About the role
Director, Strategic Partner Sales
Pharos | Remote (United States) | Compensation: $190,000–$200,000 OTE (base + matching variable). If your background clearly goes beyond what this role typically requires, we structure some offers above this band for the right experience.You're the person a partner's sales rep pulls into a call the moment their customer's IT team starts asking hard technical questions, and you're also the person who spent the two months before that call quietly turning a cold relationship into a warm one. If that sounds like two different jobs, this role is not for you. If it sounds like one job you've already been doing, keep reading.
About Pharos
Pharos Systems International is the leader in PrintOps, the integrated, user-centric, and cloud-native approach to managing printing and the infrastructure and operations behind it. Pharos' modern print management software empowers enterprises to reduce costs, strengthen security, and support today's hybrid workforce with simple, reliable, and scalable printing solutions. Trusted by thousands of organizations, including many of the world's largest Fortune 500 companies, Pharos has helped eliminate print servers, cut millions in print-related spend, and accelerate the transition to cloud-based infrastructure. Headquartered in Rochester, NY, Pharos has been delivering innovative print management solutions and measurable ROI since 1992. For more information, visit pharos.com.
What This Role Is
We are looking for someone to build and own our relationships with a strategic hardware partner's enterprise sales force directly. This is a hybrid role: part solutions engineer, part relationship builder, part quiet marketer for our product inside someone else's sales conversations. Most of the work is earning trust with people who owe us nothing, one relationship at a time, until reaching for us becomes their default.
This is not a role with a team under you, and it is not a role where you own or control the deal. You will operate inside someone else's sales process, with real access to and a real say in how this partnership gets built, but the win is measured by what the partner's sellers do, not by what you personally close.
You don't have to be the deepest technical expert in the building. Pharos already has that depth on staff, and it's a resource you can pull into the room for the rare question that goes past your depth. What you need is enough technical credibility to carry the conversation yourself most of the time, and the judgment and honesty to know the moment to bring in backup instead of guessing.
The right person will recognize themselves in these characteristics:
You can hold your own in a technical conversation with a skeptical, sophisticated buyer, then hand the win back to the partner's rep without a second thought.
You know the difference between holding your own and pretending to know something you don't, and you've said “let me get you the right person” in front of a customer without it costing you any credibility.
You have grown a relationship you already had into something bigger, not just landed a brand new one, and that kind of win satisfies you as much as a fresh close would.
You think like a marketer as much as a seller: you know how to frame a product's value in someone else's words, not just your own.
You have supported someone else's sale before, technically or strategically, and you were genuinely fine being the reason it worked without being the name on the deal.
You have walked away from a deal that was not right, and you can talk honestly about what that cost you.
What You Will Own
Direct, ongoing relationships with the specific enterprise sellers at a strategic hardware partner who decide whether our software gets attached to their deals
A tiered, visible map of that seller network: who is already warm, who is attaching a competitor, who has gone quiet, and a real plan for each
Trust with the partner's sales organization broad enough that sellers recommend us to each other, not just work with us themselves
Deals that range from modest attach revenue to seven-figure enterprise wins, all sourced or carried through the same relationships
The proof point for whether this model is worth building a team around
What a Strong Background Looks Like
We are not looking for a checklist. We are describing a type of person, and the background that tends to produce that person.
Has sold or supported software through a partner or channel relationship, not only direct to the end buyer
Has carried a book of relationships that ranged from small, quick wins to large, complex, seven-figure deals, not only one or the other
Has built at least one significant relationship completely from scratch, with no inherited book of business and no warm introduction
Comfortable being the one who answers the hard technical question in front of a sophisticated buyer, and equally comfortable with the unglamorous relationship-nurturing work in between those moments
Has a marketing instinct: knows how to position a product's value in the language of the person selling it, not just the language of the person who built it
Not a good fit if: you need to own and close the deal yourself, or need public credit, for the work to feel like it's yours.
Strong fit if: you would rather be the reason a deal closes cleanly than the one running it, and you're fine if the partner takes the bow.What We Offer
$190,000–$200,000 OTE (base + matching variable). If your background clearly goes beyond what this role typically requires, we structure some offers above this band for the right experience.
Fully remote (United States)
Direct access to the VP of Sales and real influence over how this partnership is built
An established, growing partnership with one of the largest names in enterprise technology
Recognized as a Great Benefits employer by Mployer
Named a Top Place to Work by USA Today
Equal Opportunity Employer: Pharos is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, genetics, disability, age, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable federal, state, or local laws. www.pharos.com
Originally posted on Himalayas