Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Van Andel Institute (VAI) is a world-class biomedical research institute dedicated to improving human health. The Sales Operations Specialist will manage sales inquiries, build relationships with educators, and enhance customer engagement while overseeing the sales CRM system and analyzing market opportunities.
Responsibilities
- Manage inbound field trip inquiries and transactional sales from initial inquiry through booking
- Build relationships with teachers and identify opportunities to connect with principals and school administrators for future partnerships
- Conduct follow-up outreach to increase bookings and maximize customer engagement
- Manage sales CRM system, establish data quality standards, audit records, develop reporting dashboards, and recommend process improvements
- Own sales pipeline administration, ensuring data integrity, identifying trends, and recommending workflow improvements to increase sales effectiveness
- Evaluate market opportunities and recommend target schools, districts, educators and outreach priorities
- Analyze competitive activity, customer trends, and booking data to provide recommendations that influence sales strategy
- Provide input and recommendations to with sales leadership, and utilize their direction to develop territory strategies, sales forecasts, customer engagement plans, and operational priorities, and assist with outbound prospecting campaigns as needed
- Manage coordination of event scheduling and rescheduling with school partners as well as all logistics to facilitate events sold (e.g., student participant lists, attendance tracking, and customer communications.)
- Attend and give productive input to sales team during outside sales calls to ensure understanding and drive sales
- Serve as key member of sales team and generally supporting the team as needed
- Approve routine expenditures within established limits
- All other duties as assigned
Skills
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent required
- 2+ years of customer service, inside sales, or sales support experience
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Strong organizational and project management abilities
- Significant experience working with CRM systems (Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, or similar)
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, Word, and PowerPoint
- Ability to manage multiple priorities while maintaining attention to detail
- Comfortable making outbound calls and building customer relationships
- Demonstrated skills including being highly organized, customer-focused, proactive, and enjoys balancing sales, project management, event coordination, and administrative responsibilities
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