Sales Operations Sensei

To be totally frank, this is a brand new position, hot off the press. So with that in mind, let’s start this job post with a quick disclaimer: we’re a small company, and as such, things change…quickly. With this being a shiny new position, the scope of your responsibilities will likely (read: definitely) expand, shift, and evolve over a relatively short period of time, based on the needs of our sales team. So, first and foremost: if you’re the type of person who’s going to get irritable with changing priorities and tasks, then the truth is that you might not like this role.

In terms of how we see this role fitting into our current sales eco-system, let’s get into our current structure. Right now, we have three full-time salespeople (we call them Brand Partnerships Managers). And currently, they’re overloaded with “back-end” tasks (ones that aren’t client-facing), that are taking our sales superstahs away from the tasks that are most important while closing deals.

So, in order to free them up for more client-facing activities, we’re looking for a super-diligent, organized person who can handle these things for them. You’d be working behind the scenes of sales… keeping things moving… keeping things organized… ensuring things don’t fall through the cracks.

As mentioned, this role is new, and thus, not yet 100% defined. You’re not going to have Bob Seniority, who climbed up the ladder from the mailroom, training you on the ins and outs of this job. YOU are Bob Seniority, starting Day 1. But that’s fine. We’ve gotten pretty good at growing together as each new role becomes a thing.

That said, you’ll be handling things like followups, analytics/reporting, CRM organization (having experience with any CRM is great, Salesforce is even better), nurturing leads, billing and payments, sometimes finding new leads, things like that. We’ll go into all of this below, but hopefully that gives you the gist of it.

This role can also be a nice jumping-off point for someone who aspires to eventually get into the client-facing side of sales.

📝 One big task that takes a ton of time is dealing with the back and forth over contracts (if you have experience in this area, fantastic!!). If not, you’ll be trained on how to deal with documents that have been redlined beyond recognition.

💌 We use cold outreach to get in touch with potential clients. Some reply and want to schedule calls. Some reply and tell us to F-off. And then there’s this fun middle-group that wants us to circle back with them in a few months… or needs some more convincing before getting on a call. This is where you’d come in: you’d be in charge of nurturing this group of commitment-phobes until they’re ready to get on a call.

📒 CRMs are a necessary evil in sales. The CRM is our one source of truth that ensures nothing gets lost in the hustle and bustle of calls. Our team will have you help with categorization and organization.

📊 Currently, we have multiple lead-gen agencies helping us. In order to understand if they’re actually helping (or just telling us that they’re helping), it relies on us analyzing the data… woohoo spreadsheets!

🧮 Another fun math-oriented task comes during proposal time… for this, we produce sheets that break down what we will promise potential clients should they sign on with us. These sheets are like mathematical wonders. So many equations, and calculations, and acceleration ratios… we’ve found that having just one person check them leads to errors. So you’d be helping here. (To clarify, I’m not talking calculus stuff… it’s more cross-multiplying ’til your brain hurts a little.)

🎨 Lead gen is always an area that we’re trying to improve. It’s somewhat of an art. It involves so many pieces (lead sources, messaging, CTAs, tracking, analysis after demos, advising our external teams on alternate approaches)… so if you’re into data, there are loads of fun things that you can do here. And we’re looking for you to take initiative – first, by understanding what’s what… and then advising us moving forward as we continually optimize and improve our process.

🖌 We use more automated processes + Google Adwords for lead gen currently, BUT, we’re really wanting to experiment with more customized approaches. This is another area where you can shine. Even bringing in a few leads who close for a decent amount will make this an effective channel for us to expand upon.

👯‍♀️ On this same lead-gen train, we’d love for you to look into online communities filled with business professionals where you can establish yourself & The Shelf as thought leaders in the influencer marketing space.

👆🏾 And more lead gen stuff… we’ll have you qualifying prospects before handing off leads to the team members best-suited to meet the needs of prospective clients. And that means understanding while Ryan’s a bobby dazzler who loves the great outdoors, Ali is a wizard with beauty brands… and we always want our best sales ninja on the call.

🚜 Wow, that’s a lot of fun stuff! At the end of the day, we’re looking for you to be an integral part of our sales team, and to help them turn into a well-oiled machine.

Here is a fun visual breakdown of the qualities and characteristics (related to this role) that we find important when hiring.

• We provide the usual benefits: 👩🏽‍⚕️ Medical, 🦷 Dental, and 👁 Vision. (The medical insurance is through Aetna, which is really pretty good.)
• We just started doing 401K’s (with a pretty sweet match, too)! Yay!
• We are all remote now, thanks to COVID-19… so that might be a perk if you hate commuting.
• If we ever decide to have an office again, you can be darn sure it will be super cool-looking and dog-friendly! 🐶
• We’re a small company without the typical corporate hoops… People who perform well end up advancing quickly.

• We’re a team of 50.
• We’re growing.
• We’re about as scattered as a team can be… East Coast, West Coast, the middle of the country… a bunch of us are in Canada, 1 in Ukraine, 1 in Russia… we like to keep our options open in terms of company retreat locations.
• About half of us are really funny.
• We’re currently working with some pretty amazing brands: Famous Footwear, Zenni Optical, KISS, Lenox, a big chain of malls (I don’t think I’m allowed to say who), a big toilet brand (again… I don’t think I’m allowed to say who, but you probably sit on this brand every morning), Honest Co., Hershey, Yelp… just to name a few.

We’re a pretty down-to-earth bunch, so if you’re interested in applying, in lieu of an elaborate cover letter, you can email me at atul@theshelf.com, and include bullet points with the info requested in the next section…

• The job you are applying for.
• A link to your Linkedin profile.
• What job site sent you our way.
• Your location.
• Your phone number.
• A rundown on how experienced you are with the influencer marketing space… Have you worked with them? Have you done client work in the influencer space? Stuff like that.
• A summary of why you feel like you’d be good for this role.
• A note about your agency experience, if you have any (and why #agencylife is for you). Or, if you don’t have agency experience, why you thrive in this sort of fast-paced environment.
• Please let me know what sort of salary you have in mind. I’d hate to waste your time if you’re wanting a salary that’s beyond the realm of possibility for us.

Tips on how to get your application noticed (assuming that’s what you’re shooting for):

• Applications that are submitted using a job site (instead of being emailed to the above email address) will not be considered.
• Please don’t have typos. (#FunLittleTip: Install Grammarly. It’s a game-changer.)
• It would be great if you could try to sound cool. We write in a colloquial, one-with-the-people-while-still-being-basically-grammatically-correct style. And while this style of writing is not a requirement, keep in mind that we receive a decent number of applicants every day, and 90% of those applications are boring AF. The ones that have a fun “voice” and quirky writing style immediately stand out. In a good way.
• Lastly, put yourself in the shoes of the person in charge of interviewing… What do you think that person would want to hear? Talk about that stuff and leave off anything that isn’t super relevant.

Generally speaking, a lot of you will probably find this job post in line with your skill set, and I bet a lot of you probably have the skills necessary to perform the requirements of this role. But… the characteristics that define what it’s like to actually work with you are also very important to us. Think of these requirements more in terms of culture-fit requirements:

🕺 Our company has a very fast-paced environment. It might feel disorganized from time to time because we’re also a small company. We need each employee to be the type of person who can go with the flow. Who can adjust quickly. Who is able to embrace chaos with open arms when it decides to waltz through the door.

🏎 Due to the aforementioned fast-paced environment, you should be the type of person who is able to execute quickly… within time constraints. WHILE still maintaining quality. We don’t ask for the impossible. But what we don’t want to see are projects that are slapped together and riddled with issues when we’re in a time crunch. Instead, we’d like to see people make adjustments and figure out how to make it work. We’re looking for resourceful people who approach projects with that there’s-more-than-one-way-to-skin-a-cat attitude.

📈 I’ve never interviewed anyone who has said that they have bad work ethic… but there’s a big difference between people who show up and do what gets assigned to them, and those who take initiative… Those people who take pride in their projects and who go above and beyond because they have that drive for personal achievement and growth. We don’t want to micro-manage. We want to work with self-motivated people who are neurotic about quality.

✅ People who don’t proofread drive me nuts!

👿 While I feel like I shouldn’t have to mention this, we’ve worked with people in the past who ran around like a bunch of crazed loose cannons… yelling at coworkers, constantly complaining, deploying the cold-shoulder on a regular basis… passive aggressive. So if you’re not a nice person… that won’t really work for us. We really need everyone to exude positivity.

👂 You need to be receptive to feedback. This is a quality that we find candidates have trouble self-assessing. But try hard, because we give feedback when needed. We’re too small of a company to just let people do whatever they want to do. (Side-note… no one loves feedback. That’s fine. I don’t either really. But will you take it nicely? Will you incorporate it? Are you going to be passive aggressive while doing it? Have you ever been told not to “cut off your nose to spite your face”? These are questions you should ask yourself).

😺 Influencer marketing is constantly changing, so we’re looking for people who are curious and eager to learn. Let’s say, for example, a client mentions in passing how they’re doing whitelisting on Instagram (and we’ll assume you don’t know what that means). Are you going to just nod your head and say you understand it when you don’t? Or, are you going to jot down a note, do some research, and become a whitelisting expert for the next client conversation? Because we need the latter.

👩🏽‍💻 If you’re working remotely, you need to actually be working. No one likes a freeloader.

👆🏾 Are you ambitious? It’s not a requirement, but if you are… there’s lots of room for career growth. Plus, we like to hire our managers from within the team, so there is a very clear path to the next level (if that’s of interest to you).

Here at The Shelf, we truly believe it’s our differences that have allowed us to come together and form such a cohesive and all-encompassing whole. Our mission as a company is to help our clients stand out amongst the crowd… to be different and impactful. And since we’re a team made up of diverse people with all different backgrounds and experiences, we’re able to do this naturally. 🙋🏽‍♂️🙋🙋🏾‍♀️🙋🏼‍♂️🙋🏼‍♀️🙋🏾‍♂️🙋🏽‍♀️🙋🏾

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class.

I could honestly go on and on (because I’m long-winded, in case you couldn’t tell that by now), but I’m going to stop here. The point is, you gotta have the chops AND play well with others. And if you’re giddy already, feeling like this job description is just so dead-on-b*lls accurate for you, perfect! We can’t wait to hear from you.

If you’re lacking a skill or two but still feel pumped, feel free to mention it in your cover letter. We’re a small company who’s big into personal growth and supporting up-and-coming go-getters!

Oh, and one last thing… Please add the word Toggle to your subject line when applying so that I know you read this entire post.