Job Summary:The Director of Sales working as an IC, is a pure hunter and closer responsible for generating new opportunities through proactive outreach, advancing qualified deals through the pipeline, and closing new institutional clients. This role requires a self-driven, high-output sales leader who thrives on outbound activity, creative prospecting, and disciplined follow-up. You will own the full sales cycle-from lead generation to contract signature. Key Responsibilities:1. New Logo Acquisition & Lead Generation:
- Build, manage, and execute a high-velocity outbound lead generation strategy, including email, LinkedIn, phone outreach, webinars, and event follow-up.
- Develop targeted prospect lists across private colleges, community colleges, HBCUs, tribal colleges, and regional universities.
- Run personalized outreach campaigns using sequences, messaging frameworks, and value-based hooks.
- Source new opportunities through research, digital intelligence, competitor displacement, and cold outreach.
- Consistently exceed weekly and monthly lead-gen KPIs (emails, calls, meetings booked, new opportunities created).
- Collaborate with Marketing to optimize lead quality, but own 70-80% of pipeline creation independently.
2. Full-Cycle Sales & Closure:
- Lead end-to-end enterprise sales cycles for:
- IT outsourcing & managed services
- Helpdesk and student support
- Cybersecurity & SOC services
- ERP/SIS/CRM/LMS support
- Cloud hosting & infrastructure modernization
- Institutional reporting & analytics
- Conduct discovery with Presidents, CIOs, CFOs, IR leaders, and IT staff.
- Deliver solution presentations, ROI analysis, and business cases.
- Negotiate pricing, terms, and contracts.
- Achieve and exceed new-logo revenue goals.
3. Market Development & Territory Ownership:
- Build a territory plan focused entirely on new business generation.
- Create demand in new regions, institution segments, and consortia markets.
- Attend conferences and events to drive booth traffic and post-event leads.
4. Reporting & Forecasting:
- Maintain consistent CRM hygiene and accurate forecasting of all opportunities.
- Provide weekly reporting on lead generation activity, pipeline health, and revenue progression.
- Track metrics related to outbound prospecting, meetings held, and proposals delivered.
Requirements: Qualifications Required:- 15+ years of enterprise sales experience in higher-education technology or IT managed services.
- Proven track record generating large volumes of outbound leads and converting them into qualified opportunities.
- Demonstrated success closing high-value managed services deals ($3M-$5M+).
- Strong understanding of higher-ed IT environment and buying behaviors.
- Exceptional communication, discovery, presentation, and negotiation skills.
- Disciplined, organized, and highly self-motivated with strong pipeline-generation habits.
Preferred:- Experience selling into small private colleges and community colleges.
- Familiarity with SIS, CRM, LMS, cybersecurity services, cloud hosting, and institutional reporting.
- Existing network of higher-ed presidents, CIOs, CFOs, or cabinet leaders.
Success Indicators:- High weekly outbound activity and consistent meeting generation.
- Strong pipeline sourced directly from personal lead-gen efforts.
- Achievement of quarterly and annual new-logo quotas.
- Increased penetration in new states and institution segments.
