Outside Sales Manager

Sales Manager | Outside Sales

Company: J. Blanton Plumbing

Employment Type: Full-Time

Location: Chicagoland Area

About J. Blanton Plumbing

J. Blanton Plumbing is one of the fastest-growing home service businesses in the country.

In just four years, we’ve grown from approximately $6 million to nearly $60 million in annual sales and from 20 employees to more than 170 people, and we’re still growing aggressively.

We are building a world-class home services company and are looking for ambitious leaders who want the opportunity to grow with us.

The Opportunity

We are looking for a Sales Manager to lead, coach, and develop a team of approximately 10 Outside Sales Representatives selling directly to homeowners throughout the Chicagoland area.

No plumbing or home services industry experience is required.

We are much more interested in finding someone who understands direct-to-consumer sales, sales leadership, coaching, accountability, and how to build a high-performance sales culture. We can teach you what you need to know about plumbing.

This is also not a sit-in-the-office Sales Manager position.

The majority of your time will be spent in the field with your sales team, conducting ride-alongs, observing sales calls, coaching representatives, helping close opportunities, identifying weaknesses in our sales process, and developing better ways to sell.

What You'll Do

• Lead and manage a team of approximately 10 Outside Sales Representatives
• Spend the majority of your time in the field conducting ride-alongs and live sales coaching
• Coach representatives on discovery, communication, presenting options, overcoming objections, follow-up, and closing
• Review individual and team sales performance and hold representatives accountable to clear expectations
• Recruit, onboard, train, and develop new sales representatives
• Identify performance gaps and create specific coaching plans to improve results
• Build a competitive, accountable, high-energy sales culture
• Work closely with company leadership to continuously improve our sales process
• Analyze conversion rates, average ticket, revenue, financing utilization, lead performance, and other key sales KPIs
• Help develop sales scripts, presentations, processes, training, and tools
• Personally run sales calls when needed to stay sharp, build credibility with the team, and test new approaches in the real world
• Lead from the front and demonstrate what great selling looks like

This Is a Hands-On Leadership Role

We need someone who is willing and able to "get their hands dirty."

You cannot effectively coach a sales team from behind a desk.

We expect our Sales Manager to actually sell alongside the team. You should be comfortable getting in the truck, going into customers' homes, running appointments, helping close deals, and seeing firsthand what our salespeople experience every day.

Doing this allows you to build credibility with your team while continuously testing and iterating on our sales process.

If you want to manage through spreadsheets, meetings, and reports from an office, this probably isn't the right position for you.

If you love being in the field, coaching salespeople, competing, solving problems, and building high-performing teams, you'll probably love this role.

What We're Looking For

• Proven success in sales and/or sales leadership
• Strong understanding of direct-to-consumer or in-home sales
• Experience coaching and developing salespeople
• Highly competitive and results-oriented
• Strong communication and leadership skills
• Comfortable holding people accountable
• Analytical enough to understand sales metrics and diagnose performance problems
• Willing to personally sell and demonstrate the behaviors expected from the team
• Comfortable spending the majority of the workweek in the field
• High energy, adaptable, and comfortable working in a rapidly growing organization
• Strong desire to build something rather than simply maintain an existing department

Plumbing experience is NOT required. Home services experience is NOT required.

We are looking for a great sales leader first. We will teach you our business.

Why J. Blanton?

You won't be stepping into a slow-moving company where the goal is to maintain what already exists.

We've grown from $6 million to nearly $60 million in four years, expanded from 20 people to more than 170, and we're continuing to invest heavily in our people, marketing, technology, training, and growth.

For the right Sales Manager, this is an opportunity to help build the sales organization of a company that intends to become one of the largest home service businesses in the country.