Senior Vice President of Sales

Overview

You're the SVP of Sales at C-4 Analytics, a digital marketing agency serving automotive dealerships. You report to the CRO and own the revenue engine—that means building your own pipeline, closing deals, coaching reps, and figuring out what needs to change to hit growth targets. You sell comprehensive digital marketing packages (paid media, SEO, creative, social, video) to dealer principals and marketing directors at car dealerships across the US.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Private, mature growth (294 employees suggests established but not PE-backed scaled yet)

Size: 294 employees

Growth: CRO role exists, hiring for SVP Sales indicates expansion phase—they have momentum and are investing in sales leadership

Market Position: Challenger in a crowded automotive marketing space—competing against dealer marketing platforms, other agencies, and in-house teams

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 40% Outbound - Your team (and you) are prospecting dealerships directly. Cold calls, LinkedIn, industry events. Automotive is relationship-driven so referrals matter but you can't rely on them.
• 30% Inbound referrals - Existing dealer clients referring other dealers, some conference leads
• 30% Account expansion - Upselling existing clients on additional services (SEO to existing paid media clients, adding creative, etc.)

SDR/AE Structure: Likely building this out—you may inherit some AEs and need to figure out if you add SDRs or keep AEs self-sourcing

SE Support: No traditional SEs—AEs pitch the services, media strategists handle the technical details post-sale

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Other automotive marketing agencies, dealer platforms with built-in marketing tools, dealer groups bringing marketing in-house, general digital marketing agencies trying to break into auto

How They Differentiate: Full-service approach (one agency for everything vs stitching together vendors), automotive-specific expertise, proprietary tech/reporting, claiming to drive actual sales not just leads

Common Objections: "We already have someone handling this," "Inventory is tight so we're cutting marketing spend," "Prove ROI before we switch," pricing concerns vs doing it in-house

Win Themes: Showing tangible vehicle sales impact, reducing dealer's vendor management headache, automotive expertise (understanding conquest vs loyalty campaigns, model-level targeting, etc.)

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Personal Deals (30%) | Team Management (30%) | Pipeline Building (25%) | Internal Strategy (15%)

Key Activities

• Closing your own deals: You're carrying a bag. Taking discovery calls with dealer principals, running proposals, negotiating contracts. These are $50K-$250K annual deals. You need to close 1-2 per month yourself.
• Coaching your team: You inherit some AEs (unclear how many—maybe 3-5). You're listening to their calls, reviewing their proposals, helping them unstick deals, doing ride-alongs to key accounts. Some of them need a lot of help.
• Building pipeline: You're personally prospecting too. Working your network in automotive, calling dealership GMs and marketing directors, attending NADA and regional dealer conferences. You can't just delegate prospecting and hope it works.
• Fixing what's broken: The CRO hired you to scale this. That means figuring out why deals are stalling, whether comp plans work, if they need more reps or better reps, how to improve win rates. You're diagnosing and fixing the revenue engine, not just running plays.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Automotive is relationship-driven and moves slow. Dealers talk to each other. One bad client experience can poison your reputation in a region. You're also selling during inventory crunches and economic uncertainty when dealers cut marketing first.
• You're player-coach, which means you're fighting for time. You need to close your own deals while also coaching reps, building processes, and attending exec meetings. Something always gets squeezed.
• Agency services are harder to sell than software. There's no free trial. Proving ROI is complex (attribution is messy in automotive). Dealers are skeptical because they've been burned by agencies before. Every deal requires custom proposals and pricing.
• Travel is real. "Remote with travel" means you're on the road for conferences, client QBRs, and closing big deals. Probably 30-40% travel if you're doing it right.

What Success Looks Like

• You personally close $2M-3M+ annually while your team hits their collective number (maybe another $5-10M depending on team size)
• You build a predictable pipeline machine—reps know how many calls/meetings they need to hit quota, conversion rates improve, deal velocity increases
• You retain and grow existing clients (churn is death in agency world), proven by net revenue retention above 100%

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• Dealer Principals (owners/GMs of dealerships or dealer groups)
• Marketing Directors at larger dealer groups
• Sometimes Digital Marketing Managers at progressive dealers

What They Care About:

• Actual vehicle sales, not just website traffic or lead volume—they want to see cars moving off the lot
• ROI and attribution—proving your campaigns drove the sales, not just correlation
• Reducing complexity—they're juggling 10+ vendors already, they want one partner who handles everything
• Automotive expertise—they don't want to educate a generalist agency on conquest campaigns, service lane marketing, or model-specific targeting

Requirements

• 10+ years in B2B sales with 5+ years in sales leadership (managing managers preferred)
• Automotive industry experience strongly preferred—you need to speak dealer language and understand the business
• Digital marketing knowledge—you don't need to be a technical expert but you need to understand paid media, SEO, attribution, and how to sell marketing services
• Proven track record building sales teams and processes—they're hiring you to scale, not maintain
• Player-coach mentality—if you want a pure strategy role where you delegate everything, this isn't it
• Comfortable with travel (30-40%) for conferences, client meetings, and team ride-alongs