Senior Business Development Representative - Retail SaaS

First Insight (Fi); Pittsburgh (Allegheny County); Hybrid; USD 70,000 - 80,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid healthcare coverage

401(k) with company match

Paid Time Off (PTO) including holidays and sick days

Job summary

First Insight (Fi) is seeking a Senior Business Development Representative in Pittsburgh, PA. In this role, you will be responsible for leading outreach campaigns designed to generate qualified meetings for the sales team. Leveraging AI tools like ChatGPT, you'll engage retail executives and craft messages that resonate with their business needs.

The position requires at least 3 years of B2B business development experience, proficiency with CRM tools, and the ability to communicate effectively with C-suite executives. A competitive salary and generous benefits package are included.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of business development or sales development experience (B2B).
• Proven track record of running email-led outbound campaigns.
• Experience using AI tools for prospecting and outreach.

Responsibilities

• Own the top of the funnel – multi-touch email campaigns to book meetings.
• Run outreach across email, phone, and text/SMS to engage decision-makers.
• Qualify opportunities generated and pass to Account Executives.

Skills

Business development

Email campaigns

Communication with executives

AI tools

CRM experience

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, or related field

Tools

HubSpot

Apollo.ai

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Job description

Company Overview

The most successful brands have always had strong instincts about what customers want. The difference now is that the best ones don’t guess – they hear directly from consumers, at scale, before a single decision is made. That is what First Insight does. Retail is flooded with AI that predicts from history and fills the gaps with assumptions. We ground decisions in something harder to replicate: real consumer voice. Brands put products, prices, and assortments in front of actual shoppers and learn what people will truly buy, so they design, price, and plan with evidence before they commit, instead of finding out they were wrong at markdown. First Insight is AI‑native. On top of that real consumer feedback, our predictive AI and proprietary algorithms answer the questions that decide a season – what will sell, to which consumers, and at what price – before a single unit is committed. Generative AI (Ellis) makes that intelligence fast to query and act on. Together they power our AI‑driven Voice of the Customer platform and Value Score, trusted by brands like Under Armour, Family Dollar, Coppel, and Boden across retail, apparel, footwear, automotive, home goods, CPG, and hospitality worldwide.

The Opportunity

As a Senior Business Development Representative at First Insight, you are the first conversation a retail leader has with us. You will own the top of the funnel: researching target accounts, crafting outreach that earns a reply, and booking qualified meetings that turn into pipeline for our Account Executives. The message you carry is a real advantage. You are not selling another lookalike AI tool – you are reaching buyers, merchants, designers, planners, and executives who are tired of AI that guesses, with a story grounded in real consumer signal. When the pitch is differentiated and true, the right doors open. This is an AI‑native role. You will use modern AI – Claude, ChatGPT, and our own tooling – to automate research, draft and personalize outreach at scale, and put your time into the conversations that book meetings, not the busywork around them. This is a high‑visibility role with a direct line to senior sales leadership and a clear path forward – our strongest BDRs grow into Account Executive and closing roles. If you are energized by the hunt, you write well, and you want to own the engine behind a growing AI company’s pipeline, this is your seat.

What You’ll Do

• Own the top of the funnel – primarily multi‑touch email campaigns that book qualified meetings for the sales team.
• Run multi‑channel outreach across email, phone, and text/SMS to engage retail executives and decision‑makers.
• Build and personalize ABM and 1:1 messaging that connects First Insight’s real‑consumer‑voice advantage to each account’s marketplace dynamics, priorities, and business drivers.
• Use AI to work at scale – Claude, ChatGPT, and automation – to research accounts, build target lists, draft and personalize sequences, and qualify faster, so more of your day goes to booking meetings.
• Use HubSpot, Apollo.ai, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator to build target lists, sequence outreach, and track engagement.
• Qualify the opportunities you generate, then hand off warm, well‑qualified meetings to Account Executives.
• Research accounts and translate First Insight’s value into language that resonates with buyers, planners, and the C‑suite.
• Network and represent First Insight at events to source new conversations and referrals.
• Hit metric‑driven goals for meetings booked and qualified pipeline created.

What You Bring

Required Qualifications and Skills

• 3+ years of business development or sales development experience (B2B), ideally in SaaS, AI, data, or technology.
• A track record running email‑led outbound campaigns that consistently book meetings.
• Hands‑on experience with HubSpot (or a comparable CRM) and prospecting tools such as Apollo.ai and LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
• Strong writing skills – able to craft concise, compelling ABM and 1:1 messages that resonate with retail executives.
• Comfort with multi‑channel outreach: email, phone (including cold calls), and text/SMS campaigns.
• Confidence communicating with executive‑level contacts.
• The ability to learn a differentiated, evidence‑led story and carry it credibly to senior retail buyers – not just recite features.
• Hands‑on use of AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, or similar) to automate and scale prospecting, research, and personalized outreach – and the instinct to keep finding new ways to apply them.
• A self‑motivated, highly organized, analytical approach and a strong grasp of sales performance metrics.
• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Must be authorized to work in the United States.

Preferred Qualifications and Skills

• Retail and/or consumer products sector experience.
• Experience selling solutions in emerging markets or new categories.
• Familiarity with AI, consumer intelligence, or predictive analytics.
• A working understanding of how retail decisions get made – buys, assortment, pricing, and markdowns.
• Experience with sales engagement and sequencing tools (e.g., Outreach, Salesloft).
• A strong network and a habit of prospecting into enterprise accounts.

Compensation

$70,000–$80,000 annual base salary, plus commission opportunities. Actual compensation may vary based on experience, qualifications, skills, geographic location, and business needs.

Benefits & Perks

First Insight offers eligible employees paid employee healthcare coverage; a 401(k) with company match; employer‑paid life and long‑term disability insurance; and a generous Paid Time Off (PTO) package including paid holidays and sick days – in a positive, mission‑driven team environment.

How to Apply

Along with your resume, tell us in a few sentences how you have used AI to drive demand generation or book meetings – the tools you reached for, the workflow you built, and the results it produced. We read this closely.