Director, Internal Sales

American Equity•Des Moines, IA

About The Position

The Internal Sales Director leads a multi-layered annuity distribution organization through Internal Desk Managers who directly manage the Internal Wholesalers. The role also has management responsibility for the Sales Support Specialist function, ensuring sales execution, advisor service and operational coordination work together to generate measurable sales growth. This leader provides the sales credibility, coaching and accountability needed to build a competitive, collaborative and high-performing culture across the West Des Moines and Houston teams.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in business or a related field of study plus, six (6) plus years of demonstrated successful experience in financial-services sales, annuity distribution, wholesaling or a closely related consultative sales environment, including experience leading and coaching sales leaders or managers; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
FINRA Series 6, 7, 63 and/or 24 may be required based on assigned responsibilities and applicable business or regulatory requirements.
Extensive knowledge of annuity products, wholesaling and financial-intermediary distribution channels.
Demonstrated ability to lead through managers, establish accountability standards and improve results through others.
Strong understanding of territory management, consultative selling, advisor engagement and sales pipeline management.
Ability to lead managers, individual sales contributors and a sales-support function across multiple office locations.
Ability to develop internal wholesalers into external wholesalers and build leadership succession pipelines.
Advanced ability to use Salesforce and sales-performance data to guide decisions, coaching and resource allocation.
Excellent analytical, written and oral communication skills.
Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions.
Strong judgment, organizational planning and cross-functional partnership skills.
Ability to define problems, collect and analyze data, establish facts and draw valid conclusions.
Ability to work cooperatively and successfully with employees, financial professionals, distribution partners and other third parties.
Ability to successfully handle pressure and meet deadlines in a fast-paced work environment.

Responsibilities

Leads and coaches the Internal Desk Managers who supervise Internal Wholesalers; establishes manager-level expectations for team performance, coaching cadence, talent development and territory execution.
Provides leadership and oversight for Sales Support Specialists, including service standards, workflow priorities, development and coordination with the sales desks.
Builds a cohesive culture across the West Des Moines and Houston teams through regular engagement, consistent communication, common performance standards and sharing of best practices.
Reviews results at the manager, team and territory levels; identifies performance gaps, creates improvement plans and recognizes meaningful sales outcomes.
Ensures appropriate staffing, capacity planning, escalation paths and succession coverage.
Drives annuity sales growth, advisor engagement, territory penetration, pipeline quality and conversion through the Internal Desk Managers and their teams.
Coaches managers on developing wholesalers in outbound selling, advisor conversations, prospecting, objection handling, follow-up, closing strategies and relationship development.
Establishes practical standards for sales activity and results that emphasize effectiveness and resulting business.
Uses Salesforce, sales dashboards, pipeline reviews and relevant data to diagnose opportunities and guide coaching and resource allocation.
Develops consistent territory planning, advisor segmentation, campaign execution and opportunity-management practices across teams.
Partners with External Wholesalers and divisional sales leadership to align internal desk execution with territory strategies, target advisors and distribution-partner priorities.
Promotes coordinated territory teamwork between Internal and External Wholesalers through defined communication and follow-up expectations.
Coordinates Sales Support Specialists with sales and new-business partners so administrative and case-support responsibilities enable selling time.
Maintains awareness of advisor and field needs through joint meetings, sales events and field travel.
Recruits and develops Internal Desk Managers and supports their recruitment, onboarding, coaching and retention of Internal Wholesalers.
Ensures managers conduct regular one-on-ones, call reviews, role-play, product training and individual development planning.
Builds a pipeline of future External Wholesalers and sales leaders while creating meaningful development opportunities for Sales Support Specialists.
Maintains succession plans and makes timely, fair and candid performance-management decisions.
Ensures teams understand applicable fixed and indexed annuity products, retirement-income and accumulation concepts, competitive positioning and distribution requirements.
Promotes needs-based product positioning grounded in the financial professional's client objectives.
Supports responsive advisor engagement and a disciplined escalation process for complex cases or service concerns.
Works with National Accounts, Marketing, Product, Advanced Planning, New Business and Operations to translate field feedback into improved sales execution and advisor experience.
Performs other related work as assigned.