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 and mobile career within an educational publishing company that is poised for rapid growth!

Teacher Created Materials, a publishing company created by teachers for teachers, is experiencing double-digit growth as a result of innovative, new product lines and we're looking for a zealous road warrior to represent our "best in class" product and help us achieve our growth objectives.

As our Sales Representative, you'll be charged with penetrating your assigned 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 as you'll be flying solo, working from a home office and have tremendous autonomy in building what we believe should be an over $1 million territory. But 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. In addition, we'll cover all your business expenses, including mileage and cell phone usage.
• 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.
• Untapped potential -- you will be taking over a virgin territory with plenty of untapped potential and we'll look to you to leverage your proven sales track record, taking your territory to a new level of success.

Our Requirements

• Bachelor's degree.
• 2-5 years of consultative sales experience; will consider someone with industry experience and the right attitude who wants to transition out of the classroom and into sales.
• Commitment and perseverance to successfully work through what can be a long sales cycle.
• Strong presentation and communication skills to build relationships.
• Professional sales training.
• Demonstrated proactive work ethic.
• Proficiency in MS Office suite.
• Ability to travel extensively to school districts throughout territory.

Preferred but not required.

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

More About Your Role

Reporting directly to our VP of National Sales, 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.

Your key challenges revolve around an extended sales cycle which can range from 6-9 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.

Specifically, your responsibilities are 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.
• Meet with key decision makers in order to build relationships and gain their support and commitment to various initiatives/programs.
• Solve issues that arise during execution in order to eliminate barriers.
• Develop customer call strategies to interact with gatekeepers and influencers of decision makers.
• Coordinate implementation of agreed upon activities (e.g., trade shows, product training, regional workshops) within geographical responsibility in order to execute plan.
• 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 customer's needs to highlight Teacher Created Materials' commitment to customer needs.

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; you will 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.
• 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.