Business Development Manager
Fully Remote USA based only Los Angeles or Houston preferred
1. Does this sound like you?
Have you been doing public service work and enjoyed making a positive impact on the world, but you’d like to earn more money?
Do you like working in the tech industry, but...
You’re feeling burned out by big tech companies where your role is very narrow
You want broader exposure to the business and a chance to spread your wings
Maybe you’d like to work on a product that is truly useful to people and you can see it in action in the real world?
Dreaming of launching your own business someday and want to get some experience in a company where you can learn how it all works?
Considering enrolling in an MBA or Masters of Urban Planning / Public Policy program, but maybe you’d rather get paid to learn all that stuff in a practical setting?
Loved playing SIM City as a kid?
If we have your attention, read on, dear visitor.
2.Who we are :
Our company was founded in 2006 specializing in all things tech for US public transit agencies we bring public transportation into the Internet of Things era.
We design, implement, and support many different technologies inside city buses and in operations control centers, including dispatch communications, GPS tracking, automatic passenger counters, surveillance video, and more.
We also build real-time information systems for riders ("Bus in 7 min") including apps and digital signage at bus stops.
Our technology is part of the urban infrastructure of more than 100 US cities, and millions of people use our systems each month to get around this is very much an "IRL" technology.
Our scrappy startup was acquired in 2015 by GMV, a global leader in Intelligent Transportation Systems that also has strong and diverse businesses in the space sector, cybersecurity, and other mission critical technologies.
Our US team still operates as a largely autonomous subsidiary, and we try to maintain the nimble, creative, and open culture that made us successful as a startup.
This is hard to do as our team has grown in headcount and our projects have grown in complexity, but we believe it is important to try.
While we maintain a startup attitude, we are blessed with the technical and financial resources of the parent company to support our growth.
Our US team has approximately 50 people, but there are currently only 2 working in sales we need more firepower. We are a fully remote organization with in-person offsites twice a year, and we operate physical offices in Downtown LA & Houston, TX to support our physical products (test labs, warehouse, assembly, etc).
You don’t need to be in either of these locations, but it would be nice if you are.
3. Who you’ll be working with
Our Chief Commercial Officer started as a junior sales rep in 2014. He trained under one of the founders and within 2-3 years was closing our largest and most lucrative deals.
He runs our sales organization now and handles some of our largest accounts personally. He is personally responsible for more than doubling our top line revenue.
We’re looking to have you follow his example, so you’ll be training with and reporting to him.
Your future colleagues have a sincere interest in making the world a better place. We are helping reduce carbon emissions, fighting traffic congestion, making cities more livable, and enabling people to get around without a car, whether by choice or by necessity.
Our clients are all really nice people who have committed their careers to improving the communities where they work, and we help them get it done.
4. This is not a big company - you need to make things happen.
You’ll focus prospecting, pre-selling and closing new business in your territory and working with current clients on opportunities to expand their technology footprint.
We need someone who is strategic and patient to find the right opportunities and nurture them through a long sales cycle and formal government procurement process.
The nature of sales in the transit industry is slow. It starts with meeting prospective clients at conferences and leading intro calls and software demos.
We build a relationship with prospective clients so that we really understand their needs and can assemble the best possible solution.
Then, when the RFP for a project is released, you already know the stakeholders and the internal dynamics of the agency.
These necessary steps require you to be proactive, organized, and entrepreneurial. You have to make things happen - we're not a large organization, and that's what makes this a great place to work if you have the discipline and mindset to thrive in it.
For all this, you’ll be rewarded with a sense of ownership and agency that you are in control of your own work.
5. We need you for the long term.
It takes a while to learn this industry, and if you have the stamina and the long-term vision to stay with it, you can be closing large deals down the line and making a total comp package well above market.
We have a close alignment between sales compensation and company performance, so we want our salespeople to make as much money as possible, but this doesn't happen overnight.
So, if you apply for this job, be sure you like the long haul. It takes dedication, persistence, and patience.
6. You must be a great writer, and you must be charismatic.
In the early part of the sales cycle, it's dinners, follow up calls, and mingling at conferences. You need to be outgoing, friendly, proactive, and always helping people with nothing expected in return.
People need to like you.
In the later part of the cycle, you have to write and coordinate lengthy proposals much of the content will be from templates, but as new features and unique conditions with the client come up, you have to sell the dream in writing and explain complex technology in an accessible way.
We will test exhaustively for these two traits. They're more important than anything else.
Curiosity is also an important trait to drive a deep understanding of what you’re working on and what constraints our clients are dealing with.
If you like asking "why?" and figuring out the answer, that’s a good sign.
7. What is NOT required for this job...
Prior experience as a salesperson is not a requirement. If you are a good communicator, you genuinely care about helping our clients, and you think strategically, we can teach you the rest to be successful at sales.
Prior experience in any particular industry is not a requirement. It is important to have a strong aptitude for and interest in technology, but we can teach you how our widgets work and how the public transit system operates.
8. Pay and Benefits :
$80K - $100K base plus commission structure (% of projected gross margin of your won deals) with unlimited upside.
We offer a first-year commission bridge to help cover your ramp up period.
Total salary + commission expected around $150 - 200K, but the sky is the limit.
There are no commission caps, complex formulas, kickers, or managers moving the goal posts. We want to set clear and consistent incentives that are aligned with what’s best for the company and help you earn as much as possible.
Generous Health and Dental benefits, 401k plan w / match.
9. To apply, you must send more than a resume we need to understand who you are.
Submit all three of the following per instructions below.
A)Resume
B)A 250-word essay describing the functional details of a technical subject about which you are an authority. Select a topic in technology, science, medicine, gardening, baking, or some other field, decide on an appropriate level of detail, and tell us how it works and why anyone cares.
Assume your audience has a high school education.
C)An introductory email explaining what you can add, how your experience is relevant, etc. This is your area to shine, more so than the resume.
Please do not send a generic letter.