Director of Sales

Capstone • Eden Prairie, MN

3d • $200,000 - $240,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Direct Sales is a frontline sales leader responsible for the day-to-day performance, coaching, and development of Sales Account Executives, Inside Sales Representatives, Relationship Account Managers, and Quoting Representatives supporting the western region. This leader translates Capstone's revenue strategy into team and individual execution plans, owns the team forecast, and drives new-business growth, account expansion, customer retention, and renewals. Success requires active performance management, hands-on coaching, strong analytical judgment, and close cross-functional collaboration. Our preference is for this role to be based out of either our North Mankato, MN or Edina, MN locations (hybrid work schedule of a minimum of 2 days per week in office). Fully remote work may be considered.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in business or a related field preferred.
• 5-10+ years of sales management experience; publishing or K-12 education-market experience is a plus.
• Demonstrated success leading and developing frontline sales or account-management teams.
• Experience managing new-business pipelines, renewals, forecasts, and performance metrics.
• Strong coaching, communication, analytical, strategic-planning, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to translate business goals into clear priorities and daily team execution.
• Demonstrated ability to manage performance, facilitate change, and collaborate across organizational levels.
• Proficiency with Salesforce and Microsoft 365.
• Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and ability to manage competing priorities.
• Commitment to Capstone's mission and to building an inclusive, accountable, high-performing team environment.
• This position requires some travel – 5-20%.
• Pre-Employment Background Check Required
• Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States.

Nice To Haves

• publishing or K-12 education-market experience is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead, motivate, and manage the daily performance of the West sales team.
• Establish clear team and individual goals aligned with Capstone's revenue, renewal, retention, and customer-growth objectives.
• Conduct regular one-on-one meetings, team meetings, performance reviews, and development conversations.
• Recognize strong performance and address performance gaps promptly through clear expectations, coaching, and improvement plans.
• Recruit, onboard, develop, and retain high-performing team members.
• Foster an accountable, collaborative, and customer-focused team culture.
• Own the team's new-business and renewal forecast, ensuring timely, accurate, and evidence-based projections.
• Conduct regular pipeline, opportunity, and renewal-risk reviews.
• Hold team members accountable for accurate and timely updates.
• Identify pipeline gaps, forecast risks, upside opportunities, and at-risk renewals; develop action plans with individual team members.
• Communicate forecast changes, business risks, and recommended actions to the VP of Direct Sales.
• Monitor pipeline coverage, conversion, retention, productivity, and other key performance indicators.
• Translate Capstone's revenue strategy into clear team, individual, customer-segment, and account-level execution plans.
• Develop and execute plans for new-customer acquisition, account growth, customer retention, and renewals.
• Establish priorities for prospecting, pipeline development, customer engagement, renewal preparation, and at-risk customer recovery.
• Assign and balance accounts, opportunities, and workload to maximize coverage and productivity.
• Use performance data, customer insight, market conditions, and competitive activity to adjust team priorities and execution.
• Provide sales leadership and cross-functional partners with insight into customer needs, market trends, competitive activity, and barriers to growth.
• Provide consistent, hands-on coaching focused on seller performance, execution, skill development, and career growth.
• Observe customer calls and sales interactions and provide timely, specific, and actionable feedback.
• Coach team members on prospecting, discovery, solution positioning, account planning, opportunity advancement, renewals, negotiation, objection handling, and closing.
• Assess individual and team capability gaps and establish development priorities.
• Create individual coaching and development plans with clear actions, milestones, and follow-up.
• Lead and reinforce onboarding, product training, sales-process training, Salesforce proficiency, and role-readiness activities.
• Use call observation, deal reviews, peer learning, and practice exercises to build proficiency.
• Measure coaching and training effectiveness through improvements in behavior, productivity, conversion, retention, forecast accuracy, and business results.
• Partner with Marketing on the planning, execution, and evaluation of sales programs and campaigns.
• Collaborate with Product, Editorial, Finance, Sales Operations, and other teams to resolve customer and sales-process barriers.
• Support new product and service initiatives and improve processes that affect sales execution and the customer experience.
• Develop and manage departmental budgets and approve expenses and purchases.
• Represent Capstone at sales meetings, customer events, and trade shows as needed.

Benefits

• sales commission plan
• professional learning and development
• culture of inclusion and belonging

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director