Director of Sales

PENCCO, Inc•Houston, TX

About The Position

The Director of Sales is responsible for leading the day-to-day execution and performance of Pencco's chemical sales organization. This position directly manages the Regional Sales Managers and is accountable for ensuring consistent sales activity, customer coverage, opportunity management, pricing execution, forecasting, and achievement of established sales and profitability objectives. The Director of Sales translates Pencco's overall commercial strategy, as established by the Chief Commercial Officer, into clear expectations and actions for the sales team. The position serves as the primary leader responsible for sales-force execution and accountability, allowing the Chief Commercial Officer to focus on broader commercial strategy, profitability, business development, products, markets, and organizational leadership.

Requirements

Proven ability to lead, coach, and hold a professional sales team accountable.
Strong understanding of business-to-business and consultative sales.
Strong sales-management discipline, including pipeline management, forecasting, territory management, account planning, and performance measurement.
Commercial understanding of revenue, volume, gross margin, pricing, and customer profitability.
Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities with the ability to use sales and customer data to drive decisions.
Ability to establish clear expectations and appropriately address both strong and underperforming employees.
Strong customer relationship and negotiation skills.
Ability to effectively coordinate across Sales, Customer Service, Inside Sales/Bids, Operations, Logistics, Finance, and other functions.
Excellent communication, organizational, leadership, and interpersonal skills.
Ability to balance customer needs with Pencco's profitability, operational capabilities, and strategic objectives.
Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Chemistry, Engineering, or a related field preferred with 15 years of directly related experience.
Significant experience in business-to-business sales with demonstrated progression into sales leadership or management.
Experience managing a regional or multi-territory sales organization preferred.
Chemical, water treatment, industrial products, manufacturing, or distribution experience strongly preferred.
Demonstrated experience with pricing, account management, sales forecasting, negotiations, and sales-performance management.
Proven ability to develop salespeople and build an accountable, high-performing sales organization.

Responsibilities

Lead, manage, mentor, and develop Pencco's Regional Sales Managers.
Translate commercial objectives established by the Chief Commercial Officer into regional and individual sales goals, priorities, and action plans.
Establish clear expectations for customer coverage, account management, prospecting, opportunity development, and sales activity.
Hold Regional Sales Managers accountable for revenue, volume, margin, customer retention, new business development, and other established performance measures.
Conduct regular sales reviews with Regional Sales Managers to evaluate performance, opportunities, risks, customer activity, and required actions.
Maintain an effective sales pipeline and ensure opportunities are appropriately identified, qualified, pursued, documented, and followed through to completion.
Ensure Regional Sales Managers actively manage their assigned customer accounts and maintain appropriate contact with customers.
Ensure the sales team understands customer purchasing activity, historical volumes, current requirements, competitive conditions, and future opportunities within their territories.
Coordinate with Inside Sales/Bids to ensure bids, quotes, renewals, and other customer opportunities are reviewed and acted upon timely.
Ensure Regional Sales Managers take ownership of validating customer activity and commercial opportunities before pricing, bids, or quotes are developed.
Implement and enforce pricing strategies, approval processes, and commercial guidelines established by the Chief Commercial Officer.
Monitor sales performance against budget, forecast, prior-year results, and established commercial targets.
Develop accurate sales forecasts and communicate material changes, risks, and opportunities to the Chief Commercial Officer.
Identify underperforming accounts, territories, products, and sales activities and develop corrective action plans.
Coach Regional Sales Managers on customer negotiations, account strategy, prospecting, relationship development, and closing opportunities.
Participate directly in significant customer negotiations and account matters when appropriate.
Ensure the sales team appropriately manages all stages of the sales process, including prospecting, customer engagement, needs identification, proposals, pricing, negotiations, closing, implementation, and ongoing account management.
Coordinate with Customer Service to ensure customer issues are identified, escalated, and resolved appropriately.
Work closely with Business Development to transition new products, customers, markets, and opportunities into the established sales organization.
Work with Product Management, Strategic Materials, and other commercial functions to ensure the sales team understands product capabilities, availability, costs, market conditions, and strategic priorities.
Coordinate with Operations and Logistics regarding significant customer requirements, forecasts, supply constraints, service issues, and commitments.
Partner with Finance on customer credit, collections, pricing, profitability, and other commercial matters requiring sales involvement.
Establish and monitor meaningful sales KPIs and provide regular performance reporting to the Chief Commercial Officer.
Recognize strong performance and promptly address performance deficiencies through coaching, development plans, and appropriate performance-management actions.
Assist in recruiting, onboarding, training, developing, and retaining high-performing sales personnel.
Foster a culture of accountability, urgency, teamwork, customer responsiveness, and profitable growth throughout the sales organization.
Other duties as assigned.