Vice President of Sales

The Pickle Juice Company

Mesquite (TX)

Hybrid

USD 180,000 - 260,000

Full time

28 hours ago

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Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Paid time off

401k retirement plan

Medical, dental, and vision benefits

Job summary

The Pickle Juice Company seeks a highly experienced VP of Sales to drive aggressive revenue growth and expand distribution across national channels. Reporting to the CEO, the role combines strategic planning, sales leadership, and hands-on execution to build a high-performing commercial team.

You will own the sales plan, optimize profitability, and develop multi-year channel strategies while coaching a lean organization to capture white-space opportunities and elevate consumer reach.

Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree required.
Ten or more years of proven sales experience in CPG preferred.

Responsibilities

Deliver aggressive revenue growth and own the company’s sales plan.
Translate growth expectations into channel, customer, and sales objectives.
Develop white-space strategies across channels, geographies, and new items.
Build and lead a high-performance commercial organization with clear metrics.
Improve forecasting, pricing discipline, and pipeline management.
Establish scalable commercial processes for annual planning, forecasting, and new-item launches.

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Job description

Overview

The Vice President of Sales will lead the commercial growth strategy for a high-growth CPG company operating in the functional sports, hydration, and cramping segments. The company has a differentiated product platform, strong consumer relevance, and significant white-space opportunity across existing and emerging channels.

Functional Beverage / Cramping

Reporting directly to the CEO, the VP of Sales will be responsible for accelerating revenue growth, expanding distribution, building strategic customer relationships, improving sales execution, and developing a high-performing commercial organization.

As a valued member of our team, we ask that you exemplify and uphold our Company’s core values in your daily work. These values—Collaboration, Accountability, Solution Driven, Integrity, and Champion Mindset—are central to our company culture and guide how we interact with each other, our customers, and our community.

This is a hands-on leadership role. The successful candidate must be equally comfortable developing a multi-year channel strategy, presenting to a major national retailer, coaching a Sales Team, analyzing customer profitability, setting & reviewing forecasts, removing barriers to facilitate team efficiency and personally helping close high-value opportunities.

The VP of Sales will inherit a lean commercial team and will be expected to create the structure, accountability, processes, and urgency necessary to support aggressive growth expectations.

Direct Reports

VP, E-Commerce, Strategic & Emerging Channels – responsible for e-commerce, mass, digital commerce, and development of emerging/nontraditional channels.
Sales Director – Grocery – responsible for grocery channel strategy, customer development, distribution expansion, and execution.
Sales Director – Convenience – responsible for the C-store and impulse channel, including national, regional, and distributor relationships.
AE, Sales Planning & Support – responsible for sales analytics, forecasting, customer planning, reporting, sales administration, and commercial support.

The VP of Sales will also work closely with the CEO and leaders across Marketing, Operations, Finance, Supply Chain, Product Development, and other functional areas.

Key Responsibilities

Deliver Aggressive Revenue Growth

Own the company’s overall sales plan and deliver annual revenue, distribution, and profitability objectives.

Translate company growth expectations into clear channel, customer, and individual sales objectives.

Develop a Balanced Growth Strategy Incorporating

Same-store/customer growth
New item placement
New customer acquisition
Increased points of distribution
Geographic expansion
New channel development
E-commerce and emerging channels
Strategic partnerships and distribution opportunities

Maintain a strong pipeline of opportunities capable of delivering both near-term results and sustainable long-term growth.

Attack the White Space

A critical responsibility of this position is identifying where the company is not currently doing business and determining how to win there.

Develop a comprehensive white-space strategy across channels, customers, geographies, occasions, and consumer segments.

Identify and prioritize the highest-potential opportunities based on revenue potential, probability of success, strategic value, profitability, and required resources.

Build actionable plans to convert white-space opportunities into distribution and revenue.

The VP of Sales should continually challenge the organization with the question: “Where is the next meaningful source of growth, and what do we need to capture it?”

Build a High-Performance Sales Organization

Establish clear expectations, goals, and accountability for each member of the commercial organization.

Coach and develop the sales leadership team while creating a culture characterized by: Speed. Accountability. Preparation. Follow-through. Customer focus. Winning.

Establish clear performance metrics and conduct regular individual business reviews with direct reports covering: Revenue versus plan; Distribution gains/losses; Key account performance; New business pipeline; Forecast accuracy; Upcoming customer decisions; Risks and opportunities; Required executive support; Specific next actions.

Ensure sales leaders spend their time against the opportunities capable of materially impacting company growth.

Create a Disciplined Sales Pipeline

Develop and maintain a company-wide sales funnel identifying major opportunities by customer, channel, estimated revenue, probability, timing, next action, and owner.

Separate true opportunities from activity.

Establish clear stages for major opportunities from initial identification through customer engagement, presentation, testing, authorization, distribution, and launch.

Regularly review the pipeline with the CEO and sales leadership team.

The VP of Sales should always be able to clearly answer: What are our largest growth opportunities? What is the probability of winning each? What is preventing us from closing them? What happens next, and who owns it?

Improve Forecasting and Commercial Planning

Partner with Sales Planning, Operations, and Finance to improve forecasting accuracy and visibility.

Establish disciplined forecasting by customer, item, channel, and timing.

Ensure significant new distribution gains, promotions, customer changes, and potential losses are communicated early enough for Operations and Supply Chain to respond.

Develop Rolling Forecasts That Clearly Distinguish Between

Base business
Confirmed incremental business
High-probability opportunities
Longer-term pipeline opportunities

Drive Profitable Growth

Own revenue growth while maintaining strong awareness of profitability.

Evaluate customer and channel opportunities based on total economics, including: Gross margin; Trade spending; Promotional investment; Freight; Broker/distributor costs; Slotting and customer fees; Returns/allowances; Customer-specific requirements; Cost-to-serve.

Partner with the CEO and Finance to ensure the company is pursuing profitable, sustainable growth—not simply volume.

Optimize our current Broker network and Distributor Performance

Evaluate the effectiveness of brokers, distributors, and other external sales partners.

Establish measurable expectations for external partners including distribution objectives, account penetration, pipeline development, reporting, and execution.

Make changes when partners are not delivering appropriate results.

Determine where direct selling versus broker/distributor representation provides the strongest return.

Build Commercial Discipline Without Creating Bureaucracy

As a smaller growth company, the organization needs structure and accountability without unnecessary complexity.

Implement Simple, Scalable Commercial Processes For

Annual sales planning
Customer plans
Pipeline management
Forecasting
Pricing
Trade spending
New-item launches
Customer presentations
Performance measurement
Sales meetings
Broker management

The VP of Sales should bring big-company commercial discipline with small-company speed, creativity, flexibility and entrepreneurial thinking.

Key Performance Indicators

Success will be measured through a combination of financial, distribution, team success and organizational metrics, including:

Net sales growth
Gross margin/profitability
Actual results versus annual operating plan
New distribution
New customer wins
New channel development
Same-customer growth
Points of distribution
Sales velocity
Pipeline value and conversion
Forecast accuracy
Trade-spend effectiveness
Customer retention
Successful new-item launches
Broker/distributor productivity
Performance and development of the sales organization

Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate will have significant sales leadership experience within CPG, preferably involving functional beverages, sports nutrition, hydration, wellness, food/beverage, or other high-growth consumer categories.

Experience should include meaningful exposure to several major retail channels such as grocery, convenience, mass, club, e-commerce, drug, specialty, or emerging channels.

The Candidate Should Have Demonstrated Success

Building businesses rather than simply maintaining established accounts
Opening new customers and channels
Developing national and regional retail relationships
Leading and developing sales teams
Managing brokers and distributors
Building sales pipelines and forecasting processes
Negotiating complex customer agreements
Developing effective customer presentations
Working cross-functionally with Marketing, Finance, Operations, and Supply Chain
Operating effectively in a smaller, entrepreneurial environment

Leadership Characteristics

The Successful VP Of Sales Will Be

Entrepreneurial – Sees opportunities others overlook and finds a way to pursue them.

Growth Oriented – Is energized by aggressive targets and significant market white space.

Hands-On – Will personally engage when an opportunity or problem requires senior-level involvement.

Strategic and Tactical – Can develop a three-year growth strategy and then work through the details required to win next month’s customer presentation.

Data Driven – Uses facts, analytics, customer economics, and market information to make decisions.

Accountable – Takes ownership of results and expects the same from the team.

Customer Focused – Understands how customers make money and develops solutions that create value for both the customer and the company.

Competitive – Possesses a strong desire to win business and outperform competitors.

Decisive – Makes informed decisions quickly and adjusts when circumstances change.

Collaborative – Works effectively across functions and recognizes that sustainable sales growth requires alignment throughout the organization.

Developer of People – Sets high expectations while actively coaching and developing team members.

What Success Looks Like

Within the first 12–18 months, the VP of Sales should have:

Established a clear commercial growth strategy by channel and customer.
Created visibility into the company’s largest white-space opportunities and a disciplined plan for pursuing them.
Built a measurable sales pipeline capable of supporting the company’s long-term growth objectives.
Strengthened relationships with major existing customers while personally developing relationships with strategically important prospects.
Improved sales forecasting, planning, and accountability.
Established clear expectations and performance metrics for the four direct reports.
Improved broker and distributor effectiveness.
Won meaningful new distribution across existing and/or new channels.
Created a commercial organization capable of scaling as the company grows.

Most importantly, the VP of Sales will have established a culture in which the sales organization is constantly focused on where the next significant source of profitable growth will come from—and what must happen to win it.

Qualifications