Sales Director – National Accounts
About The Position
The Sales Director – National Accounts leads and grows strategic retail partnerships across mass retail channels, including major sporting goods and omnichannel retailers. The role is responsible for profitable sales growth, market share expansion, and long-term customer relationships. It develops and executes account strategies to grow revenue, brand awareness, product distribution, and profitability, while partnering with Product Development, Marketing, Operations, Supply Chain, Finance, Customer Service, and executive leadership to identify opportunities, launch products, and deliver strong customer partnerships. The position owns account strategy and financial performance, including revenue, gross margin, operating profit, and P&L results. It leads retailer relationships, negotiations, business planning, line and category reviews, merchandising and promotional initiatives, product launches, forecasting, and omnichannel growth. The Sales Director also mentors and develops sales team members and provides strategic guidance to executive leadership. The role requires working in the office at least three days per week and travel as required.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Finance, or a related field.
- 10 or more years of progressive sales leadership experience in consumer products, sporting goods, fitness equipment, or durable goods.
- At least 5 years of successful national retail account management experience, such as with Dick's Sporting Goods, Academy Sports + Outdoors, Walmart, Target, sporting goods retailers, or other major national retailers.
- Proven success growing multi-million-dollar retail businesses.
- Extensive experience with annual business planning, line reviews, pricing negotiations, promotional planning, and product launches.
- Strong understanding of national retail merchandising strategies, category management, omnichannel retail, and inventory planning.
- Ability to travel as required.
Responsibilities
- Develop and execute strategic business plans for assigned national accounts in alignment with company growth objectives.
- Own long-term account strategy for major sporting goods and mass retail customers.
- Identify opportunities to grow market share, product assortments, distribution, and incremental revenue.
- Build annual joint business plans with retailer partners.
- Monitor emerging retail trends and develop strategies to capitalize on market opportunities.
- Drive distribution gains across stores, online channels, and omnichannel initiatives.
- Serve as the executive relationship owner for assigned national accounts and build relationships with buyers, merchandising teams, category managers, and executives.
- Lead annual line reviews, category reviews, business planning meetings, and executive presentations.
- Negotiate annual contracts, pricing, promotional programs, merchandising initiatives, and product launches.
- Own annual revenue, gross margin, operating profit, and P&L performance for assigned accounts.
- Deliver sales, profitability, and market share objectives; develop pricing strategies and manage trade spending to maximize return on investment.
- Analyze financial performance, inventory productivity, promotional effectiveness, and sales trends to identify improvements.
- Identify opportunities to introduce product categories and expand existing assortments.
- Partner with Product Development to bring fitness products to market and with Marketing to execute promotions and seasonal selling initiatives.
- Develop retailer-specific merchandising strategies and expand online assortment and omnichannel opportunities.
- Coordinate cross-functionally to ensure execution of product launches, replenishment programs, and promotional initiatives.
- Improve forecasting accuracy with demand planning teams, lead internal business reviews, and communicate priorities across departments.
- Drive operational excellence while maintaining high customer service standards.
- Monitor retail trends, competitive activity, consumer behavior, and category performance; use retailer data, market insights, and sales analytics to inform decisions.
- Identify whitespace opportunities and recommend strategies to strengthen the company's competitive position.
- Mentor, coach, and develop sales organization members and foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement.
- Provide executive leadership with guidance on account opportunities, retailer trends, and long-term growth initiatives.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Director
