Manager- Aftermarket Sales

FreightCar America•Chicago, IL

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Aftermarket Sales Manager leads FreightCar America’s outside sales team and drives disciplined, profitable growth across the Aftermarket Parts portfolio, with a strong focus on distribution sales. The role turns commercial strategy into actionable sales plans, account and territory priorities, customer engagement expectations, and consistent execution. It also oversees team development and performance, sales analysis, Salesforce and commercial-process compliance, and selected key customer relationships. The manager balances strategic planning with hands-on execution and collaborates across the organization to turn customer and market insights into action. The role is preferably based in Chicago in a hybrid arrangement; fully remote work may be considered for the right candidate. Travel is approximately 30%–50%, including overnight travel, for customer visits, field coaching, internal meetings, industry events, and conferences. The position is eligible for commissions under the company’s commission plan and applicable policies; the stated compensation range represents total target earnings, including base salary and target commission opportunities.

Requirements

Proven success leading, coaching, and holding sales professionals accountable in a business-to-business sales environment.
Demonstrated ability to develop sales strategies and convert them into practical account, territory, and customer engagement plans.
Strong analytical capability to evaluate sales performance, identify trends and gaps, prioritize opportunities, and recommend corrective actions.
A track record of driving sales growth, developing new business, expanding existing customer relationships, and supporting pricing and margin discipline.
Strong leadership presence and ability to set expectations, coach people at different experience levels, address performance issues, and build ownership and execution.
Ability to rapidly learn technical products, customer applications, industry requirements, and operational considerations affecting customer decisions.
Minimum of 8–10 years of progressive sales experience, including at least 3 years of direct experience managing salespeople.
Strong working knowledge of CRM platforms and disciplined sales-process management.
Proficiency with Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook, including analyzing sales data and communicating conclusions and action plans.
Strong written, presentation, negotiation, coaching, communication, and influencing skills.
Ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on tactical execution in a fast-moving, growth-oriented environment.
High accountability, sound judgment, adaptability, and willingness to travel to customer and field locations where personal protective equipment may be required.
Bachelor’s degree in engineering, business, marketing, or a related discipline is preferred; equivalent relevant sales and leadership experience will be considered.

Nice To Haves

Experience in industrial distribution, manufacturing, transportation, or another technical B2B sales environment.
Rail industry experience.
Experience leading a geographically dispersed outside sales team.
Salesforce experience.
Bachelor’s degree in engineering, business, marketing, or a related discipline.

Responsibilities

Lead, coach, and develop the outside sales team to achieve sales growth, customer development, and market expansion across the Aftermarket Parts portfolio, particularly distribution sales.
Translate commercial strategy into annual and quarterly sales plans, including priorities, targets, and activities for territories and key accounts.
Establish and enforce standards for account planning, territory coverage, customer contact and visit cadence, opportunity follow-up, and execution.
Manage sales-team performance through goal setting, one-on-one meetings, coaching, performance evaluations, development planning, hiring participation, and recommendations on corrective or disciplinary action.
Drive adoption of and compliance with Salesforce, ensuring customer activity, opportunities, account plans, and other required information are accurate, timely, and actionable.
Analyze sales by customer, territory, product, and salesperson to identify opportunities for wallet-share growth, cross-selling, new accounts, retention, and reactivation, and use findings to guide sales priorities.
Oversee selected key customer relationships and support Account Managers during customer visits, opportunity development, negotiations, and issue resolution.
Provide the Commercial Director with customer, market, competitive, pricing, and opportunity information to support revenue and profitability decisions, and ensure compliance with approved pricing and commercial guidelines.
Collaborate with Customer Service, Inside Sales, Supply Chain, Operations, Engineering, and other functions to resolve customer issues and execute sales-growth initiatives.
Monitor customer needs, market trends, and competitive activity and recommend products, sales channels, value propositions, and commercial actions based on internal and outsourced capabilities.
Manage relationships with independent sales representatives and monitor engagement and sales performance.
Travel approximately 30%–50%, including overnight travel, for joint customer visits, field coaching, internal meetings, industry events, and conferences.