Sales Director - Executive Advisory

Practice Name: Intellectual Property Business (IPB)
Job Title: Sales Director

Job Location: Nationally focused

Job Description: 

Hackett’s Intellectual Property Business (IPB) offers integrated measurement, advisory, and learning solutions to clients across industry.   

Our Benchmarking (measurement) solutions help organizations quantify and compare the efficiency and effectiveness of enterprise performance and enable a transformation plan.  

Our Executive Advisory programs are designed to guide executives through their most impactful and difficult decisions – functional strategy, organizational design and governance, digital strategy, talent, cost management, analytics, and more – helping them to realize value for the function as well as the broader enterprise.   Our seasoned advisors use our extensive intellectual capital along with their deep knowledge of functional processes to bring the best answers for our clients, accelerating decision making and speed to benefit.   We challenge and support our clients with external perspectives on what good looks like, pragmatic best practice guidance and empirical, fact-based insight into how to get there.

The Hackett Institute, our learning and development business, leverages our intellectual capital in development and deployment of comprehensive, virtual, on-demand training in critical competency areas – working capital, global business services, robotic process automation, and enterprise analytics. 
These solutions, often integrated and at times combined with other Hackett practices and solutions (i.e. consulting, technology implementation, etc.), are underpinned by Hackett’s proprietary and industry leading continuous improvement platform, Quantum Leap, which enables transformation management and performance tracking in a virtual, digitized SaaS platform.  

The Sales Director is critical in the go-to-market of these solutions – owning all elements of territory management/strategy, business development – in partnership with a dedicated business development professional, pipeline management, and sales and all related solutioning, negotiating, contracting, and other required administrative activities.   

The Sales Director will lead the growth of Hackett’s business in a particular market, managing a database of prospects, establishing key contacts within that database, educating potential clients about Hackett, and marketing Hackett’s solutions via in-person meetings, telephone calls, campaigns, and networking.  The goal is to qualify the best opportunities for engagements to build the practice, partnering with Hackett practice leadership and functional subject matter experts in closing business.   

You are the front end of an engagement pursuit team, energizing and supporting your team in the pursuit of new client acquisitions and growth of the business.    

Job Responsibilities:

The primary role of the Sales Director is to acquire new clients across the Global 1000 and broadly across industry, size, and complexity by focusing on three key components: 

(1) Driving the lead generation process for prospective clients through securing new meetings

(2) Leading the sales process from initial meeting (M1) through subsequent meetings to acquisition of new customers

(3) Owning the overall business through effective sales and business management skills. 

Lead Generation:  Responsible for establishing the strategy and coordination of the entire lead generation process - working with practice and firm leadership and subject matter experts - and leveraging – and guiding - a dedicated Business Development Associate as well your own networking to drive volume, velocity and closes for the practice.  

Key responsibilities include:

• Develop account entry strategy, development of related primary business issues and positioning.
• Responsible for prospecting and scheduling appointments throughout client and prospect base.
• Managing the sales calls, owning research preparation, material development and coordination of the ongoing pursuit
• Responsible for selling and managing ongoing relationships with multiple large, complex client engagements
• Develop informed views of relevant business issues, and assist existing and prospective clients to achieve their business objectives through the adoption of Hackett solutions
• Integrate personal sales activities with local marketing activities where required
• Monitor and report on relevant market and competitor activities

Sales Management Lifecycle Management:  Responsible for facilitating the sales process from initial meeting (M1) through subsequent meetings (M2-M3, etc.) to acquisition of the new client.  

Key responsibilities include:

• Determine the right resources to be committed to sales pursuits, and lead cross-functional teams to develop proposals for qualified opportunities
• Manage and facilitate the sales process; including handling action-items, scheduling of follow-up meetings (M2-close), coordination of call coverage with Advisor and/or Solution Director, and meeting / call logistics
• Communicate and liaise internally and externally to develop sustained and productive relationships with clients and Hackett delivery teams
• Use Salesforce.com to develop and maintain an accurate pipeline of stages and opportunities, client contact details, and accurately forecast revenue
• Participate in weekly meetings with practice leadership and broader Sales Director and business development team to review weekly pipeline and activity update reporting; reviewing prospect calls, coverage, and pipeline movement
• Drive timely collections for all Accounts Receivables within client base

Effective Sales Management Practices:  Responsible for effectively managing the sales process through effective personal and business management skills.  

Key responsibilities include:

• Develop and execute a cohesive sales strategy for designated account(s) and overall territory.
• Execute to the goals and objectives of the firm’s annual sales plan.
• Serve as expert in problem solving and troubleshooting skills with the ability to exercise mature judgment
• Meet and exceed sales targets and compensation plan objectives
• Comply with the Global Sales Terms, Conditions and Expectations Document
• Participate in training when required and proactively develop relevant knowledge and skills.
• Contribute expertise/insight across internal teams
• Facilitate exchange of ideas and application of best practices across internal teams

Qualifications, Experience and Skills: 

The candidate should have demonstrated, quantifiable success in driving new client sales in the core functional areas of Finance (including accounting and FP&A), Human Resource, Information Technology, Sourcing and Procurement, Supply Chain, and Shared Services.  Experience selling into corporate overhead functions (i.e. legal, facilities, etc.), sales, marketing, and customer service a plus.   

Other key qualifications should include:

• Demonstrates the ability to understand Hackett core methodology and research concepts, assisting with securing of executive appointments
• Consistently develops and drives effective written communications with strong experience in email communiques to prospective clients
• Ability to communicate effectively in conversations with Executives and internal constituents and partners
• Expertise and proficiency in Business Development and Sales tools, particularly Salesforce.com and the Microsoft Office suite
• Proficient in conducting client research to facilitate improved targeting and meeting execution 
• Demonstrated ability to work across a matrix of Hackett practices, selling channels, and solutions
• Demonstrated understanding of the key business issues facing large organizations and discrete functional areas (i.e. Finance, HR, etc.)