Field Account Executive - MN-WI - Moorhead, Minnesota

Why you should join us:

At Sound Agriculture, we believe our food system can nourish consumers while benefiting farming communities and the planet. Through a deeper understanding of plant and microbial biology, we are leveraging the natural power of plants to make agriculture more agile and resilient. Our work focuses on developing nutrient efficiency products and modernizing plant breeding to improve the way we farm and the food we eat.

Sound is a Series D startup funded by leading investors in food and agriculture including Leaps by Bayer, Syngenta Group Ventures, S2G Ventures, BMO Impact Investment Fund, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Fall Line Capital, Cavallo Ventures, FootPrint Coalition and Northpond Ventures.

What you'll do:

We are hiring a Field Account Executive to achieve maximum sales growth and demand generation with large, progressive growers and dealers in their assigned region. This role focuses on outbound sales generation, renewals, and dealer prospecting working collaboratively with Regional Sales Managers (RSMs), Agronomists, dealers, and strategic partners to close business with growers throughout the assigned territory.  

This is an exciting opportunity for those with experience selling agricultural inputs to farmers and dealers to impact multiple go to market channels (direct to grower and B2B dealer network). Ideal candidates understand land stewardship as the heart of agriculture, desire to disrupt status quo with innovative crop nutrient products and services, and care deeply about sustainability including fertility, soil health, and water quality. Successful candidates are able to emphasize their experience closing sales and achieving high growth sales targets through their passion for active hunter sales. 

This position reports to the Director, Field Sales and is based remotely within the assigned territory.  Travel expectations of approximately 25% travel, including customer meetings, presentations, joint sales calls, dealer meetings, and supporting trade shows. We are open to candidates who reside in the territory (Minnesota & Wisconsin).

Compensation Target

We offer a competitive base compensation dependent on experience with an additional uncapped commission of $20-25K measured by sales against quota. Commission earnings are paid three times annually. 

Sound reserves the ability to adjust the compensation range based on the final candidate’s experience, skillset, and geography. In addition to on-target earnings, we offer above-average equity grants for the industry as we believe that every employee should have a stake in the company’s growth. If you’re above this compensation target, we encourage you to reach out and discuss the entire package and opportunity before deciding not to pursue this position. 

Responsibilities

• 50% account management activities 
  • Improve qualification of customer to improve customer retention rates year over year
  • Renew a minimum of 75-80% of customers in the territory with 150% growth
  • Increase LOGO and net retention of direct to grower business
  • Work to maintain customer satisfaction, completing expected touch points throughout the year
• 50% outbound prospecting including calls, emails, texts, in person events and social media messages to generate interest in SOURCE products
  • Drive a value-based sales process, differentiate SOURCE from other agricultural products
  • Ownership in the entire sales process
• Utilize CRM (Salesforce and Outreach.io), social media, and other digital tools to build awareness and interest in our SOURCE product line
  • Responsible for prospecting and building sales lead lists, then personalize pitching to build the company’s client list
  • Execute outbound lead generation including the use of software like Salesforce, Outreach.io, and related tools to have an appropriate activity cadence through phone, email, and text
  • Increase speed and percentage of outbound prospect conversion and close rates
  • Logs activities into the Customer Relationship Management (Salesforce and Outreach.io) systems
  • Utilizes call recording functionality to improve individualized and team training and development, pinpoint communication opportunities that lead to positive or negative customer sentiment, improve departmental understanding of customers, increase understanding of the complete sales cycle
  • Accountability to maintain accuracy in a rolling pipeline reviewed bi-weekly with the Director, Field Sales
  • Successfully build referral based business objectives and execution strategies
• Achieve sales targets in collaboration with Regional Sales Managers and Agronomists, helping to close strategic grower accounts with SOURCE products
  • Maintain open channels of communication and collaboration with the regions via regular updates and quarterly strategy meetings
  • Identifies and develops sales opportunities within a designated geographic market/account
  • Work lock-step with RSMs and Agronomists within assigned region; including:
    • Meeting with growers in person when necessary
    • Presenting and dealer and grower events
    • Potentially calling on dealer prospects and renewals
  • Complement the Inbound AE and RSM teams at trade shows, working collaboratively to keep revenue goals top of mind.
• Participates/engages in ongoing sales skills and personal development training once a month
• Understands the seasonality of sales in agriculture in assigned region
• High level of prioritization and execution by attainment of individual, team, and cross-functional OKRs

Targeted Skills & Experience

• Tenacity in digital outbound sales calling; excitement for hunting new sales opportunities and growing new business
• Demonstrated success as a direct sales professional including achievement of sales goals across multiple products and industries
• Strong passion and enthusiasm for sustainable agriculture
• Experience identifying customer needs and crafting a personalized value-proposition
• Ability to sell based on value and ROI, including business financials and price/volume relationships
• Ability to build strong relationships in person, over the phone, and by video conferencing 
• Experience selling new product lines that create a new market, vs. established categories that are mostly stealing market share
• Strong working knowledge of Google Suite, Salesforce, and Outreach.io

This role demonstrates our core values by:

• Boldness: Actively analyzes market opportunities and pursues all qualified leads; pushes beyond sales goals and targets to achieve big results for our customers and colleagues.  Takes initiative to seek out and attempt new sales tactics for lead generation and closing deals.  
• Ownership: Is willing to do whatever it takes to meet and exceed sales targets.  Takes charge of their assigned territory and overcomes regional challenges to meet sales targets.  Collaborates with different internal teams to successfully close deals.  
• Tenacity: Not easily discouraged by rejection, does not make excuses, is solutions-oriented, willing to accept a challenge and do what it takes to overcome, personal drive to move forward, starts and finishes strong.
• Creativity: Uses a blend of new tactics and trusted tools to generate leads, pursue growers, and close deals.

What we offer:

• Opportunity to work in a disruptive startup with a talented, experienced, and growing team of dedicated individuals
• Competitive total rewards package, including equity
• Performance bonus structure or uncapped commission plan for sales positions
• Comprehensive health care plans that include Medical, Dental and Vision coverage
• Flex Spending Account (Healthcare, Dependent Care & Commuter Benefit)
• 401(k) with company match
• Generous flexible paid time off
• Paid parental leave
• Mental health and wellbeing benefits 
• In-person and virtual events and engagement activities (we actually like hanging out with each other!) (e.g. First Fridays, Meditation, Potlucks, Cultural Events, Running and Climbing groups, Photo Contests, weekly Team lunch, etc.)

Sound Agriculture does not accept unsolicited resumes from individual recruiters or third party recruiting agencies responding to job postings. We will not respond to unsolicited requests to submit candidates.

Equal Employment Opportunity

We seek a diverse pool of applicants and consider all qualified candidates regardless of race, ancestry, color, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, citizenship, disability, Veteran status, marital status, or any other protected status.

Sound 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 United States. If E-Verify cannot confirm that you are authorized to work, Sound 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 Sound takes any action, including terminating your employment.