Sales Lead - SoCal / LA

Focal

$90K — $120K *
Hospitality & Recreation
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 4-8 years of B2B sales experience, handling complex deals from start to finish
  • Proven skills in account-based selling and strategic outreach
  • Strong network and familiarity with Los Angeles-based hospitality and food & beverage sectors
  • Experience building pipelines in new territories or products
  • Early management aspirations with a focus on team development
  • Authentic enthusiasm for Focal's mission and product

Responsibilities

  • Own the Southern California market by building a sales pipeline from the ground up
  • Identify and target key restaurant groups and multi-unit chains for business opportunities
  • Develop a disciplined account-based strategy and target list for outreach
  • Build multifaceted relationships within target organizations to secure deals
  • Act as Focal's local ambassador, promoting the brand at industry events
  • Contribute to shaping the future sales team and defining best practices for market entry

Benefits

  • Recognition as one of Fast Company's World's Most Innovative Companies
  • Demonstrable results with significant customer energy savings and improved ratings
  • Strong backing from notable investors in the hospitality and energy sectors
  • Access to a founding team with extensive experience from leading tech companies and universities
  • Growth potential beyond hospitality with plans to expand into various market segments
  • Full support and guidance from the founding team in a rapidly growing market
Full Job Description
The Opportunity

This is not a territory you inherit. It's one you build. As Focal's first hire in Los Angeles area, you'll be responsible for landing the accounts that define our brand in the market, building a pipeline from scratch, and eventually hiring and developing the team beneath you. If you've been waiting for the kind of role where what you build is genuinely yours - this is it.

What You'll Do

Own the Southern California market.

You'll build our pipeline from scratch: identifying the right restaurant groups, hospitality operators, and multi-unit chains, and running account-based campaigns to open and close them. You'll know who the right targets are before anyone tells you, build relationships at every level of an organization, and close deals that compound over time.

Drive account-based strategy.

LA is a relationship market with one of the most vibrant outdoor dining scenes in the country. You'll develop a target account list, research key stakeholders, build multi-threaded relationships within priority accounts, and execute a disciplined approach to winning new business, not just working the warmest leads.

Represent Focal on the ground.

You'll be Focal's face in Southern California, attending industry events, building a local network in hospitality and food & beverage, and making sure the right operators know who we are and what we've built.

Lay the foundation for a team.

As the market grows, you'll play an increasingly important role in shaping how Focal scales, contributing to hiring decisions, onboarding future reps, and helping define the playbook for how we sell in new markets. You're not just closing deals; you're building something.

What We're Looking For
  • 4-8 years of B2B sales experience, with a track record of owning complex, multi-stakeholder deals from prospecting to close
  • Proven experience in account-based selling: you know how to build a target list, map an org, and run a disciplined outreach motion
  • Deep familiarity with the Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego market; existing relationships in hospitality, food & beverage, or real estate are a strong plus
  • Comfort with ambiguity: you've built pipeline in a new territory or for a new product before, and you didn't wait for leads to come to you
  • Early management instincts: you care about developing others and want to build something, not just hit a number
  • Genuine enthusiasm for what Focal is building: you understand why the product matters and can convey that authentically to operators
Why Focal
  • Named to Fast Company's World's Most Innovative Companies of 2026 alongside Waymo, Boston Dynamics, and Toast
  • Proven, measurable results: customers capture up to 80% energy savings, 25% more seating capacity, and a 25% jump in five-star reviews
  • Backed by Collaborative Fund, Third Sphere, Brainstorm Ventures, and leading angels across hospitality and energy
  • A founding team with deep technical and operational chops: Tesla, Zoox, Stanford, Harvard, and Carnegie Mellon robotics
  • Restaurants are just the beginning: Focal's platform is built to extend into homes, offices, warehouses, transit shelters, and hospitals
  • First-mover advantage in one of the most important hospitality markets in the country, with full support from the founding team

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