Opportunity Snapshot

This unique role offers you the opportunity to lead a solid inside sales team to the next level and beyond, leveraging your expertise to review our current model and recommend optimal approaches to building a team of true "inside hunters." We believe a savvy leader can increase this group's sales fourfold or more over the next few years. In addition to being a key member of a company already growing at least 15% year over year, you and your team will represent educational products designed to help children reach their potential in classrooms, and make a positive contribution to society.

To be a good fit for this opportunity you will have significant experience managing inside sales teams employing a consultative approach over a longer sales cycle, including hands-on involvement in hiring, coaching, and motivating. In addition you'll need experience establishing and monitoring performance metrics, as well as with identifying and implementing process improvement opportunities. We're looking for a professional who not only has outstanding selling skills but also has the ability to pass those skills on to others. Formal sales training is a strong plus.

Today a leading global publisher of educational materials, TCM was founded in 1977 by two classroom teachers looking to share their ideas and enthusiasm with their colleagues. We continue to outclass the competition in many parts of the world, publishing quality-research based educational books and materials in all curricular areas for teachers and students at all grade and skill levels. Privately and family owned since its conception, TCM is still run by teachers for teachers, and that will never change. You and your team will be selling top line educational products that enjoy both strong name recognition in the industry and high demand by our clients -- the school districts.

What Else You'll Bring to the Table

In addition to the qualifications detailed above, you'll need:

• Leadership/management experience in established, effectively structured inside sales environments.
• Experience developing and implementing processes and procedures.
• A demonstrated ability to coach and motivate inside sales reps.
• 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:

• A bachelor's degree.
• Familiarity with the education industry.
• Knowledge of Salesforce.com or similar contact-management software.

What's in It for You

High impact -- while it will take you a while to become familiar with our extensive product line, you will be able to make an impact in short order by assuming the role of subject matter expert in inside sales and refining our current strategies and tactics.

Autonomy and ownership -- the inside sales function at TCM has grown organically and it has enjoyed some success. At the same time, your know-how and leadership skills should push it to the tipping point of truly exceptional performance. You'll find that TCM's leaders are open to managers to growing their head count as long as that translates into a positive ROI.

Much more than maintenance -- if you are accustomed to supervising a team waiting for inbound calls and providing little more than account maintenance, this probably isn't the position for you. Our Inside Reps are charged with penetrating multi-state territories, identifying funding sources and building relationships with key decision-makers within school districts to drive revenue, profit and customer satisfaction. They also are educators for their clients, helping them to understand the depth of our products and to get maximum leverage from them.

Great work 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. We also offer a degree of schedule flexibility, particularly since we have clients in all US time zones.

Excellent compensation -- in addition to a competitive base salary, we offer a generous incentive plan combining commission and goal-based bonuses, along with a comprehensive benefits package.

More About Your Role

If you're a good fit for this position, you already know most of what this job entails. However, to be sure we're providing a complete picture, here are some details.

Reporting to the Executive Vice President of Sales, you will assume leadership of a team that currently includes five Inside Sales Representatives. Because we are a smaller company, you'll have hands-on involvement in all aspects of managing the team, from recruiting top talent to developing strategy and tactics to one-on-one coaching. You will assess our current model, within the context of our overall sales objectives, and recommend ways we can improve it. We don't see this as a "ground up" makeover, but rather a situation in which you can build on existing strengths.

Some of your key areas of focus will be:

• Determining which inside sales techniques and approaches will work best with our unique products and customers.
• Further developing the Inside Reps' skill sets, including not only direct sales skills, but also organizing and prioritizing their time.
• Helping ensure we have the right mix of inside and outside strategies to ensure optimum coverage.
• Making sure we're following best practices with regard to performance metrics, and managing to those metrics.
• Partnering with each Inside Rep to develop territory-specific plans, often based on funding research.

TCM's sales environment is unique. For example, you and your team will represent a very sophisticated product line to a sophisticated client, and our product development department is continually introducing new, even more dynamic products. Rather than "mastering" our portfolio, our most successful Reps view themselves 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, most range from six to nine months, meaning your team will need the tenacity and patience to bear with this longer sales cycle and drive win-win partnerships. They also need to be resourceful to figure out key funding sources and decision-makers to maximize their sales efforts. We provide plenty of information and hands-on support in this effort.

While you won't have an assigned book of business, you should remain ready and willing, on occasion, to pick up the phone and drive sales directly.

Keys to Success

We'll look to you to advise us on maximizing the performance of this team, but we expect that your approach will emphasize organization and time management to help the Reps track long sales cycles and know where best to invest their time. In addition, in order to be an outstanding Inside Sales Manager, you will:

• Bring the big picture vision but also pay robust attention to the details.
• Be creative in developing solutions and strategies.
• Share our passion for education and our strong desire to make an impact on people's lives.
• Remain willing to "roll up your sleeves" to achieve your goals.
• Take a proactive approach to learning our product portfolio and our markets.
• Help your people focus on building solid relationships with the school districts based on integrity and authenticity.
• Promote collaborative relationships with the Outside Sales team as well as other areas within TCM.

If this sounds like the right mix of challenge and opportunity for you, and you meet the minimum qualifications, we want to hear from you!

Who We Are

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.