Director of Sales

Confidential Careers; Wisconsin; On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Company vehicle

Annual bonus

Comprehensive employee benefits

Job summary

Confidential Careers is seeking a Director of Sales to lead an established industrial sales team in the Greater Milwaukee area. The role demands strong leadership, deep technical understanding, and the ability to grow a regional business through disciplined execution and strategic account management.

The ideal candidate combines sales leadership with business judgment, collaborating with engineering, operations, and supplier partners to deliver value-driven solutions and long-term growth.

Qualifications

• Progressive leadership experience managing outside sales professionals in industrial/engineered-product environments.
• Ability to coach experienced salespeople, set accountability, and improve execution without bureaucracy.
• Experience developing sales strategy, territory plans, account-growth initiatives, and new-business approaches.
• Technical familiarity across engineered industrial systems and markets such as motion control, automation, pneumatics, hydraulics, or related technologies.
• Ability to understand complex customer applications and work with engineers and other specialists.
• Experience building senior-level customer and supplier relationships.
• Commercial and financial acumen involving pricing, margins, forecasting, revenue growth decisions.
• Collaborative leadership style that improves processes within a tenured org.

Responsibilities

• Set commercial direction and translate growth priorities into territory and market strategies.
• Lead and develop an established outside sales team with field engagement and customer visits.
• Improve pricing discipline while balancing value and growth.
• Build executive-level relationships with key customers and collaborate on major opportunities.
• Develop supplier relationships and align on market development initiatives.
• Partner with engineering/operations to translate needs into technically sound solutions.
• Identify cross-selling opportunities and broaden technical capabilities offered to customers.
• Contribute to long-term planning and leadership initiatives beyond sales.

Skills

Sales leadership

Strategic planning

Coaching

Account development

Cross-functional collaboration

Pricing & margins

Industrial/B2B sales

Education

Bachelor's degree in business or engineering

Job description

We have been retained to identify a Director of Sales for an established industrial organization entering an important stage of growth and leadership development. This is a highly visible opportunity to lead an experienced technical sales team, strengthen commercial execution, and help shape the future direction of a respected regional business.

The right leader will bring a combination of sales management, business judgment, technical aptitude, and the ability to earn credibility with customers, suppliers, engineers, and a tenured sales organization. Deep technical expertise can be valuable, although the company is equally interested in a strong sales and business leader who understands complex engineered products and can quickly build additional product knowledge with support from an experienced engineering team.

Beyond the immediate sales leadership mandate, this role offers meaningful exposure to the broader leadership team and the possibility of expanded responsibility over time. The company is specifically interested in someone who wants to build, develop people, modernize sales practices thoughtfully, and grow with the organization for the long term.

Responsibilities

This Director will lead a team of established outside sales professionals while working closely with engineering, operations, customer service, other sales leaders, and supplier partners. Success will require equal parts leadership, commercial strategy, coaching, collaboration, and disciplined execution.

• Set the commercial direction for the business and translate growth priorities into actionable territory, account, and market strategies.
• Lead, coach, and develop an established outside sales team through regular field engagement, customer visits, ride-alongs, and individual performance support.
• Strengthen sales discipline through clearer expectations, pipeline visibility, forecasting, accountability, and practical performance metrics.
• Help sales professionals identify and develop new opportunities while continuing to expand long-standing OEM and MRO customer relationships.
• Build executive-level relationships with key customers and serve as a senior commercial resource during important opportunities, negotiations, and complex applications.
• Develop productive supplier relationships and collaborate on market development, customer opportunities, and strategic growth initiatives.
• Partner closely with engineering and operations to translate customer needs into technically sound, commercially viable solutions.
• Improve pricing and margin discipline while balancing competitiveness, customer value, and profitable growth.
• Work alongside other sales directors to identify cross-selling opportunities and bring broader technical capabilities to customers when appropriate.
• Contribute to longer-term business planning and leadership initiatives beyond the immediate sales function.

Skills & Qualifications

The strongest candidates will have led technical or industrial sales teams and know how to improve performance without disrupting the relationships and culture that already make an organization successful. This is a collaborative environment, so influence, coaching, credibility, and sound judgment will matter more than a command-and-control leadership style.

The company is open to more than one successful profile. One candidate may bring deep technical-market expertise combined with solid people leadership. Another may be an exceptional sales and business leader with strong mechanical aptitude and enough technical foundation to lead credibly while relying on engineering resources for deeper application support.

• Progressive leadership experience managing outside sales professionals in an industrial, engineered-product, technical distribution, or similarly complex B2B environment.
• Demonstrated ability to coach experienced salespeople, establish accountability, and improve sales execution without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Experience developing sales strategy, territory plans, account-growth initiatives, and new-business approaches.
• Technical familiarity across engineered industrial systems and markets such as motion control, automation, pneumatics, mechanical systems, hydraulics, or closely related technologies.
• Ability to understand complex customer applications and work effectively with engineers and other technical specialists.
• Experience building and maintaining senior-level customer and supplier relationships.
• Commercial and financial acumen involving pricing, margins, forecasting, revenue performance, and business-growth decisions.
• A collaborative leadership style with the confidence to introduce better processes while respecting a highly tenured organization and established customer relationships.
• Bachelor's degree in business, engineering, or a related discipline.
• Interest in a long-term leadership opportunity with the capability and ambition to take on broader organizational responsibility as the business evolves.

Why This Opportunity

This is an opportunity to step into a meaningful leadership seat rather than simply manage a sales number. The organization combines the relationships and close-knit environment of an established regional business with access to significantly broader technical resources, capabilities, and career opportunities. For a leader with the right performance, fit, and long-term potential, this position could create a path toward broader executive responsibility as future leadership needs develop.

Location

This role is based in the Greater Milwaukee Area of Wisconsin. The company prefers someone already within the market or with meaningful ties to the region, although relocation may be considered for the right candidate.

Travel

Most field activity is within Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest and consists of customer visits, ride-alongs, supplier meetings, and day trips by vehicle. Approximately 25-30% overnight travel should be expected, with most overnight trips occurring within the regional territory.

Competitive base plus an annual bonus opportunity. Final compensation will reflect the candidate's relevant leadership experience, technical depth, and overall fit for the role. The organization also provides comprehensive employee benefits and a company vehicle.