COO (Remote, Los Angeles)

Blacksmith Agency LLC; California; Remote; USD 200,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Blacksmith Agency, a remote agency serving US clients, seeks a COO to run day-to-day operations across sales, recruiting, delivery, and marketing. You will shape the growth of the organization as the operational leader, balancing profit and client commitments with a hands-on approach to leadership.

You should have a strong sales background, agency experience, and a track record of scaling teams from 40 to 140, while personally owning profit margins and contract negotiations.

Qualifications

• You carried a quota and led salespeople against a number as a VP of Sales, CRO or sales-led GM.
• Agency experience in digital, marketing or creative fields is ideal; SaaS or professional services also work.
• Managed multiple functions reporting to you with numbers, hiring, and leadership decisions.
• Joined a company at a smaller size and helped it grow to 40–140 people.
• You personally carried a profit number including margin responsibilities.
• Real negotiation experience on contracts and with people.
• Strong communicator who aligns four leaders and the founder on what is true today.

Responsibilities

• Own four department leads, their numbers, development, reviews, and contingency decisions.
• Own the weekly rhythm, quarterly priorities, and trade-offs when priorities clash.
• Own profit margins and the cost of hires, deciding which business to take or decline.
• Lead commercial conversations: client contracts, redlines, vendor terms, and deal boundaries.
• Develop and coach operators into true leaders across functions.
• Make day-to-day decisions that align with founder priorities and company goals.

Skills

Sales leadership

Agency experience

Cross-functional leadership

Profit/mmargin management

Contract negotiation

Clear communication

Team growth & scaling

Job description

About The Role

Blacksmith Agency is a remote agency building websites and running paid and organic programs for US clients. As COO you run the company day to day. Sales, recruiting, delivery and marketing all report to this seat. Today that work sits on the founder's desk, which is the whole reason it is open.

Blacksmith Agency

• Executive
• Full time
• Remote (USA or Canada)

Blacksmith Agency is a remote agency building websites and running paid and organic programs for US clients. As COO you run the company day to day. Sales, recruiting, delivery and marketing all report to this seat. Today that work sits on the founder's desk, which is the whole reason it is open. We want an operator who came up through sales. You carried a quota, then managed salespeople against a number, then ran a sales org as a VP of Sales or CRO, ideally at an agency (SaaS or professional services also work), and took on the rest of a business from there. Sales is the department this seat leans on hardest, and you will run it alongside recruiting, delivery and marketing. The founder owns where the business goes; you run it day to day, with the people we actually have, and you are accountable for the profit number underneath.

What You Own

• Four department leads: their numbers, their development, their reviews, and the call when one of them is not going to get there.
• The week. The meeting rhythm, this quarter's priorities, and what gets cut when two of them collide.
• Profit, measured on attainment rather than activity. Margin on delivery, the real cost of a hire, which business we take and which we turn down.
• The commercial conversations: client contracts and the redlines that come back on them, vendor terms, and what we will and will not agree to.
• Building strong operators into actual leaders. Several of them have never been coached as one.
• The decisions that wait on the founder today, made the same day instead.

What You Need

• A sales background: you carried a quota, then led salespeople against a number as a VP of Sales, CRO or sales-led general manager. You can coach a rep, run a pipeline review and close a deal yourself.
• Agency experience first: a digital, marketing or creative agency is ideal. A SaaS or professional services business also works. You know how a services company sells, prices and delivers.
• More than one function reporting to you, where their numbers, their hiring and the decision when a leader was not working out were yours to make. Running a large team inside a single function is a different job.
• You joined a company at one size and left it three or four times bigger. Forty people to a hundred and forty is the shape we mean. Expect to be asked for the headcount the day you arrived, the day you left, and what you put in place to make the second number survivable.
• A profit number you personally carried. Margin, not revenue somebody else sold and not a budget you were handed to spend.
• Real negotiation experience, on contracts and with people. This seat sits across the table often.
• A communicator. Most of what this job is, is being clear with four leaders and one founder about what is true right now.

Please do not apply if

• You have never managed salespeople against a number. A project, program or operations management background without sales leadership is a different seat.
• Nobody has ever reported to you, or you have never owned someone's review or had to performance-manage a leader.
• You have only ever led inside one function.
• The company you point to for growth was already large when you arrived.
• What you want is the visionary seat. That one is taken, and this is explicitly the other one.

None of these are preferences we bend on. They are how we screen, so applying anyway costs you an hour and gets you a no.

Process

Three conversations, then a decision. A thirty minute screen with our recruiter, a first round with the founder this seat reports to, and a final. No take-home project and no panel interview.