The Manager, Sales Consulting leads Paciolan's pre-sales strategy and plays a critical role in driving new business, client retention, and account growth. This individual serves as a strategic partner to Business Development, defining win strategies, shaping solution positioning, and helping prospects understand the value of Paciolan's ticketing, fundraising, marketing, and analytics solutions.
This role combines strategic thinking, consultative selling, competitive intelligence, and solution expertise to help Paciolan win in diverse markets, including college athletics, higher education, performing arts, entertainment venues, professional sports, and concerts. The Manager, Sales Consulting will also champion scalable, AI-enabled processes that improve sales effectiveness, accelerate pursuit cycles, and increase win rates.
Essential Duties & Responsibilities:
Pursuit Strategy & Sales Leadership
- Develop and lead pursuit strategies for high-priority opportunities, including bid/no-bid decisions, win themes, solution design, and competitive positioning.
- Partner with Business Development leaders to identify and execute winning strategies across new business, renewal, and expansion opportunities.
- Lead the solution strategy and content development for RFP responses, ensuring accurate technical, functional, and business recommendations.
- Prepare teams for finalist presentations by developing compelling demonstration narratives aligned to evaluation criteria and client priorities.
- Maintain ownership of solution and product content within the proposal knowledge library to ensure accuracy and consistency.
Segment-Focused Sales Support
- Customize pursuit strategies, demonstrations, messaging, and competitive positioning to address the unique needs of each market segment.
- Understand and adapt to varying purchasing processes, from formal higher education procurement to direct negotiations with private organizations.
- Develop and maintain segment-specific playbooks, including buyer profiles, common business challenges, competitive dynamics, and reference customer success stories.
- Serve as a trusted advisor to Business Development teams, providing strategic insight throughout the sales cycle.
Competitive Intelligence
- Lead Paciolan's competitive intelligence program, including market analysis, competitor profiling, pricing insights, battlecards, and win/loss reviews.
- Analyze publicly available procurement records, award documentation, and competitive proposals to identify trends, opportunities, and strategic advantages.
- Partner with Product Marketing and Partner Engagement teams to ensure messaging reflects current market conditions and competitive dynamics.
Pre-Sales & Solution Consulting
- Manage and maintain demonstration environments and databases to support client engagements.
- Deliver and coordinate tailored product demonstrations that address each prospect's business objectives and operational needs.
- Facilitate discovery sessions to document business and technical requirements and support a seamless transition to implementation teams following contract execution.
- Build trusted relationships with executive, operational, and technical stakeholders throughout the sales process.
Sales Enablement & Innovation
- Provide solution expertise, market intelligence, and competitive insights to support the development of sales presentations, case studies, value propositions, and customer-facing materials.
- Drive adoption of AI-powered tools and best practices across pre-sales workflows to improve research, analysis, proposal development, and productivity.
- Identify and implement scalable processes that improve efficiency and strengthen overall sales performance.
Cross-Functional Leadership
- Serve as a key liaison between Sales and Product teams, translating market feedback, competitive intelligence, and customer requirements into actionable product insights.
- Collaborate closely with Product Management, Product Marketing, Partner Engagement, Professional Services, and Business Development to align go-to-market efforts.
- Develop reporting and dashboards that measure RFP activity, win rates, sales effectiveness, and pre-sales influence across market segments.
Skills and Competencies
- Strategic judgment: Sets the win strategy for a pursuit, decides where Paciolan should and should not compete, and defends that call to leadership.
- Consultative discovery: Asks the questions that surface what an evaluation committee actually scores, then builds the demo and response around it.
- Segment fluency: Understands how buyers, decision-makers, and competitors differ across segments, and adjusts the approach to fit.
- Presenting to committees: Tells a clear value story to mixed audiences, from ticket office staff to athletic directors, presenting arts leaders, and procurement officers.
- Process ownership: Runs several pursuits and demo requests at once against hard deadlines.
- Analytical reading of competitors: Turns public records, pricing, and evaluator scoring into practical guidance for the next bid.
- Cross-functional influence: Moves Product, Product Marketing, Partner Engagement, Professional Services, and Sales without direct authority.
- Self-direction: Spots what needs doing and acts on it without waiting to be assigned.
Minimum Qualifications:
- 7+ years of combined experience in ticketing and fundraising technology, with direct experience in at least one of: college athletics, performing arts & entertainment, arenas, pro sports, or concerts
- 3+ years of hands-on Paciolan experience in ticket operations, ticket sales, client services, fundraising, or related functions.
- Demonstrated success developing sales strategies and influencing complex pursuits from qualification through contract award.
- Knowledge of public-sector procurement processes and public-records research.
- Experience utilizing AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot, Claude, or comparable technologies.
- Proficiency with CRM platforms, including Salesforce.
- Ability to travel as needed for client meetings, finalist presentations, and industry events.
Preferred
- Familiarity with the competitive landscape in ticketing and fundraising
- Experience in more than one of the segments above
- Experience building a competitive intelligence or win/loss program
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
The approximate national base pay range for this position is $90,000.00 to $108,000.00. Please note that this is a good faith estimate for the position at the time of posting. Individuals may also be eligible for an annual discretionary bonus and/or sales compensation based on individual and company performance. Placement on the range may vary based on factors including but not limited to job-related knowledge, skills, and experience, and geographic location. The pay rate will comply with all minimum federal, state, and local wage/salary requirements.
Learfield offers a full spectrum of benefits for eligible employees including Medical, Dental, Vision, Health Savings Account, Life Insurance and Other Insurance Plans, Flexible Paid Time Off (minimum 10+ days annually), including Parental Leave, 20 Paid Holidays, 401(k) + Match, and Short/Long Term Disability. Leave benefits are consistent with state and local laws, including the Colorado Health Families and Workplaces Act.
Learfield is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We provide equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race; color; sex; gender identity; sexual orientation; religious practices and observances; national origin; pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions; status as a protected veteran or spouse/family member of a protected veteran; or disability.
