month-end.

A Sales Talent Machine

Create recruiting profiles, selection standards, onboarding, certification, ramp milestones, continuing education, performance improvement plans, succession paths, and objective criteria for upgrading talent.

Manager Excellence

Make frontline sales managers accountable for coaching and development, not merely reporting numbers. Establish manager scorecards that measure team production, spread, ramp, retention, coaching activity, and process compliance.

A Test-and-Learn Engine

Systematically identify top performers and winning behaviors, test scripts/offers/financing/presentation methods, and rapidly scale what works across the portfolio.

Core Responsibilities:

Own sales performance across the portfolio in partnership with General Managers, with clear accountability for close rate, net sales, average ticket, revenue per issued lead, productivity, cancellations, discounting, and forecast accuracy.
Translate company revenue plans into required issued leads, sits, closes, net sales, salesperson capacity, hiring needs, and manager-level targets by market.
Build a common KPI dictionary and source-of-truth dashboard so every operating company measures sales performance consistently.
Segment performance by market, manager, representative, tenure, product, lead source, financing type, price/discount level, and other actionable dimensions.
Establish leading indicators—not just lagging revenue metrics—including demo/process adherence, financing presentation, follow-up activity, ride-alongs, role-play, and manager coaching.
Develop a structured in-home sales methodology centered on customer discovery, problem diagnosis, value creation, technical credibility, clear options, financing, objection resolution, and an ethical ask for the business.
Build onboarding and certification with defined 30/60/90-day productivity expectations and clear gates before representatives run leads independently.
Create ongoing training around product knowledge, price presentation, financing, objection handling, urgency, closing, follow-up, and cancellation prevention.
Institute field coaching and ride-along standards for CSO, regional/portfolio leadership, GMs, and sales managers; spend meaningful time where selling actually happens.
Create a rapid-response performance playbook for markets or teams falling below standard, with root-cause diagnosis, action owners, milestones, and follow-up.
Partner tightly with Marketing on lead quality, source economics, speed-to-lead/appointment quality, capacity, and feedback loops; optimize for revenue and contribution per lead rather than close rate in isolation.
Partner with Finance on forecasting, pricing and discount guardrails, compensation design, and unit economics; ensure incentives reward profitable, collectible net revenue—not bad volume.
Partner with Operations to ensure the sales promise can be fulfilled, reduce preventable cancellations, and incorporate installation/service feedback into training.
Lead sales integration for acquisitions: assess talent and process quickly, establish baseline KPIs, identify near-term wins, and migrate businesses to the Solid Ground operating system on a defined timeline.
Evaluate and deploy technology—including CRM workflow, call/video intelligence, automated follow-up, AI coaching, and analytics—where it creates measurable improvement.
Other duties as assigned

Executive Scorecard:

Net revenue growth

Sustainable organic growth versus plan by operating company and portfolio

Revenue efficiency

Revenue/net sales per issued lead and per salesperson; contribution economics where available

Conversion

Close rate and follow-up conversion, segmented by lead source, market, manager and rep tenure

Quality of sale

Cancellation rate, discount rate, financing mix, price integrity and customer experience

Talent productivity

Ramp time, rep utilization/capacity, productivity distribution, retention and bench strength

Management effectiveness

Reduced performance spread, coaching cadence, forecast accuracy and corrective-action execution

System adoption

Certification, process adherence, CRM/data hygiene and consistent use of the Solid Ground sales operating system

First-Year Priorities:

First 30 days: Diagnose. Establish KPI definitions and baseline performance; ride with teams; assess managers, talent, process, pricing/financing practices, capacity, and technology.
Days 31–90: Standardize. Publish the core selling system, management cadence, scorecards, talent standards, and training/certification roadmap. Launch targeted interventions in the highest-opportunity businesses.
Months 4–6: Scale. Certify managers and reps, institutionalize coaching, deploy dashboards and forecasting routines, and replicate proven practices across operating companies.
Months 7–12: Optimize. Demonstrate measurable portfolio improvement, reduce performance variability, strengthen the leadership bench, improve acquisition integration, and establish a repeatable continuous-improvement engine.

Candidate Profile:

Proven senior sales leader in residential home services, home improvement, or another high-velocity in-home consultative sales environment.
Track record of materially improving close rate, revenue per lead, net sales productivity, manager effectiveness, and sales talent quality across multiple locations.
Operator mentality: equally comfortable with executive planning, dashboards, compensation and forecasting—and in a home observing a sales appointment.
Experience building sales systems, training academies, certification, coaching routines, performance management, and manager development.
Strong command of sales analytics and the ability to distinguish lead-quality, capacity, talent, process, pricing, financing, and management problems.
Experience in decentralized, private-equity-backed, multi-brand or acquisition-oriented environments strongly preferred.
High standards, low ego, strong influence skills, and the ability to create accountability without unnecessary bureaucracy.
Comfort using modern CRM, analytics, call intelligence, automation and AI-enabled sales/coaching tools.

Leadership Profile:

The right CSO is a builder, coach and operator. This person should create a culture in which sales is neither mysterious nor personality-dependent: the process is teachable, the numbers are visible, managers coach every week, top practices spread quickly, and underperformance triggers action. The CSO must earn credibility with local operators while being willing to challenge legacy practices when the data and field evidence say there is a better way.

Benefits: