Account Team Unit Sales Leader

Microsoft•San Diego, CA

3d•$76 - $127•Hybrid

About The Position

The Account Team Unit (ATU) Sales Leader plays a pivotal role in driving Microsoft's growth within the Small Medium Enterprises and Channel (SME&C) segment. By leading and developing high-performing sales teams, this role ensures the effective execution of digital transformation strategies for corporate customers. The manager acts as a strategic leader, fostering deep customer and partner relationships, and leveraging industry expertise to guide teams in delivering innovative, AI-powered solutions. Through orchestrating resources, championing customer-centricity, and maintaining business excellence, this role directly impacts revenue growth, customer satisfaction, and Microsoft's competitive positioning in the market. Ultimately, the Account Team Sales Manager is instrumental in shaping the future of business for both Microsoft and its clients. The Account Team Unit (ATU) Sales Leader is accountable to build, motivate, and mentor a high functioning sales management team with different disciplines to lead and drive digital transformations to Corporate accounts. Engages in talent acquisition, recruiting, succession planning, and change management. Guides teams to leverage storytelling strategies and create and/or identify opportunities to drive sales. This leader will lead a group of managers and their teams to engage with Corporate customers to address their key business priorities, help customers develop a roadmap to drive adoption and usage. The leader leverages a strong understanding of customers' industries and business priorities to coach their managers and teams to engage through value-added conversations. Understands key drivers of digital transformation throughout the different Microsoft Solution Areas such as Cloud & AI platforms, AI business solutions, security and coaches/empowers their account executives and support specialists to have meaningful conversations, leverage existing programs to accelerate their digital transformation into Microsoft cloud. Manages the development and the delivery of value-proposition presentations and specialized business plans. Manages and provides direction to their team on how to efficiently orchestrate resources between different sales and specialized roles. Ensures teams excel in key business processes such as territory management, account management, pipeline generation, pipeline management and overall business disciplines. Holds teams accountable for forecasting expected sales revenue. Proactively cultivates trusting and influential relationships with customers especially at the CXO level. Also the voice of the customer for Microsoft and share industry and competitive knowledge. This opportunity will allow you to accelerate your career growth, honing your solution sales and collaboration skills, and deepening your cloud expertise. You’ll also benefit from a flexible work environment that supports partial remote work, enabling you to lead with impact while maintaining work-life balance. Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Business Management, Information Technology, Marketing (or equivalent) or related field AND 8+ years sales and negotiation experience or related work experience OR 10+ years sales and negotiation experience OR equivalent experience.
5+ years people management experience.
15+ years software industry sales and negotiation experience with year-over-year growth OR Bachelor's Degree in Business Management, Information Technology, Marketing (or equivalent) or related field AND 12+ years sales and negotiation experience or related work or internship experience with year-over-year growth OR Master's Degree in Business Management, Information Technology, Marketing (or equivalent) AND 10+ years sales and negotiation experience or related work.
7+ years people management experience.
Experience in complex sales training (e.g., Miller Hyman, Spin, Michael Bosworth, Challenger, Holden, Krauthammer, etc.), extensive presentation skills, effective marketing tactics, negotiation, financial analysis.
Line of Business applications sales experience, business process consulting or automation, CRM, Employee Performance Management (systems and processes).
Purposeful Planner & Executor – Delivers business impact with intentional planning, driving clarity to the team with consistent coaching rhythms, removing blockers and ensuring quarterly business budget goals are met.
Disciplined Operator – Maintains excellence in pipeline generation, management, forecasting and driving integrated territory and budget achievement planning.

Responsibilities

Inspire and foster a culture of customer-centricity, sales and consumption, adoption and use through collaboration with peers and extended teams.
Attract, retain, and develop the best resources in the field.
Model, coach, and care for the team.
Ensure high standards across teams for customer relationships.
Serve as escalation point for customer issues.
Share best practices across teams.
Act as executive sponsor for accounts.
Be a trusted advisor for customers and partners.
Help customers to digitally transform.
Coach teams to identify contacts in new accounts, building customer engagement and digitally transform their businesses.
Advocate for customers (voice of the customer) within the organization/Microsoft.
Ensure customer insights are gathered and feedback loop to stakeholder groups is followed.
Ensure that team conducts due diligence to understand customers' priorities and strategies, and plans programs appropriately.
Coordinate with colleagues across teams to support programs and processes.
Coach and drive challenger mindset.
Coach team on senior executive engagements and relevancy to board-level approvals.
Ensure teams use digital tools and technology to conduct research and engage customers.
Build partner relationships to drive scale and revenue.
Coach and influence partners to consider different solution needs.
Engage with C-Suite executives.
Coach teams on how to leverage broader Microsoft organization to better understand customers.
Drive active listening and a challenger mindset with teams.
Understand market conditions (e.g., within a country, within a vertical, laws, political environment) to inform customer engagements.
Manage relationships inclusive of customers, partners, and internal and external stakeholders.
Coach sellers on opportunity reviews to understand stakeholder management impact (e.g., influence, budget).
Set standards for customer satisfaction metrics (e.g., timeliness and quality of contact).
Incorporate feedback from internal teams and from customers into future engagements.
Identify key trends causing customer dissatisfaction and work systematic efforts to resolve (e.g., process improvements).
Set culture of customer obsession to ensure teams liaise with Customer Experience (CX) to generate outcomes.
Take ownership for issues and reach out to customers to reinforce engagement.
Celebrate success with teams.
Share learnings and simplification ideas from customer issues with broader team to mitigate existing issues.
Engage with internal teams to resolve customer issues and drive accountability.
Empower teams to define strategies, objectives, and a rhythm of business for territory and account planning across the customer set, clearly articulating standards and priorities.
Direct the development and implementation of strategies for maximizing selling and customer opportunities.
Provide guidance on storytelling strategies to lead account conversations, evaluating account performance, developing short- and long-term strategies, and acting upon optimization opportunities.
Actively maintain strong relationships with key partners towards common objectives and priorities to anticipate customers’ needs.
Lead and coach team to engage with partners to be able to scale our platform solution to our Corporate customers.
Lead teams in prioritizing and managing renewal process, including creatively addresses renewal options with internal partners and customers to maximize business outcomes and likelihood of renewal.
Resolve escalations as needed.
Understand risks and opportunities for growth.
Represent full business picture to management.
Drive team to deliver on growth targets and on-time renewals.
Lead rhythm of the business with licensing solution provider partners to drive accountability.
Verify the T- process is followed and address identified process gaps.
Coach managers and teams to ensure that activities are in place to drive consumption leading up to the renewal process.
Drive customers to cloud solutions.
Coordinate resources across teams to execute territory plans.
Lead teams on territory management best practices and techniques.
Validate plans, drive accountability, and coach teams to achieve or exceed plans.
Drive strategic partner participation.
Hold partners accountable to contribute to territory plan.
Coach on how to plan for both scale and depth, as appropriate (i.e., account approach for top accounts; territory approach for remaining accounts).
Ensure future-focused orientation for pipeline coverage.
Seek new scenarios where orchestration and collaboration would be needed; triaging gaps.
Understand where new relationships may be needed, either internal or external to Microsoft.
Ensure clarity of roles and responsibilities and held accountable accordingly.
Drive clarity on co-selling with partners with whom the team works.
Ensure voice of team is heard so right partners are available.
Coach managers and teams on available resources within the organization and how best to leverage them.
Create clarity of priorities for managers and teams.
Protect the team's capacity to deliver on highest priorities.
Help teams think more strategically about opportunities.
Ensure team has had AI and cloud conversations and aligns deal execution accordingly.
Conduct win-loss reviews with team to identify opportunities for future improvement.
For complex deals, engage resources appropriately and proactively.
Demonstrate heightened deal making and licensing capabilities.
Conduct reviews to remove blockers and assist teams in leveraging resources.
Ensure teams are abiding by compliance requirements.
Define expectations and goals to guide the development strategies to manage pipeline and meet sales goals by reviewing forecasts, assessing and mitigating risks, and ensuring strategy alignment with business priorities.
Drive engagements with key internal partners, business, and technical decision makers to develop long-range, comprehensive, tailored business strategies that meet Microsoft's and customers' needs.
Position oneself as a thought leader and trusted advisor to executive-level business decision makers across their business areas.
Direct and facilitate the development and delivery of compelling, value-proposition presentations (e.g., with the use of business cases) and specialized business plans for clients that accelerate the closing of deals, facilitates connections between customers, partners and broader Microsoft solutions, and consistently drives business outcomes.
Direct and execute talent acquisition, recruiting, succession planning, and change management.
Provide guidance to team on how to have hard conversations, navigate employment law, support diversity and inclusion initiatives, and how to motivate/coach someone's behavioral changes.
Coordinate across teams to share systematic methods for staying up to date on Microsoft offers and solutions.
Develop and implement plan to build and maintain product and solution expertise.
Ensure team has time to dedicate to training and development.
Hold self and team accountable for creating and executing personal development plan.
Complete required and recommended training and certifications in a timely manner.
Create an environment where best practices are shared by the team in self-sustaining fashion.
Drive Technical Skills Initiative (TSI) for the team.
Develop and maintain own skillset to enhance self and team performance.
Lead from the front.
Develop sales and business strategy options, while also being able to successfully execute plans and build strong relationships.
Work cohesively with members of the Microsoft sales & partners teams, Microsoft partners, engineering, and marketing to solve customer and partner issues, leverage best practices, & deliver results.
Overcome and work around problems that are inevitable in rapidly growing businesses – positive approach to problem solving, learning, and development.