Cars.com is a leader in the automotive digital marketplace. Since 1997, we have built our B2B and B2C brand to preeminent status in the industry. While enjoying great stability, we continue to grow – our workforce has more than doubled since 2006 and our revenue has increased more than 150% in that same time. Our highly engaged workforce enjoys a rich set of employee programs and our dedication to work/life balance, wellness and career growth. We’re big enough to provide abundant resources and small enough for employees to make an immediate impact.

YOUR ROLE:

You will be the business lead on your portfolio of accounts. You will lead the business strategy, define the sales plan and be the main point of contact for the OEMs and senior leadership at the Agency. Your clients will see you as their trusted consultant who understands their business challenges and can tailor a suite of solutions to help them meet and exceed their objectives. Through your thoughtful guidance and direction, you will foster existing relationships and build new ones with senior level OEM clients and Agency partners.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Tap your challenger sales mindset to meet or exceed sales goals each year by putting Cars.com on the forefront of our clients’ list of media partners.
• Strong understanding of trends and developments in the digital ecosystem, its implications to Cars.com and how to best leverage to win more share of digital media budgets, (e.g. ad tech, data/data onboarding, CRM systems, attribution models/software, targeting platforms, etc.)
• Be the curator of your client’s business and actively leverage insights, intelligence and relationships to create strategies that will uncover new sales opportunities.
• Cleary position the benefits our audience, product suite and business model to key decision makers at the OEMs and Agencies and demonstrate how Cars.com can help them grow their business.
• Generate business plans for each client that clearly outlines untapped opportunities, new revenue streams and partnerships.
• Be able to dissect industry insights and campaign level analytics to help clients optimize their existing programs as well as identify incremental revenue opportunities based on the findings.
• Collaborate with cross functional teams such as Product Marketing, Consumer Insights, Revenue Management to create large scale sponsorships as well as optimize existing products across mobile responsive, desktop and app.
• Be a resilient and confidant sales lead who can effectively navigate large OEMs and agencies to reach key decision makers.

REQUIRED SKILLS:

• Strong relationship building skills, negotiation skills, analytical skills and knowledge of the automotive industry.
• Strong understanding of the OEM and Agency business model and how to navigate it.
• An understanding of the digital industry's challenges, implications, key players and offerings
• Has a strong background in storytelling and can triangulate several data points to create a compelling story and relay actionable insights to identify and secure new opportunities.
• Experience with programmatic selling and an understanding of the programmatic landscape.
• Experience working across functions in a large organization
• Proven ability to meet or exceed sales goals.
• Effective team player with strong customer service, communication, presentation and problem-solving skills
• Embodies integrity, curiosity, dependability, reliability, self-motivation and a winning attitude
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.). 

QUALIFICATIONS:

• A Bachelor’s degree from an accredited College or University.
• Seasoned sales professional with a proven track record of sales success (exceeding sales goals) to large (multi-million dollar) accounts.
• 5-10 years of outside advertising sales or ad agency experience. A background in selling national advertising is strongly preferred.
• Strong presentation skills.
• Willingness to travel to visit clients for performance reviews, quarterly business reviews, product meetings, etc.