Sales Performance Manager

Inspired Closets Chicago•Oakbrook Terrace, IL

8d•$110,000 - $125,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Inspired Closets Chicago is seeking a Sales Performance Manager to build a high-value network of trade and referral partners throughout the Chicagoland market. This role involves representing the Inspired Closets brand, opening doors with key partners, creating productive showroom experiences, and delivering well-positioned opportunities to Sales Design Consultants. The manager will own the relationship-building process from initial outreach to partner activation, ensuring disciplined follow-up, clear CRM visibility, and accurate lead attribution. This position is crucial for bringing energy to the market, structuring the pipeline, and improving the quality of opportunities for the sales team.

Requirements

Five or more years of successful business development, outside sales, referral-channel, partnership-development, or related growth experience.
A demonstrated record of building relationships that produced measurable revenue.
Experience in home improvement, remodeling, interior design, cabinetry, millwork, architectural products, premium residential services, or a closely related field.
A strong understanding of the relationships among designers, remodelers, builders, real estate professionals, and premium homeowners.
Confidence representing a respected brand in professional and affluent-client environments.
Strong prospecting, meeting-setting, follow-up, and partner-development skills.
Advanced comfort with CRM systems, pipeline management, reporting, and lead attribution.
Clear, professional written and verbal communication skills.
Strong planning and time-management habits across daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly priorities.
The ability to work independently while collaborating closely with leadership and the sales design team.
A valid driver’s license and the ability to travel throughout the Greater Chicago area.

Nice To Haves

Enjoy opening doors and building relationships from the ground up.
Know how to distinguish a valuable partner from a pleasant conversation.
Follow through without needing repeated reminders.
Manage your pipeline and CRM as seriously as you manage your relationships.
Are comfortable hosting a showroom event, meeting a builder on-site, or presenting to a design firm.
Take pride in making a sales team more effective.
Enjoy building a market presence and becoming known within the right professional circles.
Want your work to produce visible commercial results.
Are motivated by a compensation structure that rewards performance and business contribution.

Responsibilities

Identify and prioritize high-value trade and referral partners across the Chicagoland market.
Build relationships with interior designers, remodelers, real estate professionals, professional organizers, select builders, and adjacent premium home-service providers.
Re-engage inactive or underdeveloped partner relationships with meaningful future potential.
Develop and maintain a disciplined rhythm of outreach, meetings, follow-up, and partner activation.
Attend local industry events, expos, association meetings, and trade partner gatherings.
Become a visible, trusted representative of Inspired Closets within the local design and home-improvement community.
Convert partner relationships into qualified appointments and project opportunities.
Identify partners with active projects and near-term referral potential.
Prepare clean, well-positioned handoffs to the appropriate Sales Design Consultant.
Provide the design team with relevant background, partner expectations, and client context.
Maintain ownership of the broader partner relationship after individual opportunities are handed off.
Help improve the quality, readiness, and value of opportunities entering the sales process.
Use the Inspired Closets showrooms as strategic tools for partner engagement, trust-building, and lead generation.
Organize showroom tours, partner introductions, educational presentations, and small curated events.
Help partners understand what their clients will experience when working with Inspired Closets.
Create a consistent rhythm of experiences that produce follow-up conversations and qualified opportunities.
Use the showroom to demonstrate design possibilities, product quality, professionalism, and the value of the complete client experience.
Maintain accurate, current records for all partner activity, meetings, next steps, referrals, and opportunities.
Use the company CRM and Referral Rock to manage follow-up and preserve clean lead-source attribution.
Track partner movement from initial outreach through active referral status.
Provide leadership with reliable visibility into activity, pipeline, opportunity quality, and results.
Use data to identify which partner categories, messages, and activities are producing the strongest return.
Manage your pipeline with the same discipline you bring to building relationships.
Work closely with Sales Design Consultants to improve opportunity quality and handoff effectiveness.
Build internal confidence by bringing the team better-prepared, better-fit prospects.
Learn the company’s design process and software to communicate possibilities credibly with partners and review plans or blueprints when appropriate.
Bring useful market intelligence back to leadership, including partner needs, buyer expectations, competitive activity, active projects, and emerging opportunities.
Help the sales team improve results by creating stronger conditions before the sales conversation begins.