FORWARD is a venture-backed company on a mission to build comprehensive solutions allowing governments to assist their communities at scale.

The FORWARD Platform is an Integrated Program Administration solution that incorporates all essential components, people, and technology into a single streamlined workflow to effectively, securely, and equitably administer critical resources to help communities thrive.

Municipalities nationwide are utilizing FORWARD to streamline the design, implementation, operations, communications, reporting, and compliance functions of their economic and community development assistance programs.

Our fully remote team works hard, but we fully embrace the advantages of this new paradigm. We work autonomously, collaborate asynchronously, and take ownership of our work.

The California-State-focused Customer Acquisition Manager will be tasked with achieving ambitious sales goals for California State. You will manage, and close qualified opportunities that arrive to FORWARD through a variety of channels, including our state and local lobbying efforts, referrals, website, conferences, or other networking events. You will also take ownership of the ongoing relationship management of our existing customer base as well as manage other opportunity channels that may be identified in the future.

This role engages early in the customer experience lifecycle, starting after a lead has been qualified by FORWARD’s Impact team. You will be responsible for educating leads about FORWARD's unique offering and providing demonstrations. Your key focus will be on listening to customer needs and translating those needs into actionable project sheets that our internal Proposal Team can use to create effective proposals. From there, you will manage any scope refinements with the customer, work with FORWARD’s sales operations team on contract execution, and manage the smooth customer handoff to the Client Services team. Your success in this role will hinge on your ability to provide high-quality customer experiences that result in closed opportunities.

This is a fantastic position for a project manager who can think strategically about current and future product use cases, anticipates customer needs, and wants to grow professionally with a fantastic team of colleagues.

Responsibilities include

• Work closely with pre-qualified leads, such as municipalities, government departments, non-profits, and large NGOs, to determine their specific needs and identify FORWARD solutions.
  • Connect with key stakeholders and department staff to understand their pain points and identify opportunities for FORWARD to support their work
  • Represent FORWARD as a trusted thought partner
  • Identify ways FORWARD can administer newly funded or expanded programs
  • Translate customer needs into actionable material that the Proposal Team can use to create effective proposals
  • Manage proposals through the closed contract stage
• Track all sales pipeline data through Salesforce
• Identify new business use cases and develop strategies for growth
• Onboard and train additional team members, as needed, to support and grow customer acquisition activities
• Represent FORWARD at conferences and on regular site visits

Additionally, successful applicants will:

• Be collaborative and highly self-driven, thrive in ambiguity, and be motivated to achieve ambitious sales goals
• Continuously learn about federal, state, and local fund distribution, develop as a thought leader to customers, and be seen as a trusted advisor on how to run assistance programs at-scale
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Impact, Growth, Sales Operations, and Client Services teams
• Report to senior-level management on goals, metrics, and lessons learned
• Think strategically about product use cases and anticipate customer needs

• Based in California and able to travel up to 25% of the time within the state
• Proven track record of closing new opportunities through sales, fundraising, or equivalent experience
• Exceptional project management skills with the ability to prioritize workload and work well under pressure
• Possesses strong discovery and presentation skills, able to effectively identify and understand customer needs, and translate them into actionable business opportunities
• Highly solution-oriented with a creative problem-solving mindset
• Demonstrates initiative and ability to work independently and collaboratively as part of a team
• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Assumes the best intentions and gives one another grace as part of a positive team culture.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working with public sector/government agencies, and demonstrated ability to build strong relationships and influence agency partners.
• Salesforce experience

Salary Range: $90,000-$110,000/yr.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

We offer a full range of employee benefits for our regular full-time employees including:

• Fully remote position
• Unlimited PTO
• 100% Employee paid medical and dental insurance
• Stock Options
• 401K Plan