Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Silverchair is an independent platform partner that supports scholarly and professional publishers through publishing lifecycle and workflow technology. The Sales Operations Manager will optimize Salesforce and business development processes, manage RFPs and contracts, improve post-sale handoffs and lead qualification, and use analytics and AI tools to accelerate sales productivity.
Responsibilities
- Partner with Silverchair's Salesforce Administrator to continuously refine BD workflows, record types, and automation so the system reflects how we actually sell
- Build and maintain dashboards and reports that give BD leadership and individual sellers real-time visibility into pipeline health, forecast accuracy, and performance against targets
- Develop and document standard operating procedures for core BD processes in Salesforce — opportunity management, stage-gating, activity logging — to drive consistent adoption across the team
- Coordinate with the Marketing team to ensure smooth flow of lead and prospect activities into Salesforce
- Lead regular data hygiene audits, working with the Salesforce Administrator to fix root causes rather than one-off cleanups
- Onboard new BD hires on Salesforce and the broader BD tech stack
- Project manage the RFP response and proposal development process end-to-end, working closely with the deal owner and cross-functional contributors (Solutions Engineering, Product, Legal, Finance, Marketing) to produce proposals that are accurate, on time, and clearly communicate Silverchair's value
- In collaboration with Solutions Engineering and Marketing, maintain a centralized library of proposal content, boilerplate language, and case studies, keeping it current as our products and story evolve
- Own the proposal calendar, keeping every open RFP visible with clear ownership and deadlines
- Support pricing and quote accuracy ahead of proposal delivery and throughout the negotiation process
- Coordinate final review and formatting so every proposal that goes out the door meets a consistent quality bar
- Project manage the contracting process from verbal agreement through signature, coordinating with Sales, Legal, Finance, and the customer to shorten time-to-close
- Track contract status across the active pipeline and proactively escalate stalled agreements to the right stakeholder
- Maintain contract templates and standard language in coordination with Legal, flagging deviations that need review
- Evaluate and continuously improve the post-sale hand-off process for every product line (ScholarOne Manuscripts, Silverchair Platform, and any other active product), closing gaps between Sales and Delivery
- Document standard hand-off procedures and required inputs for each product type, so every deal transitions with the same level of completeness regardless of who closed it
- Partner with Delivery, Solutions Engineering, and Finance to align on hand-off timing, ownership, and information requirements
- Ensure smooth handoff to Marketing post-contract for announcement and communications onboarding
- Track hand-off status across active deals and flag missing information or delays before they affect implementation timelines
- Triage incoming marketing-generated leads, applying qualification criteria for fit and revenue potential
- Directly qualify long-tail leads, gathering enough information to assess fit before routing them to the appropriate BD team member
- Partner with Marketing to refine lead scoring and routing rules over time, informed by conversion data
- Identify and pilot opportunities to apply AI tools to BD workflows — proposal drafting, lead research, meeting preparation, data entry — to improve speed and quality
- Evaluate new sales technology and recommend adoption where it demonstrably improves BD productivity
- Maintain AI literacy and understanding of ethical AI applications in academic publishing and scholarly communications
- Demonstrate basic prompt engineering skills for effective AI tool utilization
- Exercise judgment in determining when AI assistance is and is not appropriate for tasks
- Ensure compliance with Silverchair's AI usage policies and data protection requirements
- Collaborate effectively with AI tools while maintaining human oversight and professional standards
- Produce regular and ad hoc reporting on pipeline, forecast, win/loss, and new logo performance for BD leadership
- Support annual and quarterly territory and target planning with data and analysis
Skills
- 5–7 years of experience in sales operations, revenue operations, deal desk, or business operations, ideally within a B2B SaaS or technology company
- Demonstrated experience as a Salesforce power user or administrator, including building reports and dashboards
- Experience supporting or managing RFP/proposal processes and/or contract lifecycle management
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
- Advanced Salesforce proficiency (reporting, dashboards, workflow and process automation)
- Strong project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple concurrent deals and proposals against deadlines
- Comfort using AI tools (e.g., Claude, Salesforce Einstein/Agentforce) to improve the efficiency and quality of sales processes
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to work cross-functionally across Sales, Legal, Finance, Marketing, and Delivery
- Strong analytical skills and Excel proficiency
- High attention to detail, strong follow-through, and the ability to work independently
- Comfortable working substantial overlapping hours with the Eastern Time Zone in the U.S., regardlessof where you're based
- At this time, we cannot sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position
- This role is fully remote with strong preference given to candidates in the Eastern Time Zone
- Experience in scholarly publishing, academic technology, or a related information services field is a plus, but not required
- Salesforce Advanced Administrator certification a plus
Benefits
- Fully remote work arrangement
Company Overview