Head of Sales Development

Manufacturing is one of the most important industries in the world, yet much of the technology supporting it hasn't kept pace.

We're building a fundamentally different future for manufacturing software.

Fulcrum is evolving from a traditional manufacturing software company into an AI-native company. We're not interested in simply adding AI features to existing systems. We're rethinking how work gets done, building products that can take on increasingly complex work themselves and give manufacturers capabilities that weren't possible before.

That same thinking shapes how we work internally. We believe small teams of exceptional people, equipped with powerful tools and the freedom to make decisions, can accomplish extraordinary things.

We're looking for people who are naturally curious, take ownership, and aren't satisfied doing something a certain way just because that's how it's always been done. People who like figuring things out, building things, challenging assumptions, and continuously expanding what they're capable of.

There's a lot we're still figuring out, and that's part of the opportunity. If you're energized by meaningful problems, ambitious goals, and the chance to help build something genuinely different, you'll find plenty to do here.

About the Role

We're looking for a Head of Sales Development who can build an exceptional outbound sales organization, develop high-performing people, and take full ownership of pipeline generation.

This isn't a traditional SDR management role where you inherit a mature playbook, monitor activity, and make sure everyone follows the process. We're looking for someone who understands the craft of outbound sales firsthand and is equally excited about building the systems, coaching, and strategies that make an entire team better.

At Fulcrum, our SDRs primarily cold call manufacturers, often speaking with business owners and operational leaders who have spent decades in the industry. These aren't always easy conversations. Prospects may be skeptical of technology, deeply attached to existing processes, or unfamiliar with what modern software can make possible.

Our SDRs need to combine exceptionally high activity with curiosity, business judgment, and the ability to have meaningful conversations about complex manufacturing operations. Your job is to build a team that consistently delivers both.

You'll be expected to get close to the work: making calls alongside the team, listening to conversations, identifying what's limiting individual performance, testing new approaches, and understanding the numbers behind our results.

You'll also use AI and modern tools to fundamentally improve how the organization operates. That means building better workflows, analyzing performance, automating repetitive work, and creating systems that help the team learn and improve faster.

We're looking for someone who enjoys developing people, competing against ambitious goals, and building things that don't already exist. Someone who takes responsibility for results, isn't afraid to challenge conventional approaches, and can turn an evolving outbound motion into a consistently high-performing organization.

What You'll Do

Own Pipeline Performance

Take full ownership of Sales Development pipeline generation, ensuring the team consistently delivers high-quality opportunities that contribute to revenue growth.

Understand performance across the entire outbound funnel, from activity and conversations through meetings, qualified opportunities, and pipeline creation.

Use data to identify where performance is breaking down, understand why, and develop specific plans to improve it.

Establish clear expectations for activity, quality, conversion, and individual performance.

Balance ambitious activity expectations with the quality of conversations and opportunities being generated.

Partner closely with Sales leadership and RevOps to continuously improve forecasting, reporting, and pipeline performance.

Coach and Develop Exceptional SDRs

Build a culture of high standards, accountability, curiosity, and continuous improvement.

Coach SDRs individually, identifying whether performance gaps stem from activity, time management, confidence, product knowledge, discovery, objection handling, or other factors.

Regularly listen to calls, provide direct and actionable feedback, and help reps continuously improve their sales skills.

Cold call alongside the team to stay close to the market, model effective selling, and test new approaches firsthand.

Develop strong onboarding, training, and ongoing development programs that accelerate productivity and build confidence.

Set clear expectations, recognize exceptional performance, and address performance challenges directly and thoughtfully.

Identify and develop emerging leaders while creating opportunities for high-performing SDRs to grow.

Build and Improve Our Outbound Strategy

Continuously evaluate and improve our outbound approach, including targeting, messaging, sequencing, account selection, and call strategy.

Develop a deep understanding of our customers, their manufacturing operations, and the problems that motivate them to consider change.

Experiment with new approaches, test hypotheses, measure results, and turn successful strategies into repeatable practices.

Build playbooks, training materials, workflows, and processes that improve execution without creating unnecessary complexity.

Work closely with Account Executives to understand opportunity quality, conversion, and what ultimately drives successful sales outcomes.

Collaborate with Marketing and Product to strengthen messaging, market understanding, and go-to-market execution.

Build an AI-Enabled Sales Development Organization

Independently use AI tools to analyze calls, evaluate performance, identify patterns, and uncover opportunities to improve team effectiveness.

Build or adapt practical tools, dashboards, automations, and workflows that make the SDR organization more productive.

Use AI to accelerate prospect research, improve targeting, develop training materials, and experiment with outbound strategies.

Identify repetitive or inefficient work and develop solutions rather than waiting for another team to solve the problem.

Evaluate new technologies and approaches, applying sound judgment about what actually improves results.

Continuously rethink how Sales Development should operate as AI expands what small, capable teams can accomplish.

Build the Team and Raise the Bar

Recruit, assess, and hire exceptional SDR talent, looking beyond traditional sales backgrounds to identify the qualities that predict success at Fulcrum.

Develop a strong understanding of what makes someone successful in our outbound environment and continuously improve the hiring process.

Create an environment where people are expected to work hard, ask questions, take ownership, and actively develop their capabilities.

Make thoughtful decisions about team structure, responsibilities, and resources as the business evolves.

Take responsibility for the performance of the entire function rather than simply managing the people within it.

Who You Are

A hands-on sales leader. You understand outbound sales because you've done it yourself. You're comfortable picking up the phone, testing messaging, and demonstrating what great looks like rather than leading entirely from a dashboard.

An exceptional coach. You genuinely enjoy developing people. You can recognize what's holding someone back, provide specific feedback, and help them make meaningful improvements.

Analytical and commercially minded. You understand the numbers behind pipeline generation, can identify patterns and problems, and know how to turn data into better decisions.

Industrious and self-directed. You naturally look for things to build, improve, or solve. You don't wait for someone to assign you a problem or create a process before taking action.

A builder. When the team needs a better workflow, dashboard, training program, or outbound strategy, your instinct is to create something useful, test it, and improve it.

An advanced and curious AI user. You're already using AI to expand what you can accomplish and are excited to independently build tools, automate work, analyze information, and experiment with new approaches.

Comfortable with ambiguity. You can make decisions with incomplete information, adapt quickly, and maintain momentum without needing a fully established playbook.

Direct, empathetic, and accountable. You care deeply about your people, hold high standards, and are willing to have difficult conversations when necessary.

Competitive and resilient. You're motivated by ambitious goals, recover quickly from setbacks, and take ownership of results rather than looking for excuses.

Humble and always learning. You're comfortable being wrong, changing your mind, learning from your team, and continuously challenging your own assumptions.

You also bring:

Experience in Sales Development leadership, outbound sales, founding SDR roles, or another environment where you've demonstrated the ability to build and improve outbound performance.

A strong track record of generating pipeline through outbound prospecting and understanding what drives successful cold calls.

Experience coaching salespeople, diagnosing performance challenges, and helping individuals improve their results.

Strong analytical skills and the ability to manage pipeline performance through meaningful metrics and conversion data.

Experience developing outbound strategies, testing messaging, and building repeatable sales processes.

Practical experience using AI and modern sales technologies to improve workflows, analyze performance, or build solutions.

Strong communication skills and the confidence to give clear, constructive feedback.

Experience hiring, onboarding, and developing sales talent.

Experience selling into manufacturing, operationally complex businesses, or traditional industries is a plus.

Experience building or scaling a Sales Development function in a high-growth SaaS environment is a plus.

We care more about your ability to create pipeline, develop exceptional people, and build an effective organization than whether you've followed a traditional SDR management career path.

What Success Looks Like

The SDR team consistently generates high-quality pipeline and has a clear understanding of what drives performance.

You know where the team stands against its goals, why performance is above or below expectations, and what needs to change.

SDRs receive frequent, specific coaching and demonstrate measurable improvement in their skills and results.

New hires ramp effectively through structured onboarding, practical training, and clear performance expectations.

You stay close to the work, regularly testing approaches and using firsthand customer insights to improve the team's effectiveness.

The outbound strategy continuously improves through experimentation, data, and a deeper understanding of our customers.

AI-powered tools, automations, and workflows meaningfully improve productivity, coaching, and decision-making.

You've built a team culture defined by curiosity, resilience, accountability, and high standards.

Sales Development operates as an increasingly effective and scalable pipeline engine, not simply a team measured by activity.

Your success is measured by the quality of the organization you've built and the pipeline it consistently produces.

Why this role is different

Sales Development at Fulcrum isn’t about managing a group of people who execute a finished playbook.

We sell into manufacturing businesses that often operate very differently from modern technology companies. Our SDRs may speak with a shop owner who has run the same business for thirty years and has little interest in talking to a software salesperson. Creating a real opportunity requires more than persistence. Reps need to understand how manufacturers operate, ask intelligent questions, handle skepticism, and create enough curiosity that someone is willing to reconsider a system or process they may have used for decades.

At the same time, this is an extremely high-activity outbound environment. The answer can’t be to spend an hour researching every account or write perfectly personalized emails to ten prospects a day. Great SDRs here combine unusually high work capacity with increasingly sophisticated judgment. Building a team capable of both is the job.

That means you can’t lead entirely from a dashboard. You need to stay close enough to the work to understand what’s actually happening—listening to calls, making them yourself, digging into conversion data, testing new approaches, and building what the team needs to get better.

AI is also changing what’s possible. Sales Development leaders can now analyze thousands of calls, work with data, automate processes, build internal tools, create individualized training, and test ideas at a speed that wasn’t possible a few years ago. We want someone who sees that as an opportunity to rethink how a Sales Development organization should operate—not someone who occasionally uses AI to write an email.

The job sits intentionally between two responsibilities: understand the craft deeply enough to know what great looks like, and build a system that makes the entire team better than you could ever be individually.

If you want to inherit a mature Sales Development engine, manage primarily through process, and spend most of your time one level removed from the actual work, this probably won’t be a great fit.

If you like building from incomplete information, competing against a number, getting close to customers, developing people, figuring out why something works, using AI to move faster, and turning what you learn into a better system, it probably will.

We're not here to make incremental improvements to the way things have always been done. We're here to rethink what's possible.

That takes people who are curious, ambitious, and excited to figure things out that haven't been figured out before.

If that sounds like you, we'd love to build with you.