Job Description
The Outside Sales Manager, Contractors & Wireless (CNW) reports directly to the Director of Sales and works closely with the Inside Sales Manager, Outside Sales Executives, Procurement, Operations, Warehouse, Administration, and other internal stakeholders.
Job Description
The Outside Sales Manager, Contractors & Wireless (CNW) will be responsible for leading the field sales strategy and driving revenue growth across NWS's Contractors and Wireless business.
This individual will develop and execute territory sales strategies, acquire new customers, grow existing accounts, manage key customer relationships, and provide leadership and direction to the Outside Sales team.
The role will focus primarily on PCS/Cellular Wireless OEMs, service providers, contractors, wireless resale, liquidation, and related secondary-market customers, while also developing opportunities within general-purpose accounts.
The Outside Sales Manager will be a hands-on sales leader who combines strategic account development with active customer engagement. This individual will work closely with the Inside Sales Manager and internal operational teams to ensure opportunities are quoted effectively, orders are executed efficiently, and customers receive a high level of service.
Key Responsibilities
Sales Leadership & Territory Growth
- Develop and execute the overall field sales strategy for the Contractors & Wireless business.
- Establish territory plans, revenue objectives, customer acquisition goals, and account-growth strategies.
- Lead and manage the performance of assigned Outside Sales Executives.
- Set clear expectations for sales activity, pipeline development, customer engagement, revenue, gross margin, and account growth.
- Drive new business development across wireless, telecommunications, contractor, resale, liquidation, and secondary-market channels.
- Identify high-value target accounts and develop strategic approaches to penetrate and grow those accounts.
- Build and maintain a strong network of industry relationships and business contacts.
- Monitor market conditions, customer requirements, competitor activity, and industry trends to identify new business opportunities.
New Business Development
- Personally participate in strategic prospecting and business development activities.
- Develop relationships with key decision-makers, procurement leaders, contractors, wireless service providers, OEMs, distributors, and other relevant customers.
- Establish and maintain a consistent pipeline of qualified new-business opportunities.
- Support Outside Sales Executives in prospecting, customer meetings, presentations, negotiations, and closing strategic opportunities.
- Develop strategies to convert prospects into long-term customers.
- Attend industry events, trade shows, customer meetings, and networking opportunities as required.
Account Management & Growth
- Manage designated major and strategic customer accounts.
- Develop account plans focused on revenue growth, customer retention, wallet-share expansion, and gross-margin improvement.
- Build executive-level relationships with key customers and understand their business needs, purchasing cycles, and future requirements.
- Identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities across NWS products and services.
- Conduct regular customer business reviews and strategic account meetings.
- Monitor account performance and proactively address customer risks, service issues, and growth opportunities.
- Work with Inside Sales to ensure customer inquiries, quotations, orders, and follow-up activities are handled promptly.
Pricing, Margin & Commercial Management
- Develop commercially sound pricing strategies in partnership with Procurement and Sales Leadership.
- Review major quotations and opportunities to ensure pricing remains competitive while protecting gross margins.
- Support negotiations involving pricing, contracts, commercial terms, and customer requirements.
- Develop an understanding of customer economics, market pricing, product availability, recovery values, and margin opportunities.
- Partner with Procurement to improve pricing, product availability, purchasing strategy, and customer-specific pricing.
- Escalate significant pricing exceptions and commercial risks to Sales Leadership as appropriate.
Team Leadership & Development
- Lead, coach, mentor, and develop Outside Sales Executives.
- Conduct regular one-on-one meetings, pipeline reviews, account reviews, and performance discussions.
- Monitor individual sales performance against revenue, activity, pipeline, and customer-development targets.
- Provide coaching on prospecting, account development, negotiations, presentations, CRM usage, and closing techniques.
- Assist with recruiting, onboarding, and training new Outside Sales team members.
- Establish sales best practices and continuously improve field-sales processes.
- Hold team members accountable for CRM accuracy, sales activity, forecasting, and achievement of established objectives.
Pipeline & Forecast Management
- Own the field-sales pipeline for the Contractors & Wireless business.
- Ensure sales opportunities are accurately recorded and actively managed in the CRM.
- Review pipeline coverage, opportunity stages, expected close dates, customer activity, and forecast values.
- Provide accurate weekly/monthly forecasts to Sales Leadership.
- Maintain a qualified pipeline of approximately 3–4x assigned sales quota.
- Identify pipeline gaps and develop action plans to address them.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Partner closely with the Inside Sales Manager to ensure seamless coordination between field sales and inside sales.
- Work with Inside Sales on quotes, customer follow-up, order processing, account development, and opportunity conversion.
- Collaborate with Procurement on pricing, product availability, large-scale quotations, purchasing forecasts, and customer requirements.
- Work with Operations and Warehouse to ensure inventory, fulfillment, shipping schedules, and customer delivery requirements are properly coordinated.
- Partner with Administration/Finance on customer onboarding, credit approvals, contracts, and account requirements.
- Provide feedback to Marketing and Sales Leadership regarding customer needs, market trends, competitive activity, and product opportunities.
Additional Responsibilities & Qualifications
- Strong relationships within the wireless resale, liquidation, contractor, telecommunications, and secondary-market ecosystems preferred.
- Demonstrated ability to develop new business and grow strategic customer accounts.
- Strong leadership and people-management skills.
- Strong commercial acumen with a deep understanding of pricing, gross margin, profitability, and customer economics.
- Exceptional negotiation, communication, presentation, and relationship-building skills.
- Strong analytical and strategic-thinking capabilities.
- High level of comfort working with cross-functional stakeholders.
- Experience with CRM systems, pipeline management, sales reporting, and forecasting.
- Ability to manage multiple territories, accounts, opportunities, and priorities simultaneously.
- Strong planning, organizational, and time-management skills.
- Willingness and ability to travel approximately 30–50% as required.
Work Experience
- 7–10+ years of sales experience, with significant experience in outside sales, business development, account management, or sales leadership.
- 2–5+ years of experience leading, coaching, or managing sales professionals preferred.
- Strong experience in wireless, telecommunications, contractors, distribution, resale, liquidation, or secondary markets preferred.
- Proven track record of achieving or exceeding sales revenue targets.
- Experience managing strategic or major customer accounts.
- Experience with commercial and contract negotiations.
- Experience managing pricing, gross margin, and profitability.
- Experience using CRM systems and data-driven sales management.
- Demonstrated ability to build and maintain long-term customer relationships.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- Territory Sales Revenue Growth
Definition: Total revenue generated across the assigned Contractors & Wireless territory/accounts.
Goal: Achieve assigned monthly, quarterly, and annual revenue targets and deliver 10–15% year-over-year territory growth where applicable.
- New Customer Acquisition
Definition: New customers/accounts acquired within the assigned territory.
Goal: Establish and achieve monthly and quarterly new-customer acquisition targets aligned with the overall CNW sales strategy.
- Existing Account Growth / Wallet Share
Definition: Revenue growth from existing customers through cross-selling, upselling, and account expansion.
Goal: Achieve 10–20% annual growth across targeted strategic accounts where commercially appropriate.
- Gross Margin Performance
Definition: Gross margin generated across assigned accounts and sales opportunities.
Goal: Meet or exceed established gross-margin targets while maintaining competitive market pricing.
- Pipeline Development
Definition: Strength, quality, and size of the qualified sales pipeline.
Goal: Maintain a qualified pipeline of approximately 3–4x assigned sales quota.
- Forecast Accuracy
Definition: Accuracy of monthly and quarterly sales forecasts.
Goal: Maintain forecast accuracy within approximately ±10–15%.
- Customer Engagement
Definition: Quality and frequency of customer meetings, visits, presentations, business reviews, and strategic interactions.
Goal: Maintain consistent engagement with strategic and target customers, including approximately 12–20 quality customer interactions per week, depending on territory and account requirements.
- Team Performance
Definition: Achievement of revenue, activity, pipeline, account-growth, and margin objectives by assigned Outside Sales Executives.
Goal: Drive consistent achievement of team sales objectives and develop a high-performing field-sales organization.
- CRM Compliance
Definition: Accuracy and completeness of customer, opportunity, activity, and forecast information.
Goal: Maintain 95%+ compliance with required CRM activity and pipeline updates.
Success Profile
The successful candidate will be a results-driven field-sales leader with deep customer relationships and a strong understanding of the Contractors & Wireless marketplace.
They should be equally comfortable winning new business, developing strategic accounts, coaching salespeople, negotiating commercial terms, and working cross-functionally to solve customer and operational challenges.
The ideal candidate will bring a strong network within the wireless and contractor ecosystem, combined with the commercial discipline required to grow revenue while protecting gross margins.
This individual should be viewed internally as the field-sales leader for CNW and externally as a trusted commercial partner to NWS's key customers.
