Company Description Plift is a high-growth beverage startup offering delicious hemp-infused drinks that are high on taste and low on calories. Designed for social gatherings, solo moments, and everything in between, Plift focuses on creating enjoyable, approachable products for a wide range of occasions. The brand emphasizes quality ingredients, refreshing flavor profiles, and a relaxed, inclusive experience. Team members join a growing company in a dynamic consumer packaged goods space with opportunities to contribute to brand expansion and market presence.
Role Description The Sales Operations Coordinator is a full-time, remote role for our Chicago-based company. We will be prioritizing candidates who are local to Chicago and who can join for weekly in-person meetings and co-working days. This role supports the sales team with daily operational tasks, including maintaining sales records, updating customer and account information, and preparing reports and dashboards to track performance. The coordinator will assist with order processing, inventory coordination, and communication between sales, customer service, and distribution partners to ensure smooth execution of sales activities. Responsibilities also include responding to internal and external inquiries, supporting the onboarding of new accounts, and helping streamline processes and tools to improve overall sales efficiency. This position works closely with sales and operations leadership teams to ensure consistent and accurate data entry and data management for decision-making.
Year-one deliverables
- Take full ownership of the full wholesale order processing cycle from receiving purchase orders to sending invoices, to entering order data into 3PL system, as well as initiating and managing freight.
- Support in the selection and implementation of an ERP by end of Q1 next year.
Build lot code traceability into every B2B and distributor shipment.
- Cut the time from PO received to invoice issued to under 4 business hours, measured weekly.
Cut DSO (days sales outstanding) by 15 days through systematic AR follow-up.
- Reduce freight cost as a percent of revenue by 1–2 points through carrier negotiation and lane
consolidation across all carriers and freight brokers.
- Build a distributor onboarding playbook so the next 10 distributors do not require co-founder time
to get live.
Day-to-day responsibilities
- Own the full order-to-cash lifecycle: PO receipt → invoice → freight booking → BOL → delivery
confirmation → payment.
- Coordinate freight with C.H. Robinson and distributor-managed carriers. Own freight
quotes, lane decisions, and freight-add-to-invoice decisions.
- Manage the relationship with 3PLs on warehouse SLAs. Hold them accountable to ship
windows and lot code accuracy.
- Reconcile shortages, damages, and mis-shipments. Issue credit memos through Belay Financial without assistance from Director of Ops or COO.
- Run a weekly ops review with Director of Ops: aging AR, open POs, OOS risk, freight spend, exceptions.
- Be the escalation point for distributor billing disputes
Required experience
- 5–8 years in sales operations, supply chain, or order management at a CPG, beverage, or
distributed consumer goods company.
- Has personally led at least one ERP implementation or major migration. NetSuite, Fishbowl,
Encompass, or beverage-specific platform preferred.
- Hands-on with three-tier alcohol or hemp beverage distribution. If not, then deep DSD or
wholesale-broker experience that translates.
- Strong QuickBooks Online familiarity.
- Has owned freight relationships, not just submitted tickets to a 3PL.
- Comfortable in spreadsheets at a power-user level (pivot tables, lookups, basic SQL or Looker a
plus).
Nice to have
- Experience with hemp, cannabis, or alcohol regulatory compliance (state-by-state license tracking,
METRC, MN OCM, etc.).
- Has worked with Belay Financial or another fractional accounting firm.
- Has been the first ops hire at a sub-$10M revenue company before.
