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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for VP Sales

💰 $180,000 - $350,000

SalesLeadershipExecutiveGo-to-Market

🎯 Role Definition

The Vice President of Sales (VP Sales) is the senior commercial leader accountable for achieving revenue targets, building and scaling the sales organization, optimizing the go-to-market (GTM) motion, and ensuring predictable pipeline and quota attainment. This role combines strategic planning, operational rigor, people leadership, and hands-on enterprise selling to maximize customer acquisition, expansion, and retention across direct, channel, and partner motions.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Director of Sales (Enterprise / Mid-Market) with proven quota attainment
  • Head of Sales / Regional Sales Director demonstrating repeatable scaling
  • GM / Country Manager with full P&L or revenue ownership

Advancement To:

  • Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)
  • EVP, Global Sales or Head of Global GTM
  • General Manager (business unit or regional)

Lateral Moves:

  • Head of Customer Success / VP Customer Success
  • VP Sales Operations or Head of Revenue Operations

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Own full-funnel revenue responsibility (ARR/MRR/Bookings) for assigned markets, consistently delivering against quarterly and annual quotas by building a predictable pipeline and driving conversion metrics across the funnel.
  • Develop and execute a multi-year sales strategy aligned with corporate objectives including target market segmentation, product-market fit expansion, pricing and packaging, and distribution mix (direct, channel, partners).
  • Build, hire, and coach a high-performing sales leadership team (regional directors, enterprise AE leads, SDR/BDR managers), establishing scorecards, OKRs, and compensation plans that align rep behaviors with company growth goals.
  • Create and implement territory design and quota setting that drive fair, attainable targets and balanced coverage across geographies, verticals, and account tiers to maximize ROI on sales resources.
  • Design and scale repeatable sales processes and playbooks (prospecting, discovery, demo, negotiation, closing) informed by win/loss analysis and customer lifecycle insights.
  • Lead forecasting cadence and revenue reviews, delivering accurate, data-driven pipeline and bookings forecasts to the executive team and board, and rapidly course-correcting when metrics deviate.
  • Own enterprise sales selling motions for large deals, participating directly in strategic negotiations, executive-level selling, and complex contract and procurement engagements.
  • Partner with Marketing to drive demand generation, campaign strategies, and account-based marketing (ABM) programs that yield qualified pipeline and accelerate deal velocity.
  • Establish and manage channel and partner programs (resellers, system integrators, MSPs) to expand reach, co-sell effectively, enable partner success, and monitor channel-sourced revenue KPIs.
  • Collaborate with Product and Customer Success to feed market insights into product roadmap, ensure successful onboarding and expansion strategies, and reduce churn through coordinated retention plays.
  • Implement a scalable Sales Operations and RevOps function to optimize CRM usage (Salesforce/HubsSpot), commission tracking, quoting (CPQ), deal desk processes, and analytics instrumentation.
  • Drive pricing strategy and commercial terms for deals, including discounting policies, contract templates, SLAs, and escalation rules to protect margin while enabling growth.
  • Set and monitor KPIs across the organization (ACV, CAC, LTV, win rate, sales cycle length) and use these metrics to prioritize initiatives that accelerate revenue and improve unit economics.
  • Lead change management during product launches, M&A integrations, geographic expansions, or GTM pivots — ensuring minimal disruption to revenue and team morale.
  • Architect a world-class hiring, onboarding, and ramp program for new sales hires to shorten time-to-productivity and increase quota attainment across cohorts.
  • Own customer executive relationship management for key strategic accounts, ensuring cross-functional alignment and identifying expansion opportunities (upsell, cross-sell).
  • Manage deal risk and approval processes for large or complex contracts, coordinating legal, finance, and executive stakeholders to close deals efficiently.
  • Develop and present regular business reviews and go-forward plans to the CEO and board, including scenario planning and long-range revenue modeling.
  • Champion a high-performance, diversity-focused sales culture centered on accountability, continuous coaching, structured feedback, and professional development.
  • Evaluate and select sales technology stack (CRM, sales intelligence, CPQ, revenue intelligence, dialers) to improve productivity, forecasting accuracy, and management visibility.
  • Negotiate enterprise partner agreements, OEM relationships, strategic alliances, and referral programs to unlock new distribution channels and revenue streams.
  • Maintain deep market and competitive intelligence, identifying adjacent market opportunities, pricing moves, and competitor tactics to inform strategic decisions.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Coordinate with Legal and Finance to develop scalable contracting frameworks and revenue recognition compliance.
  • Partner with Talent & People operations to define sales competency models, retention programs, and executive succession plans.
  • Lead enablement initiatives including playbooks, battlecards, objection-handling workshops, and executive briefing materials.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Demonstrated mastery of enterprise SaaS sales motions, including high-ticket, multi-stakeholder deal cycles and complex procurement processes.
  • Expert-level experience with CRM platforms (Salesforce strongly preferred; HubSpot acceptable), including reporting, dashboards, and pipeline hygiene best practices.
  • Proven ability in pipeline management, forecast discipline, and quota setting using data-driven methodologies and revenue operations principles.
  • Strong contract negotiation and commercial acumen including experience with MSA, SOW, enterprise procurement, and pricing governance.
  • Practical knowledge of revenue metrics and unit economics (ARR/MRR, ACV, CAC, LTV, churn, gross margin).
  • Experience building and scaling channel and partner ecosystems (resellers, SIs, MSPs) and managing partner enablement and co-selling models.
  • Hands-on use of sales enablement and revenue intelligence tools (Gong, Chorus, SalesLoft, Outreach) to drive win-rate improvements and rep coaching.
  • Familiarity with CPQ, billing systems, and contract lifecycle management for efficient deal execution and revenue recognition.
  • Ability to leverage sales analytics and BI tools (Tableau, Looker, Power BI) for deep-dive analysis, forecasting, and executive reporting.
  • Proficiency with GTM strategy frameworks, account-based selling, and market segmentation to prioritize high-ROI opportunities.
  • Track record of designing compensation plans and incentive models that align rep behavior with company goals.
  • Experience in M&A sales integration and go-to-market harmonization is a plus.

Soft Skills

  • Strong executive presence and persuasive communication — comfortable presenting to boards, investors, and C-level customers.
  • Strategic thinker with a bias for action and exceptional operational execution skills.
  • People-first leadership: coach, mentor, and develop managers and individual contributors to achieve sustained performance gains.
  • High emotional intelligence and stakeholder management across product, finance, legal, marketing, and customer success.
  • Resilient under pressure with a data-driven mindset to make tough decisions quickly and transparently.
  • Exceptional negotiation, conflict resolution, and influence skills to align cross-functional teams and close complex deals.
  • Analytical curiosity and problem-solving orientation with a continuous improvement mindset.
  • Talent magnet: proven ability to recruit, retain, and scale top sales talent across regions.
  • Customer obsession: prioritizes customer value and long-term relationships over short-term transactions.
  • Strong organizational and project management skills to manage simultaneous strategic initiatives.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Finance, Engineering, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

  • MBA or advanced degree from a top-tier institution preferred for candidate pool differentiation.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Business Administration
  • Marketing
  • Finance
  • Computer Science / Engineering (for technical GTM roles)
  • Economics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 10–20+ years total experience with progressive sales leadership responsibility.

Preferred:

  • 12–20 years in SaaS or technology sales with a minimum of 5 years as a senior sales leader (VP, Head of Sales, or equivalent).
  • Proven track record of scaling revenue from mid-market to enterprise, building quota-bearing teams, and hitting predictable ARR growth targets.
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