Opportunity Snapshot

You're a top-notch sales person who could sell just about anything, but you're looking for something more . . . you're looking to showcase your consultative sales savvy while selling a product that you can feel good about. Here is your opportunity. In this role, you will represent educational products designed to help children reach their potential in classrooms, and make a positive contribution to society, while embarking on an exciting, rewarding career within an educational publishing company that is poised for rapid growth!

Teacher Created Materials (TCM), a publishing company created by teachers for teachers, is experiencing double-digit growth as a result of innovative, new product lines. We're looking for a unique sales professional -- one who combines persistence and drive with a "soft" and collaborative touch -- to represent our "best in class" product and help us achieve our growth objectives. In turn, we'll help you achieve your career growth objectives; a strong performer in this role could pursue multiple career paths.

As our Inside Sales Representative, you'll be charged with penetrating your assigned multi-state territory, identifying funding sources and building relationships with key decision-makers within school districts to drive revenue, profit and customer satisfaction. You will be an ambassador for our products -- exuding a polished, confident demeanor -- and an educator for your clients, helping them to understand the depth of our products and to get maximum leverage from them.

You'll enjoy the best of both worlds: you'll have a good deal of autonomy and "own" your own territory (one that is ripe with untapped potential; we believe you can build to $500,000 and even $1,000,000 in sales). At the same time, you'll also enjoy considerable support; we've developed shared intelligence regarding "best practices" in the field, and will empower you with all the tools, training and resources you need to ensure your success.

Your Rewards

Other benefits of this opportunity include:

• Excellent compensation -- you will enjoy a solid base compensation, a comprehensive benefits package, and commissions based on your win rate, so as you grow into this role, you'll also grow your bank account.
• Untapped potential -- you will be taking over a virgin territory with plenty of untapped potential; we have Outside Reps, but you won't compete with them (in fact, you may collaborate). We'll look to you to leverage your proven sales track record, taking your territory to a new level of success.
• Great working environment -- you'll join a creative and growing company that takes a positive, upbeat, team-oriented approach. Our President is committed to doing the right thing for our customers and we foster a non-political, casual environment that is extremely responsive to our teachers' and students' changing needs.
• Pride -- one of the best parts about this position is that you will be selling arguably the best educational products that have a strong name recognition in the industry and are in high demand by our clients, the school districts.

Our Requirements

Our most successful sales professionals not only have strong sales skills, but they also develop a solid understanding of the market, know how to communicate effectively with educators, and bring persistence and drive. In addition:

• A bachelor's degree is strongly preferred; however, we also will consider candidates with an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Two to five years of consultative sales experience; we also will consider someone with industry experience and the right attitude who wants to transition out of the classroom and into sales.
• The agility and responsiveness to manage short-term sales, and the commitment and perseverance to successfully work through long-term sales cycles.
• A collaborative approach to working with other departments to achieve common goals.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to make engaging and compelling presentations over the phone, and to build relationships.
• A demonstrated proactive work ethic, including the ability to prioritize and to achieve goals independently.
• Proficiency in MS Office suite.

Preferred but not required:

• Familiarity with the education industry.
• Some knowledge of Salesforce.com or similar contact-management software.
• Professional sales training.

More About Your Role

Reporting directly to our Inside Sales Manager, you'll take over your assigned territory. As you come on board, you'll focus on gaining product knowledge and coming up with a strategic plan for penetrating your territory, based on funding research.

Almost the first thing you will learn at TCM is that you can't learn everything. You will be representing a very sophisticated product line to a sophisticated client, and our product development department is continually introducing new, even more dynamic products. Instead, you'll view yourself as an "educated tour guide" for our myriad offerings, and become skilled at differentiating our products from others competing for the same budgets.

While some sales cycles are shorter, your key challenges will revolve around an extended sales cycle that can range from six to nine months; you'll have the tenacity and patience to bear with this longer sales cycle and drive win-win partnerships. You'll also need to be resourceful to figure out key funding sources and decision-makers to maximize your sales efforts. We'll provide plenty of information and hands-on support to help you in this effort.

Specifically, your responsibilities will be to:

• Develop a strategic plan for your territory, working with your manager to identify where best to focus your most valuable resource: your time.
• Gather the understanding of your districts' pressing educational challenges, and show how our products can solve their pain points.
• Lead compelling, engaging phone calls with key decision makers in order to build relationships and gain their support and commitment to various initiatives/programs.
• Coordinate among both internal and external customers, including solving issues that arise during execution in order to eliminate barriers.
• Develop customer call strategies to interact with gatekeepers and influencers of decision makers.
• Identify opportunities consistent with the objectives, priorities and strategies of assigned customers through discovery in order to prioritize potential focus area(s).
• Review with the customer how the recommended solutions are linked to the customer's needs to highlight Teacher Created Materials' commitment to providing relevant solutions.

Keys to Success

Success in our industry is built on solid, trust-based relationships, and your ability to build a rapport with the school districts will be your strongest asset. The ideal candidate has a passion for education and a strong desire to make an impact on people's lives. You'll leverage your persuasive communication skills as you manage long-cycle sales in a multi-layered decision making environment and demonstrate integrity and authenticity to your clients. Other facets of success in this role include:

• Organized, structured approach -- our star performers (and highest earners) forecast and track their prospects and sales dollars meticulously, and at any given time know exactly where they are and what they need to do in order to meet their goals.
• Patience and perseverance -- before you can build the relationships, you'll have to get through to the right contacts. You'll need to be comfortable making dozens of cold calls a day to establish your territory, generate interest, qualify decision makers, and close sales.
• Understanding and embracing our complete product portfolio -- knowing our products inside and out -- and learning about each new one that we introduce -- will ensure that you provide the most complete solution to your clients' evolving needs.
• Creativity -- we have a long history of success in this business, but we always welcome fresh ideas and strategies; you'll utilize your creativity in coming up with new ideas to "go the extra mile" for our customers.

If this sounds like the right mix of challenge and opportunity, and you meet the required qualifications, we look forward to hearing from you.

More About Our Company

Teacher Created Materials is a publishing company, and everything we do comes from teachers and is created just for them. Our mission is to publish quality-research based, educational books and materials in all curricular areas for teachers and students at all grade and skill levels. TCM provides a broad spectrum of both quality resources and professional teacher training. While remaining grounded in sound educational practice, we maintain an educational vision and an open ear to educators and their changing needs.

When Teacher Created Materials was founded in 1977, it was started by two classroom teachers looking to share their ideas and passion with their colleagues. The seeds they planted have blossomed into the vibrant and dynamic publishing company we know today. Privately and family owned since its conception, TCM is still run by teachers for teachers, and that will never change.