Director of Sales Operations

Higginbotham•Lehi, UT

About The Position

The Director of Sales Operations & Performance is a hands-on sales leader accountable for running the day-to-day sales execution engine across selected direct-to-insured (DTI) programs. This role actively participates in outbound prospecting and models high phone and email activity while enforcing scripting discipline, structured follow-up, pipeline integrity, and KPI accountability. The Director owns pipeline phase definitions, forecasting rigor, and CRM hygiene while serving as the cross-functional “traffic controller” across Underwriting, Claims, Account Management, Program Management, Marketing, and Marketing Automation Engineering (MAE). This leader ensures clean handoffs, reduced cycle times, underwriting-ready submissions, accurate expectation-setting, and continuous funnel optimization to drive premium growth, productivity, and forecast accuracy.

Requirements

5+ years in sales leadership or sales operations with hands-on outbound ownership and forecasting responsibility.
Proven success building phone-centric teams with script discipline and repeatable coaching systems.
Strong CRM expertise (Salesforce or Zoho), telephony systems, dashboard reporting, and marketing automation collaboration.
Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, or related field (or equivalent experience).

Nice To Haves

P&C insurance experience preferred (program/MGA environment a plus).
Property & Casualty License preferred, or a willingness to obtain licensure with company support within 3 months.

Responsibilities

Leads and manages Producers, Brokers, SDRs, BDRs, and Sales support personnel assigned to DTI programs.
Oversee onboarding, script training, call coaching, and ongoing performance management.
Enforces structured operating cadence, KPI reporting, and pipeline discipline.
Conducts call reviews, coaching sessions, corrective action plans, and documented performance follow-through.
Actively prospect and sell alongside the team, modeling high call volume, best-practice discovery, objection handling, and disciplined follow-up.
Run weekly sales meetings, call blocks, and structured pipeline reviews.
Set clear activity expectations and accountability to leading indicators (calls, connections, appointments, quotes).
Own sales scripting and enablement: maintain talk tracks, email templates, script prompts, objection matrices, and call quality standards.
Conduct monthly, quarterly, and annual performance reviews with defined targets and corrective plans.
Define and enforce pipeline stage definitions and exit criteria within CRM (Salesforce/Zoho).
Ensure CRM hygiene, accurate stage progression, and timely activity logging.
Publish KPI dashboards including stage conversion rates, stage velocity/aging, speed-to-lead, follow-up compliance, quote-to-bind ratios, and producer productivity.
Lead weekly forecasting meetings with commit criteria, risk flags, and variance narratives.
Improve forecast accuracy through structured review cadence and inspection discipline.
Partner with MAE to optimize lead routing, scoring logic, automation workflows, and reporting integrity.
Establish recurring underwriting alignment touchpoints by program to review eligibility updates, appetite changes, turnaround times, and escalation paths.
Own submission quality standards and underwriting-ready criteria.
Coach team to reduce rework drivers, incomplete submissions, and cycle-time delays.
Implement and manage quote triage rules (fast-lane vs. refer-to-UW criteria, priority queueing, SLA enforcement).
Maintain win/loss feedback loops tied to underwriting decisions and pricing outcomes; refine qualification scripts accordingly.
Create structured feedback loops to capture claim trends, coverage misunderstandings, friction points, and onboarding issues impacting retention.
Ensure accurate sales-to-service handoffs with clear expectation-setting around coverage, exclusions, endorsements, and claims processes.
Coordinate rapid support for pre-bind claim-history questions and post-bind onboarding issues through escalation playbooks.
Partner with Account Management on early-lifecycle retention initiatives and integrate insights into sales messaging.
Provide regular feedback to Marketing and Program Management on lead quality, conversion drivers, objections, and voice-of-customer insights.
Collaborate on offer refinement, landing page optimization, messaging improvements, and outbound targeting strategies.
Support event execution including pre-show prospecting, lead capture standards, and post-show follow-up SLAs.