Account Manager – Education

About the job

Are you passionate about bringing people together? Are you inspired by enabling leadership, driving change and giving people a voice? If so, keep reading…

We are looking for an Account Manager on our Education team to work with our strategic K12 school district customers. The ideal candidate has impeccable relationship-building, negotiation and inside sales skills, is a problem solver not afraid to think outside the box, and is customer centric in everything they do. You will work together with sales and customer success leadership to develop a repeatable renewal and upsell motion and to continually improve on your ability to uncover and prove value in order to find use cases and solutions that create stickiness and prevent churn. In addition, this candidate should value and practice transparent leadership and continuously strive to grow professionally and personally.

Responsibilities include:

• Account Management for the purposes of renewal and upsell: Follow a strategic and commercial approach to managing the end-to-end renewal process for a portfolio of assigned customer accounts. Actively look for and close opportunities for upsells within existing accounts.
• Discover and prove value to Executive Sponsor: Understand what value means to the customer via ongoing discovery and success planning. Provide customer with quarterly business review/reports. Proactively engage with existing customers to review overall account health, customer outcomes, new product offerings, and consult to help sustain and grow our footprint in these accounts.
• Customer relationship management: Be strategic in identifying and developing relationships with the Executive Sponsor, Champions and other key contacts within the assigned portfolio to be seen as a trusted advisor and valued partner; leverage these relationships to expedite your other responsibilities.
• Cross-team collaboration: Collaborate with internal ThoughtExchange teams to ensure: a smooth customer experience, the Customer Success Manager is well positioned to drive usage and value, that the customer is set up for success, and that product and marketing continue to hear customer feedback.
• Managing and navigating complex/ large organizational structures
• Development of business acumen and subject matter expertise through ongoing professional development

About you:

• Sales acumen: You have strong discovery and value selling skills and are comfortable leading and closing renewal and upsell conversations
• Customer relationship management, including coaching, change management and the ability to engage at the executive level
• Ability to show up as a thought partner to executive-level leaders and maintain a strong presence in customer calls
• Ability to manage complex objections
• Excellent communication skills: You have a proven ability to listen deeply, understand and communicate effectively with all stakeholders
• Process orientation with good planning and time management skills including ruthless prioritization
• Administration competency including maintenance of pipeline hygiene and data-based workflow organization
• Critical and strategic thinking skills
• Proven ability to take ownership and demonstrate accountability
• Flexibility, including the ability to read the room and the customer context in order to respond appropriately in unique contexts
• Thorough product knowledge and ability to transmit excitement for the product
• Collaborative with excellent relationship building and stakeholder management skills, including the ability to manage complex objections and manage conflict

Preferred experience & qualifications:

• 2-5+ years of quota carrying software/technology sales and/or account management experience
• Experience performing your own software demos and be hands-on with the solution working with customers
• Experience working with K12 and Higher Education customers is a bonus

If you don’t see yourself fully reflected in every job requirement listed on the posting above, we still encourage you to reach out and apply. Research has shown that women and underrepresented groups often only apply when they feel 100% qualified. We are committed to creating a more equitable, inclusive and diverse company and we strongly encourage applicants of all genders, ages, ethnicities, cultures, abilities, sexual orientations, and life experiences to apply.

ThoughtExchange welcomes applications from people with disabilities. Support is available upon request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process. Finally, we know from time to time emergencies happen and you may need to reschedule an interview – we understand and encourage you to be in communication without worrying about losing the opportunity or your credibility.