Strategic Account Manager - Great Lakes Region

What You'll Do

• Serve as the lead point of contact for strategic account matters, build and maintain strong, long-lasting client relationships, develop trusted advisor relationships with key accounts, customer stakeholders, and executive sponsors
• Identify and understand the roles of the clients’ stakeholders, identify champions, users, the technical team, and the economic buyers
• Manage relationships with existing clients to ensure their retention, and customer loyalty – including annual account reviews and reporting
• Manage and nurture the sales pipeline, ensure timely follow-ups, and progress tracking
• Uncover clients' objectives and pain points, build strategic roadmaps to drive positive outcomes and solutions to meet client needs while providing exceptional customer collaboration and guidance
• Develop account growth strategies, collaborate with category leadership, leverage market knowledge and client insights, including territory management, pipeline opportunities, and cross-sell opportunity referral activity where applicable
• Prepare compelling sales strategies, messaging, and presentations. Negotiate and close deals, collect implementation details for client execution
• Ensure timely and successful delivery of Ascend solutions according to customer needs and objectives, exceeding client expectations
• Prepare and present regular reports on account opportunities, sales forecasts, tailwinds, and headwinds to management
• Maintain CRM to include prospective client headcount or other category suitability
• Stay up to date with, and share, industry trends, competitors, and market conditions to identify new business opportunities

What You'll Need

• Bachelor’s degree required
• 6+ years of relevant sales work experience
• Prior track record of influencing stakeholders up to the executive level, with proven negotiation skills for securing advantageous agreements
• Skilled in delivering tailored solutions to clients and managing multiple projects with precision
• Proficient in written communication for creating sales documents (proposals, contracts)
• Ability to build trust and proactively engage in upselling and cross selling
• Strong analytical abilities for sales data interpretation and strategy formulation
• Proven track record of delivering results in a quota-based sales environment with multi-year multimillion-dollar contracts
• Nursing education industry knowledge, background in healthcare or higher education experience preferred
• Proficient in CRM software (e.g., Salesforce, Zoho CRM, HubSpot) and MS Office, especially Excel
• Up to 50% travel

Benefits

• Flexible and generous paid time off
• Competitive medical, dental, vision and life insurance
• 401(k) employer matching program
• Parental leave
• Wellness resources
• Charitable matching program
• On-site workout facilities (Leawood, Gilbert, Burlington)
• Community outreach groups
• Tuition reimbursement