Product Sales Manager (Remote)

Ballotpedia seeks a full-time, 100% remote Product Sales Manager to help manage and grow its data, research, and product sales operations.

Ballotpedia’s Product Sales Manager is responsible for managing and growing its non-donor revenue sales and opportunities. This includes the positioning and sale of bulk data, API access, custom research projects, and Ballotpedia’s vast array of election and legislation-centered data products. They work closely with Ballotpedia staff across multiple departments to fulfill data, research, and product requests in collaboration with sales clients and other external partners. They will work to match existing and prospective customers with the best opportunities and products to meet their needs and serve as a passionate and enthusiastic representative of Ballotpedia to various audiences.

A successful Product Sales Manager will be passionate about Ballotpedia’s mission. They will be outgoing and excel at connecting with individuals and organizations who have expressed and/or may have an interest in Ballotpedia’s data on candidates, officeholders, ballot measures, and more. They will exemplify organized persistence, should be curious and motivated by solving problems, and will be skilled at matching existing and prospective customers with Ballotpedia’s data products to meet their customers’ business needs. They should have a deep understanding of the value of delivering exceptional customer service throughout the customer journey and the ability to review and understand both Ballotpedia’s contract structure and its data and product offerings on a technical level.

The Product Sales Manager will serve on the External Relations team and report to the Director of External Relations. 

Responsibilities

As the Product Sales Manager, you will:

• Develop and execute annual product sales and customer service plans.
• Deliver exceptional customer service throughout the customer journey (from first contact through the end of contract and, ideally, contract renewal) to ensure customer satisfaction and retention.
• Maintain and grow ongoing relationships with key data sales clients and external partners.
• Develop and update digital and paper marketing plans, rate cards, and other sales materials to position Ballotpedia as a data source of choice for its target customer base.
• Develop deep knowledge and understanding of Ballotpedia’s existing data sales products and delivery mechanisms.
• Respond to incoming sales inquiries, in addition to researching and contacting sales leads developed through a variety of acquisition methods.
• Using existing templates, ensure effective, accurate, and timely development and execution of sales contracts.
• Maintain a comprehensive record of sales and outreach activities, including in SalesForce.
• Collect, track, and analyze information on data, research, and product sales to recommend process improvements, and product offerings, and determine effective sales and outreach tactics.
• Optimize prospective customer pipeline development and management.
• Attend in-person events, conferences, and/or trade shows to pitch Ballotpedia products to prospective clients, as needed.

Qualifications

An ideal Product Sales Manager will have:

• Interest in voter education and engagement and in Ballotpedia’s vision and mission.
• 3-5 years of sales experience, including preferred experience in technical sales.
• Strong interest in working at an organization prioritizing growth, and understanding the resultant expectations placed on revenue growth.
• A track record of building strong relationships, with internal and external audiences.
• High level of organization, attention to detail, follow-through, and the ability to manage and prioritize multiple projects simultaneously with success and accuracy.
• Experience working in sales from a virtual office.
• Proficiency with sales CRMs, especially SalesForce.

Environment

The Product Sales Manager will work remotely from their home location. All Ballotpedia staff work remotely. To join Ballotpedia, you must have a computer with Internet access. 

Ballotpedia uses the Google Suite (Gmail, Google Calendar, Drive and more), Slack, Asana, and Salesforce to accomplish our goals, and the External Relations team uses SalesForce. Some familiarity with the Google Suite, Slack, Asana, and SalesForce is helpful.

Ballotpedia has a flexible work environment, BP Flex, in which every employee enjoys unlimited vacation and flexibility in scheduling. During new employee training, each employee will be oriented to the principles of Ballotpedia’s flexible environment.

Compensation

The base salary range for the Product Sales Manager is $60,000-70,000. In addition to base salary, the Product Sales Manager will be eligible for incentive and performance-based bonuses. Additionally, Ballotpedia offers an annual benefits stipend equivalent to $8,000 that is paid out in equal increments in each paycheck once an employee becomes benefits eligible. 

The stipend may be used for a full benefits package, including health, vision, dental insurance, retirement accounts, and more. If benefits are not elected, the stipend is taxed as regular income and added to the salary. 

To Apply

To apply, click on ‘Apply for this job’ below and fill out the form.

Please attach the following in PDF format if possible:

• résumé
• cover letter detailing your interest in Ballotpedia’s mission, this position, and highlighting applicable experience that uniquely qualifies you for this role

Please ensure that either your résumé or your cover letter includes your current address.

Please note that if you are hired for this position, Ballotpedia participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. If E-Verify cannot confirm that you are authorized to work, Ballotpedia is required to give you written instructions and an opportunity to contact the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or Social Security Administration (SSA) so you can begin to resolve the issue before the employer can take any action against you, including terminating your employment. Employers can only use E-Verify once you have accepted a job offer and completed the Form I-9. For more information on E-Verify, or if you believe that your employer has violated its E-Verify responsibilities, please contact DHS.

About Ballotpedia

Ballotpedia is a collaborative team of fast learners and creative problem solvers who are eager to work hard to make the world a better place. We believe the world will be a better place if every citizen has access to information to make informed decisions about their vote in every election in which they are eligible to vote: primary, general, and special elections; federal, state, and local offices.

We work diligently to present the available information about elections, candidates, judges, ballot measures, policies, and more in a way that enables our readers to vote with confidence and to act as engaged citizens outside of the polling booth.

Ballotpedia readers, like Ballotpedia staff, are special people.

When we launched in 2007, we did not go out of our way to seek new readers. Starting with our small team of visionary idealists, nerds, and aspiring political journalists, we just wrote the best unbiased online articles we could, especially about ballot measures. Readers found those articles in droves. It turns out there was an unclaimed audience out there—people who wanted straightforward facts about political issues, and were willing to read at length instead of just scanning the headlines.

“If you build it, they will come:'' our readers came to our neutral oasis in growing numbers; we’ve had many millions of lifetime pageviews, we reached nearly half of all voters in 2020, and, in the month surrounding the November 2020 election, we were the 77th most-visited website in the U.S.

We’ve come to realize that we need to meet our readers where they are. In doing so, over the past five years, we’ve grown our email newsletter program from infancy to include more than 3,000,000 opt-in subscribers with more than a dozen newsletters to choose from. We are working in numerous ways to help put our neutral information in front of people at the times when they most need it, including on mobile phones while you’re standing in the voting booth. We firmly believe that our readers, and the mindset we help them cultivate, are essential in a world where too many others are fighting to get us all addicted to sensational posts and the irrational decisions they foster.
If this is a mission you’d be willing to work hard to achieve, and if this is a team you’d be willing to work hard with—JOIN US.