Enterprise Solutions Sales Director | Central

About Backblaze

Backblaze is the object storage leader in the open cloud movement, fueling customer success with cloud storage built purposefully to unlock budgets, unburden administrators, and unleash innovators. Together with our partners, we are helping customers break free from the restrictive, overpriced legacy solutions that hold them back and blaze forward with the full power of the open cloud in their hands.

Founded in 2007, we scaled the business with less than $3 million in outside funding until 2021, when we did a traditional IPO on the NASDAQ stock exchange (BLZE). Today, Backblaze generates over $120m in annual revenue and is the leading specialized storage cloud - managing over three billion gigabytes of data storage for 500,000+ customers in 175+ countries including businesses, developers, IT professionals, and individuals.

While there is a lot to celebrate in our past, there is tremendous upside in our future as we continue to head upmarket and scale our Enterprise business faster than the total market is growing.  To this end, we are seeking an Enterprise Solutions Sales Director - Central.

About The Role

As the Enterprise Solutions Sales Director - Central reporting directly to the Global VP of Sales,  you will lead a high-performing sales team focused on increasing adoption and market awareness of our backup and cloud storage solutions for upmarket use cases such as: Cyber Resilience; Media and Entertainment; Backup and Recovery; Healthcare & Life Sciences; AI / ML; Data Lakes & Analytics; SaaS Application Storage; Surveillance; and many others. 

You will work closely with senior leadership to develop and accelerate effective go-to-market strategies, driving revenue growth while building long-term strategic customer relationships. You will provide strategic direction while fostering an inclusive and innovative sales culture that encourages creativity and collaboration.

What You’ll Do:

• Team Leadership: Build and manage a high-performing sales team dedicated to the above use cases fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability, and customer obsession.
• Market Strategy: Develop and implement sales and pipeline generation strategies tailored to top accounts for these use cases, ensuring Backblaze’s offerings meet the unique needs of this rapidly evolving market.
• Customer Engagement: Cultivate strong relationships with key clients, including executives, to understand their business needs and articulate how Backblaze’s solutions can address them.
• Stakeholder Alignment: Collaborate across multiple stakeholders and business units, especially your Channel and Alliances peers, in orchestrating sales and pipeline generation activities and driving complex decision-making processes.
• Sales Performance: Monitor and analyze sales pipeline metrics to evaluate team performance, identifying opportunities for improvement and driving continuous growth on the way to achieving and exceeding revenue targets.
• Product Advocacy: Represent customer needs and provide insights to product development teams to enhance our offerings and improve customer satisfaction.
• Negotiation and Influence: Manage critical relationships and negotiate agreements, acting as an escalation point for complex issues that require higher-level management intervention.
• Thought Leadership: Engage with senior management and executive-level stakeholders to gain support for initiatives and drive broader industry cloud adoption.
• Jive with Our Culture: Drive a sales culture that values accountability, collaboration, transparency, agility, and innovation. We default to openness with our team, our customers, and everyone, if possible. We love initiative without arrogance or dictatorship. We work to create a place people enjoy showing up to work.

More Details on Responsibilities:

• Recruit, coach, mentor, and lead a team of high-performing sales professionals to achieve quarterly and yearly sales targets. This includes closing new business and expanding with existing clients.
• Provide hands-on coaching and support to sales teams, enabling them to refine their skills in client engagement, deal negotiation, and strategic account management.
• Ensure that the team operates efficiently using data-driven insights to optimize sales strategies and drive consistent results.
• Develop effective sales strategies and deliver compelling product demonstrations and sales pitches.
• Oversee the entire sales cycle, from lead generation and customer engagement to deal closure and post-sale account management.
• Maintain accurate sales forecasting and reporting, ensuring that senior leadership is regularly updated on pipeline health and progress toward targets.
• Collaborate with the Global VP of Sales to define and execute territory growth plans, meeting or exceeding annual revenue targets.
• Operate with significant autonomy, taking actions to resolve problems on behalf of your team and/or issues that are impeding the business.
• This position will report directly to the Global VP of Sales and can be remote.

The Right Fit:

• Central US location
• 10+ years of technology sales and sales management experience, with a focus on SaaS and cloud solutions.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. MBA preferred.
• Proven track record of leading sales teams to achieve and exceed targets.
• Strong leadership skills, with experience in hiring, developing, and mentoring talent.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and presentation skills, with the ability to influence at the executive level.
• Exceptional skills in strategic planning, pipeline management, and executing growth initiatives in a highly competitive market.
• Experience with MEDDPICC opportunity management implementation and Value-Based Selling approaches.
• Familiarity with the evolving data management and cloud storage needs of  the above upmarket use cases is a huge plus.
• Ability to work cross-functionally with channels / alliances, sales development, solutions engineering, product, marketing, and customer success teams to ensure a cohesive approach to customer engagement and retention.

Backblaze Perks:

• Healthcare for family, including dental and vision
• Competitive compensation and 401K
• RSU grants for full-time employees
• ESPP program
• Flexible vacation policy
• Maternity & paternity leave
• MacBook Pro to use for work plus a generous stipend to personalize your workstation
• Childcare bonus (human children only)
• Fertility treatment and support
• Learning & development program
• Commuter benefits
• Culture that supports a healthy work-life balance

To provide greater transparency to candidates, we share base pay ranges for all US-based job postings regardless of state. We set standard base pay ranges for all roles based on function, level, and country location, benchmarked against similar-stage growth companies. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including candidate location, skills, depth of work experience, and relevant licenses/credentials, and may vary from the amounts listed below.

The base pay range for this position is $155,000 - $195,000.

* Top performing Sales Directors at Backblaze are earning $400,000+ per year in total compensation.

At Backblaze, we value being fair and good to our customers, partners, and employees. That’s why diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the core of our values. We are committed to fostering a workforce where all employees feel a sense of belonging regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion, socio-economic status, ability, veteran status, and education. We believe that our dedication to cultivating a diverse workspace not only allows us to better serve our customers in over 175 countries, but further reinforces our commitment to doing the right thing. We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.

To understand more about the data we collect and process as part of your application, please view our Backblaze Employee Privacy Notice.