Account Manager — Client Operations

Focus On The Field; United States; On-site; USD 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Focus On The Field is hiring an Account Manager to turn client needs into organized execution. You will own a portfolio of 5–8 youth-sports clients, coordinating the FOTF team to deliver on deadlines and budgets.

You'll translate requests into clear work, run regular client meetings, and maintain proactive communication, while protecting scope and delivering reliable results across fast-moving environments.

Qualifications

• Strong ability to build and manage client relationships.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Proven ability to prioritize and organize complex work.
• Ability to learn new platforms quickly and work with cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Own day-to-day client relationships for a portfolio of 5–8 clients, expanding to 10–12.
• Turn client needs and requests into organized work with clear owners and deadlines.
• Lead regular client meetings and communicate progress, risks, and follow-ups.
• Coordinate work across the FOTF Operations Specialists and other team members.
• Ensure scope is protected while delivering reliable, timely results.

Skills

Client relationships

Communication

Decision making

Project coordination

Job description

About Focus On The Field

Focus On The Field helps youth sports organizations get the work off their plates that keeps them from focusing on the field.

We operate as an extension of our clients' teams, handling the administrative and operational work required to run their organizations: registration, communications, administration, websites and technology, and other day-to-day projects.

Our clients range from growing local clubs to larger youth sports organizations. Most are led by people who have too much to do, imperfect systems, tight deadlines, and no shortage of things that need attention.

That's where we come in.

Our goal is simple:

A client should be able to tell us, “I need this taken care of,” and trust us to figure out the rest.

We're hiring an Account Manager who can make that experience real.

The Role

This is not a traditional customer-success position.

You'll build strong client relationships, but your primary job is to turn client needs, requests, and occasional chaos into organized execution.

You will be the operating owner of a portfolio of FOTF clients, typically around 5-8 to start, ramping to 10-12 depending on client size and need.

That means understanding what the client needs, identifying what matters most, translating requests into clear work, coordinating the FOTF team, communicating progress, solving problems, and making sure things actually get finished.

The operating loop is:

You don't need to personally do everything, as you’ll work with a team of Operations Specialists to help get the job done.

You do need to make sure everything gets done.

What You'll Own

• Owning the day-to-day client relationship.
• Understanding each client's organization, priorities, calendar, systems, and working style.
• Turning emails, meetings, conversations, and requests into organized work.
• Determining what's urgent, what's important, what can wait, and what needs clarification.
• Coordinating work across FOTF Operations Specialists and other specialists.
• Establishing clear owners, deadlines, and definitions of done.
• Running regular client meetings and following through afterward.
• Making sure work doesn't disappear between emails, meetings, Slack messages, spreadsheets, and task-management systems.
• Keeping clients informed without requiring them to manage our team.
• Identifying risks and problems before they turn into emergencies.
• Knowing when to solve something yourself, delegate it, push back, or escate it.
• Protecting agreed scope while still being helpful.
• Simplifying client workflows instead of adding unnecessary process.
• Learning unfamiliar platforms and systems quickly.
• Helping FOTF increasingly anticipate client needs rather than simply reacting to requests.

What This Role Is Not

This isn't a role where every day arrives with a perfectly organized task list.

Our clients are real organizations run by real people. Information will sometimes be incomplete. Priorities will change. Different stakeholders may have different opinions. A registration deadline may collide with a website problem while someone is still trying to find a document from last season.

You need to be comfortable operating in that environment.

This is also not a role where the Account Manager becomes the hero who personally does everything.

You'll work with Operations Specialists and other FOTF team members who execute much of the work. Your job is to provide clarity, direction, accountability, and client ownership.

You'll Probably Be Good at This If...

You naturally create order when things are unclear.

When someone gives you a messy list of problems, your instinct is to start figuring out:

• What matters first?
• What information is missing?
• Who should own what?
• What can we solve immediately?
• What can wait?
• What does the client actually need from us?

You're also likely to thrive here if you:

• Communicate extremely well in writing and conversation.
• Are comfortable working directly with senior client leaders.
• Stay calm when several things happen at once.
• Make decisions without needing constant approval.
• Follow work all the way through completion.
• Know how to delegate without losing ownership.
• Are willing to respectfully push back when needed.
• Learn new technology by opening it up and figuring it out.
• Can distinguish a real emergency from a loud request.
• Prefer simple, practical systems over elaborate processes.
• Ask good questions without needing every question answered before starting.

Experience That Translates Well

Youth sports experience is a definite plus and highly recommended.

If you've worked inside a youth sports club, league, governing body, tournament operator, sports-management company, or related organization, you'll already understand many of the realities our clients face: registration deadlines, volunteer boards, coaches, parents, changing schedules, fragmented technology, and the occasional fire drill.

That experience matters.

We will also consider candidates with strong, relevant operating experience outside of youth sports- particularly people who have demonstrated that they can manage complex client relationships, organize messy work, and operate effectively in fast-moving environments.

Experience with youth-sports platforms such as PlayMetrics, LeagueApps, TeamSnap, SportsEngine, or similar systems is also a plus, but we care more about your ability to learn new systems quickly than whether you've used any specific one.

A bachelor's degree is not required.

You'll Work With Clients Quickly

This is not a role with a long runway before you begin interacting with clients.

You'll start learning our service model, systems, and team structure immediately—and begin participating in real client work quickly.

We expect a strong Account Manager to:

• Join client meetings early.
• Begin owning follow-up and task coordination quickly.
• Take responsibility for portions of client relationships within the first few weeks.
• Progress rapidly toward independently running client meetings and day-to-day account activity.
• Learn new client systems while the work is happening, not months beforehand.
• Use FOTF leadership for guidance and true escalation, not as a permanent layer between you and the client.

You'll have support, but we're hiring someone because we need another capable owner at the client level. Our goal is to not spend months preparing you to do the job, but rather to get you doing the job well, quickly.

What Success Looks Like

Early On

You should quickly understand how FOTF operates, begin participating directly in client relationships, learn our systems, demonstrate strong written communication, and start taking ownership of client follow-up and work coordination.

As You Ramp

You should be increasingly able to:

• Manage client relationships independently.
• Run client meetings.
• Turn discussions into clear next steps.
• Coordinate work across the FOTF team.
• Handle normal client problems without leadership intervention.
• Exercise good judgment around scope, priorities, and escalation.

The standard we're working toward is straightforward:

The client thinks: “They've got it.”

And FOTF leadership thinks the same thing.

A Few Things We Care About A Lot

Ownership

Sending an email isn't the same as solving the problem.

If something is yours, we expect you to drive it through completion.

Judgment

Not every request deserves the same priority.

We need people who can determine what actually matters.

Communication

Clients should feel informed and confident—not buried in our internal process.

Simplification

We're actively trying to make FOTF and our clients easier to operate.

If your answer to every problem is another meeting, spreadsheet, process, approval, or tool, this probably isn't the right job.

You'll encounter systems you've never used before.

Our preferred response is: “Give me a login.”

The Person We're Looking For

Ultimately, we're looking for someone who can create three reactions:

From the client:

“FOTF has this.”

From the Operations Specialist:

“I know exactly what I'm responsible for.”

From FOTF leadership:

“I don't need to worry about that account.”

If that sounds like the kind of job you're unusually good at, we'd like to hear from you.