Azure Sales Specialist.
Has a deep understanding of customers' business and its priorities to drive conversations with customers on digital transformation across multiple solution areas, in collaboration with partners and services. Collaborates with account teams, partners, or services to track, qualify, and expand new opportunities. Identifies, develops, proposes, and articulates solutions that align with customer needs. Contributes input and coaches team on strategies to drive and close prioritized opportunities. Collaborates with One Commercial Partner (OCP) and partners to cross-sell, up-sell, and co-sell. Applies the orchestration model to proactively drive deal closure by identifying and aligning internal stakeholders and leveraging and expanding relationships with partners. Proactively provides analysis of the competitive landscape in supported solution area and decides to pursue or withdrawal. Contributes to exploring business and emerging opportunities to optimize the portfolio and support customer innovation. Manages and/or orchestrates sales and delivery success through the account team and pursuit team. Engages with internal and external stakeholders on business planning, rhythm-of-business (ROB) meetings to review and plan for assigned accounts. Collaborates with internal teams and partners to conduct business analysis to pursue high-potential customers and develop a target list of potential business. Manages the end-to-end business of the assigned territory.
Responsibilities
Sales Excellence
Collaborates with partners and resources and leverages customer insights or industry knowledge; contributes to exploring business and emerging opportunities to optimize the portfolio and support customer innovation.
Manages the end-to-end business of the assigned territory; conducts forecasting for accounts and develops a portfolio and territory plan to drive intentional selling aligned with strategic priorities.
Engages with internal and external stakeholders on business planning, rhythm-of-business (ROB) meetings to review and plan for accounts in the assigned territory.
Reviews feedback report and coaches others on ensuring customer/partner satisfaction and decreasing dissatisfaction by establishing recovery action plans to improve clients' overall experience; manages and/or orchestrates sales and delivery success through the account team and pursuit team.
Sales Execution
Engages in conversations with customers to introduce how other workloads could enable digital transformation areas that is aligned with the customer's industry and turns opportunities into deals; has a deep understanding of customers' business and its priorities to drive conversations with customers on digital transformation across multiple solution areas, in collaboration with partners and services; creates guiding examples of digital transformation through seminars, workshops, Webinars, and direct engagement.
Identifies opportunities to drive consumption and grow business with existing customers by initiating conversations, providing demos or quotes, and collaborating with partners or internal teams (e.g., Technical Sales Professionals, global black belts [GBBs]); for licensing transactions and project engagements, ensures rapid and robust deployment plan at point of sale that is validated by services and partners; identifies, articulates, and facilitates the removal of blockers to consumption by partnering with internal and external stakeholders.
Implements strategies to accelerate the closing of deals; contributes input on strategies to drive and close prioritized opportunities; coaches less experienced team members in deal plan execution; implements close plans (e.g., how to map timeline, engage the customer, get customer buy in and commitment) to de-risk and drive predictable deal closure.
Collaborates with team members to discover new opportunities; drives incremental revenue growth through personal campaigns (e.g., portfolio analysis) or internal sources (e.g., marketing, account teams); collaborates with account teams, partners, or services to track, qualify, and expand new opportunities; collaborates with other teams (e.g., account teams) and services to build pipeline; interfaces with customers and builds relationships via social selling; applies Microsoft's sales process (MSP) to determine the quality of the opportunity and whether to proceed.
Identifies customer business needs and technology readiness; contributes to the development of solutions in collaboration with internal teams, partners, and services; proposes prioritized solutions that align with customers' needs; articulates the business value of proposed solutions.
Proactively builds external stakeholders' mapping; collaborates with account teams (e.g., Account Executives) to identify and engage senior business subject matter decision makers at the customer's/partner's business.
Scaling and Collaboration
Applies the orchestration model to proactively drive deal closure by identifying and aligning internal stakeholders and leveraging and expanding relationships with partners.
Collaborates with One Commercial Partner (OCP) and with a network of partners to cross-sell, up-sell, and co-sell; identifies and supports on-boarding new partners by researching and discussing customer scenarios; provides feedback to OCP on partner gaps; develops joint proposals and consumption plans with partners; contributes to developing partner strategies to address gaps in partner capabilities.
Technical Expertise
Collaborates with the "compete" global black belts (GBBs) to analyze competitor products, solutions, and/or services and implements strategies to position Microsoft against competitors in customer communication; proactively provides analysis of the competitive landscape in supported solution area; evaluates opportunities and makes recommendations on pursuit or withdrawal.
Qualifications
Communicating with ImpactEffectively communicating the value of solutions to both internal and external business stakeholders, ensuring that mutual objectives and priorities are clearly presented and understood, thereby driving successful outcomes in sales engagements
Required Upon Hire and Critical/Important
Conflict Resolution
The ability to manage conflict, disharmony, and strife among people and situations, while recognizing and addressing sensitivities.English Language Proficiency
The ability to speak and understand English when giving instructions and directions, and when talking with colleagues, managers, and others for work matters.Oral Communication
The ability to make a verbal message understood and to receive/understand messages during in-person or remote (e.g., telephone) interactions.Presentations
The ability to create and deliver formal presentations to others. This includes sharing information on a range of topics in a clear, concise, engaging and convincing manner; commanding the audience’s attention; developing effective presentation materials (e.g., handouts, visual aids); and handling questions or argumentative positions from the audience.Technical Communication
The ability to adapt communications around different technologies, products, and services to the audience's level of understanding.Written Communication
The ability to prepare clear, accurate, and understandable written text, and follow the basic rules of spelling, grammar, and punctuation. This may include memos, emails, proposals, reports, and professional or general correspondence.Cultivating Strategic PartnershipsOrchestrating and maintaining strong business relationships and partnerships, while nurturing executive relationships to establish credibility as an active listener and trusted advisor. Managing relationships and projecting executive presence to cultivate effective collaborative partnerships with customers, partners, and stakeholders, driving business growth.
Required Upon Hire and Critical/Important
Business Relationship Management
The ability to develop and maintain positive working relationships with supervisors, staff, managers, customers, and vendors. This includes expressing empathy and compassion when dealing with the needs and problems of others, being approachable, taking time to address the concerns of coworkers, and treating others with respect and dignity.Executive Relationships
The ability to interact confidently with senior leaders of the organization in order to present/defend/clarify concerns or issues regarding an existing project, program, or solution. This includes the ability to confidently address difficult questions, handle push back from a high-level audience, and maintain an executive demeanor while engaging in difficult or sometimes high-pressure situations.Sell-With Partners
The ability to successfully navigate and activate partner resources and relationships. This includes driving co-selling strategies and partner attach.Trusted Advisor
The ability to build trusted advisor status and deep relationships across stakeholders (e.g., technical decision makers, business decision makers) through an understanding of customer needs and technologies.Maximizing Business OpportunitiesMaximizing business objectives by leveraging a deep understanding of businesses and their needs, and opportunities across market, industry, and competition. Managing and prioritizing business development opportunities through market and industry analysis, recognizing customer needs, qualifying opportunities, and identifying how solutions, in collaboration with partners, can enable business capabilities that drive growth and innovation.
Required Upon Hire and Critical/Important
Business Acumen
The ability to understand the parts of the business and their interrelationships. This includes skill in understanding the industry, competition, and expected future developments and challenges, the business's competitive strengths and weaknesses, opportunities to grow the business and reduce operating costs; and awareness of the environment for opportunities.Business Knowledge
The ability to appreciate the technical nature of the business, as well as how a particular function relates to that industry and the competition.Market Knowledge
Knowledge of the market context in which the business operates; this includes the understanding of market trends and how they will impact customers and the business.Technology Industry Knowledge
Knowledge of trends, direction, new products, and changes in the technology as it applies to a particular area of focus, as well as specific knowledge about hardware, software, and services.Optimizing Account OperationsManaging and optimizing sales accounts through strategic decision-making, deep understanding of sales cycle timeframes, and leveraging advanced tools, programs, and insights to drive KPIs. Orchestrating opportunities and deals by developing tailored sales strategies that drive successful business outcomes and maximize customer value realization.
Required Upon Hire and Critical/Important
Account Management
Knowledge of and ability to manage individual customer/partner accounts or a portfolio of aggregate account pipelines by developing and maintaining relationships with existing customers/partners, tracking account status, and ensuring the health of account metrics.Decision Making
The ability to make decisions in a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment. This includes the ability to define, diagnose, and determine an appropriate resolution, recommendation, or decision while considering alternatives and factors (e.g., resources, costs, tradeoffs).Opportunity/Deal Orchestration
Ability to manage sales opportunities and/or deals by making arrangement and coordinating processes. This includes the skills of communicating and collaborating with others and leveraging resources and tools.Sales Strategy
Ability to develop strategies to manage pipeline and meet sales goals by reviewing forecasts, assessing and mitigating risks, and ensuring strategy alignment with business priorities.Selling SolutionsSelling solutions by demonstrating value, persuasively negotiating mutually beneficial agreements, and consulting with stakeholders to challenge conventional thinking. Creatively navigating the sales process and using storytelling to envision transformation with the customer, effectively connecting anecdotes, data insights, and technical value to maximize and accelerate customer business impact.
Required Upon Hire and Critical/Important
Consultative Selling
The ability to understand customer needs through dialogue before recommending products/services.Creativity
The ability to apply ingenuity, inventiveness, and imagination to the inclusive design and construction of a product, service, program, or initiative.Negotiation
The ability to achieve mutually satisfying agreements in negotiations with others by listening to their objectives, acting as the company's representative to effectively communicate the company's objective, and seeking common ground and collaborative solutions.Problem Solving
The ability to identify problems and review related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.Storytelling
The ability to sell and communicate value within and outside the company by sharing stories and historical anecdotes.Technical Sales
The ability to explain Microsoft's products and services to customers and identify opportunities for customers to grow their business.Skills Not Mapped to CapabilitySkills Not Mapped to Capability
Required Upon Hire and Critical/Important
Microsoft Products
Knowledge of Microsoft products/services and the ability to participate in technical conversations related to products/services.NOT Required Upon Hire and Critical/Important
Microsoft Support
Knowledge of support offerings (e.g., Premier, Unified) that Microsoft provides to help customers maximize the value of their Microsoft investment through ongoing technical support.Strategically Managing Sales PipelinesAnalyzing business needs and market dynamics, gathering and analyzing relevant customer, partner and competitor insights and trends, and managing and informing change processes for current and future customers to advance and optimize sales pipelines.
Required Upon Hire and Critical/Important
Competitor Intelligence
Knowledge of competitors and their products or services in the market; this includes the understanding of the relative advantages and disadvantages of Microsoft's products or services.Forecasting
The ability to predict future trends related to systems, products, and services for the purpose of business decision-making.Project Management
Knowledge of and the ability to carry out the process of planning, organizing, and managing tasks and resources to accomplish a well-defined objective. This includes the ability to manage and provide project deliverables, optimize the contribution of the people involved, and assess the impact of project decisions on quality, productivity, schedules, cost, performance, etc.Required/minimum qualifications
Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology, Business Administration, or related field AND 5+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience OR 6+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience.
Additional or preferred qualifications
Master's Degree in Business Administration (e.g., MBA), Information Technology, or related field AND 5+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Information Technology, or related field AND 6+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience OR 8+ years of technology-related sales or account management experience.
3+ years of solution sales or consulting services sales experience
This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.