Business Development Manager

We are seeking a Remote Business Development Manager for a full-time and direct hire role for one of our amazing partners. They offer great base pay and uncapped commission. They are a services company that helps any industry that is highly dependent on seasonal labor like agriculture, landscaping, hospitality, or nurseries, legally bring on seasonal workforces by helping them navigate the government approval processes.

Overview:

You will be part of the growth team that is responsible for helping to drive the use of their services to potential clients. You will identify new business opportunities aligned with their target ICP, which is any industry that is highly dependent on seasonal labor like agriculture, landscaping, hospitality or nurseries. You will dive deep into their businesses to understand their needs and eligibility for their services. You will need creative prospecting skills to strategically go after net new business, build & manage a strong pipeline, and execute their aggressive go to market strategy.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Responsible for full sales cycle of opportunities from qualifying and discovery to close and conversion.

Net new logo acquisition through strategic prospecting and marketing-qualified leads for advancement.

Must be data and performance metrics driven to understand the drivers of sales velocity and the need for accurate forecasting and consistency.

Nurture strong cross-functional relationships with customer success, marketing, legal, and QC to ensure selling alignment.

Effectively articulate value proposition and leverage the value selling methodology.

Monitor the market trends and conditions and proactively follow competitor activity to refine marketing strategies and provide recommendations for improved marketing channel optimization.

QUALIFICATIONS:

3+ years of B2B sales experience as an individual contributor with a strong record of quota attainment.

Experience working with ICPs in industries that are highly dependent on seasonal labor like agriculture, landscaping, hospitality, nurseries, etc.

Experience with sales technology stack including CRM (Salesforce preferred), sales intelligence tools, and sales communication platforms (Gong preferred).

A results-orientated mindset focused on meeting and exceeding individual quotas.

A systematic approach to pipeline generation and management.

Strong attention to detail and process rigor with a continuous improvement attitude.

A self-starter that is comfortable working in a dynamic culture where everyone pitches in.

Bachelors degree or relevant work experience.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, age, ancestry, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, or military or veteran status. You must be legally authorized to work in the United States without current or future sponsorship.

My notes:

Role: This role will report to the VP of Growth, and you will help bring on new clients to use their consulting services to help with the H2B visas process. These are non-agricultural clients, like landscaping, building, janitorial and hospitality. You should be able to speak to a blue-collar landscaper or builder. You will get leads, qualify companies, and own a campaign or 2. You will need to be able to do strategic outreach and sales prospecting, and should know how the sales process works. The SDR’s are bringing in a lot of leads due to their outreach, and they are tracking well for the year. They’ve ramped up their marketing efforts and they are seeing a lot of improvements there. The AE will be responsible for prospecting by doing strategic outreach, as well as having phone meetings with the clients. They are selling to landscaping, building, janitorial, and hospitality companies. They do have an aggressive growth strategy, and there is a lot of demand for their services. You are selling to a lot of old school people that aren’t necessarily high tech, so there will be a lot of cold calling and social media reaching out. There will be a lot of relationship building and the sales cycle tends to be quicker around 45 days. Sales are about $5K-$6K per transaction on average, but they don’t know how many people each client will need, so the AE’s are paid per enrollment instead. They average about 30 new enrollments per month during the first 2 quarters and about 40-50 per month during the last 2 quarters. The territory is all over the US, and they will sell to smaller to mid-size companies. They are in all 50 states but they are targeting 3-4 states at a time and penetrating those states. Once they’ve done that, they are going to move on to additional states and they will follow the seasons to do so. Once they bring on the new business, they will pass those relationships to the Case Managers to manage the accounts. They currently have a 95% client retention rate, which is excellent. This is mostly inside phone sales, and it’s all new business. They have a playbook and sales process in place. They will be trained in salesforce and Pardot, and they will go through a 6-week training program to learn their business.

Must have: They should have 1 - 3 years of AE experience doing outreach and hitting a quota. SDR or BDR experience is ok too, but they must have been accountable for managing a pipeline and quota. Ideally, they’ve worked for a small to medium sized company and they should understand the sales process. They should know pipeline management and that their pipeline should be 3 times their quota. Ideally someone with experience engaging with their key ICPs (landscapers/builders/janitorial/hospitality) and are prepared to roll up their sleeves to help strategically prospect to supplement their SDR efforts. They should be able to work autonomously and should have a scrappy mentality. Spanish is a plus, but they must have good communication. They are a service-based business, so they’d love someone that comes from that space. Selling h2a or h2b visas is a bonus.

Quotas: They average about 30 new enrollments per month during the first 2 quarters and about 40-50 per month during the last 2 quarters (their busy season). In Q1 they were at 80% of quota, and Q2 is already at 90% of quota. Their quota is based on net new logos, and based on physical enrollment, because they can’t control the number of people each client will need. They get a fixed amount per enrollment, and it’s about $100/enrollment. There is a ramp period while they are training the first 6 weeks and before they start generating their own business.

Leads: Right now, about 50% of their leads are cold leads, that the AE is prospecting themselves with about a 4% close rate. The other 50% is from MQL (marketing qualified leads) that the SDR’s are bringing in. Those are warmer leads, so they have about a 13% close rate.

Why open: The marketing efforts have increased and the SDR’s are bringing in a ton of leads. There is a lot of demand that they can’t keep up with. Plus, they hired a couple of AE’s that are no longer with them. One was very good, but he went back to landscaping, and he left on very good terms. Another person came from tech, and she struggled to understand their business. She didn’t like rolling up her sleeves to prospect herself, and also was a perfectionist that had paralysis by analysis. She was also there before the SDR function produced as many leads as they are now, so there was more prospecting needed. She’s back in software sales and still on very good terms with them and sends them leads.

Team: They currently have 2 other AE’s, and they are hoping to have 5 of them once they are done building their team. They are looking to hire at least one now but might consider two.

Career path: They have a relatively flat hierarchy, but there could be other opportunities as they grow. The next step would be a Director of Sales and then potentially a VP if the VP moves into a CRO role. They are also looking into acquisitions over the next 12 months, so there could be a lot of potential there to move into a different role within the business.

Travel: You will likely not travel to see clients unless necessary. There are about 15 events throughout the year that you will attend, so maybe 10-15% max travel.

Interview: There will be 3 interviews. It will be with Marcus, someone from sales enablement and then HR. They might meet with the CEO if he replaces someone, but no more than 3 interviews. Also, Marcus will be in the Dominican Republic from May 8-May 12th.

Work hours: Their standard hours are Monday-Friday 8:30/9a-5:00p.

Falling short: he had 2 interviews for AE’s. Both were ok, but accents were too strong. They had financial services experience which was ok. One worked for a larger entity, which wasn’t good.

About Marcus (VP of Sales): He started in July 2023 and lives in GA. His LI is He’s originally from England and has a great accent. He leads the growth team for masLabor and he’s over sales and marketing. He has about 10 people on his team and will be adding 2-3 more. Plus, he might add a customer success person in the future too. They have sales enablement people, 2 AE Closers, and a handful of SDR’s. He even has some hybrid/offshore people that help too. They have some interns that help with marketing too. They use a 3rd party company to help with SEO and their website.

Remote/Onsite: VA or ATL is ideal, but they are open to remote in EST or CST time zones. They should be near an airport.

Salary/OTE/Bonus: $80K plus variable ($20K-$30K) to put you at $100K-$110K OTE. There is no cap and you can definitely make more if you go over a quota, but that is a realistic and achievable number for just hitting quota.

Company info:

Company: They are based in Charlottesville, VA. másLabor is a business-to-business consulting firm specializing in employment-based visa programs for the agricultural, commercial landscaping, hospitality, and construction industries. They are the nation's leading provider of comprehensive H-2A (agricultural) and H-2B (non-agricultural) services, representing thousands of American businesses that depend on their professional expertise to understand the programs' complex regulatory requirements. They also provide services to businesses seeking to employ skilled Mexican and Canadian professionals through the TN program and employers seeking to sponsor their foreign workers for lawful permanent residence in the U.S. (i.e. "green cards"). Their business is at the intersection of labor, international relations, business, and government affairs. Their core mission is saving American businesses, and másLabor is the national leader in our industry. Each year, they help thousands of businesses secure a capable, reliable, legal seasonal workforce by helping them navigate complex government approval processes. Their close-knit team deals with government bureaucrats so their clients can focus on what they do best – running their businesses. Their work is challenging, but rewarding, as they deliver “wins” on behalf of business owners and help them stay compliant in a heavy-regulated environment. másLabor was established in 2003 by Libby Whitley, whose leadership experience included two decades in Washington, D.C. advocating on behalf of agricultural and other seasonal employers. másLabor continues as a preeminent industry leader and supporter of seasonal businesses. They serve on the National Council of Agricultural Employers (NCAE) Executive Committee, and are a Seasonal Employment Alliance (SEA) founding member. Today the business is led by CEO Edward Silva. With a background in operations, technology, agriculture, and small businesses, Edward is poised to lead másLabor into the next chapter of saving American businesses.

Overview: másLabor is proud to be the #1 provider of H-2 services in the U.S. They obtain over 70,000 foreign workers per year (mostly Mexican and South American), which is more than the next three service providers combined! They aren’t a law firm, but consultants or advisors to their clients. They basically help US employers navigate the H2 visa process, and they efficiently process low value visas. They work with a lot of blue-collar professionals and they have lawyers on staff. They help companies bring in short term lower-level workers the legal way. The H-2A (agricultural) Visa is more for farm type of work and the H-2B (non-agricultural) visa is more for landscaping and other blue-collar type of roles. The H2 visa is used for seasonal work, and when they are done, they go back home or on other contracts. masLabor helps their clients with paperwork & filing, and even recruiting out of Mexico. They have a logistics arm to help recruit new workers and get them to the US. Once they are in the country, they help their clients stay compliant. They want to get to 100,000 visas per year. Competitors are generally law firms, and most don’t have logistics and recruiters in Mexico. They have about 75 people total but growing.

Remote: Most of the team is in VA. They are open to remote workers, but the bar will be raised.

Tech: They were behind in tech when the new CEO took over in 2021, and they wanted to shift away from a mom-and-pop type of business. They have been going through a transformation, and they brought in a new VP of Tech to take them to the next step in 2022. They were using Microsoft access, but now they are using Salesforce. They are going to NetSuite, and moving from Outlook to Zendesk. They are going to Hubspot as well. Their IT team primarily supports internal systems, but they work with some external systems like their client portal as well.

IT Team (March 2024): The team is about 22 people now, but some of them are non-billable offshore resources that are managing the offshore team. The offshore team is about 80% development, QA, BA and Release. He has 7 people onshore now, and that is up from 3. They were all internal promotions of people that moved from business to IT, other than the database admin that has been there about a month. The onshore people that moved to IT internally are Product Specialist for the most part. He wants to add one onshore DevOps person, but it won't be until next year. They are repurposing a developer and training them to do DevOps, butt hey won't be able to handle alone. They have an IT ops team that handles infrastructure, but the DevOps will help them with go lives. They also want to add a stateside QA next year too. Their budget comes out at the end of Dec, and he's putting together use cases for it now.

Personalities: They have 5 core company values. Those are grit, client focused, data driven, bias to action and clarity. They like people who feel for the underdog. They work with a lot of small to mid-sized businesses that are struggling to find people, and they want to help clients succeed. They need someone who is comfortable with change as the business goes from adolescents to adulthood.

Benefits: 401(k) matching, Health insurance, Free dental and vision insurance, Health savings account, Life insurance, 3 weeks of PTO with generous holidays, and Parental leave (birthing and non-birthing parent). Benefits kick in the first day of the month following start date. You will receive her 40 hours of PTO on your 90th day, and it will accrue every pay period thereafter for a total of 3 weeks your first year.

Leadership:

Edward Silva, CEO: He’s been the CEO since July 2021. He got his BS at UCal-Davis and his master’s at Stanford. He grew up in Cali and his family are all Raider’s fan. He joked that he’s a chiefs fan to go against them. His wife went to Oregon so they are hard core Ducks fans. He lives in VA now with his wife, 4 year old boy and 2 year girl. His Linked In is Here is a great article about Edward too. His calendly is

April Pish, COO: She is the COO