Senior Sales Executive - North America (Michigan/Upper Midwest)

Location: Michigan/Upper Midwest

About Liminal Insights

Liminal’s mission is to accelerate the clean energy transition by improving the cost, quality, and reliability of battery manufacturing. We do this by providing customers with better analytics and insights during production. Our breakthrough EchoStat® platform uses ultrasound and machine learning technology to supply customers with the information needed to accelerate production ramp-up, improve productivity and reliability, and detect critical defects early. Liminal has active product evaluations with multiple major battery cell manufacturers and EV OEMs, and is currently deploying our first in-line inspection system to a gigafactory customer.

Our Culture and Values

• We are dedicated to building a world-class, world-positive company.
• We work closely on a foundation of mutual trust and informed decisions.
• Our core values are trust, empathy, and curiosity.
• We encourage personal growth, continuous learning, and safety.
• We believe the most innovative teams are inclusive of and celebrate all forms of diversity.

Role

We are experiencing significant customer and deployment growth and are looking for a Senior Sales Executive to join our Commercial team. In this role you will be the first full-time sales leader for Liminal, and will be focused on expanding our North American direct customer base of battery cell manufacturers and and further development of our relationships with indirect customers, including electric vehicle (EV) and battery energy storage systems (BESS) manufacturers, in order to build demand for our battery cell manufacturing inspection solutions.

In this position you will be responsible for autonomously running a technical, highly consultative and relationship-driven sales process with fast paced and rapidly growing battery manufacturers and related joint ventures / OEMs.  You will need to move fluidly from long term business development discussions to immediate sales opportunities, and close multi-million dollar sales for Liminal solutions that comprise hardware, analytics software, controls, automation and service components.

You will be located in Michigan, the upper Midwest or nearby, as you will be primarily focused on customers and prospects in the new “Battery Belt” in the upper Midwest, Southeastern US and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, Canada. As many of our customers have global operations, you may also support European and Asia Pacific sales, as needed.

Responsibilities

• Work directly with our customers from the C-suite to the engineering leader level to lead the development of sales plans and goals for our battery cell inspection solutions, and drive the execution of those plans
• Engage with relevant non-customer stakeholders, including hardware and software automation providers, enterprise data/MES platforms and others as needed to develop and sell “whole product” solutions to our direct and indirect customers
• Work closely with Liminal’s commercial team and executive leadership to determine ideal customer profiles and prioritize sales targeting appropriately. Identify and generate leads in order to strengthen the customer pipeline. 
• Structure commercial offerings based on Liminal product capabilities and negotiate complex commercial contracts including terms and conditions, pricing, and delivery agreements. Work towards closing deals to meet or exceed sales targets. 
• Research target customers and prospects in order to understand their key priorities, decision makers and metrics in order to build effective sales strategies that enable immediate and long term sales opportunities
• Become a trusted advisor to Liminal customers and prospects and maintain strong relationships with customers 
• Develop strong product expertise across both software and digital components of our solutions and products, including machine-learning enabled analytics that enable value generation for Liminal and our customers
• Manage prospects and customers through sale lifecycle, including handoff to the execution teams, and maintaining the relationship during and after project completion
• Collaborate with Liminal’s product, business development, solutions engineering and customer program management teams to identify current and future business opportunities
• Develop best practices and procedures for the newly formed Sales team, with support from the Liminal product, engineering, customer program management & business development teams
• Work closely with commercial and company leadership to plan and implement sales team growth going forward
• Communicate sales activities and provide regular forecasts to commercial, financial and leadership teams.  
• Provide customer feedback to the Product, Marketing and Engineering teams as required

Minimum Requirements

• 10+ years experience driving and closing multi-million dollar direct sales engagements for long life-cycle, capital intensive enterprise products, with industrial / manufacturing customers related to the automotive industry and/or EV battery ecosystem
• Hands-on experience in sales and/or business development related to manufacturing, inspection and/or industrial automation equipment / solutions / software / analytics products
• Willing & able to travel to customer, integrator and stakeholder sites, as well as tradeshow and events on a regular basis (up to 50% in peak periods)
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively in teams and independently with minimal supervision.
• Curiosity about how things work and tenacity at tinkering and learning new things.
• A coachable attitude and a strong desire to improve yourself and others around you.

Nice to haves      

• Experience with manufacturing inspection / metrology / quality control products, especially those featuring hardware, software and analytics 
• Familiarity with battery technology and/or battery manufacturing
• Experience growing a sales team and sales processes in an industrial startup environment

Benefits

• Annual salary of $150,000 to $200,000 plus commission and stock options, based on skill level and experience, to help you and your family build a healthy and secure future.
• Group health benefits that provide support for employee well-being and preventative care, including comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and life insurance.
• A retirement program that helps build future financial security through both traditional and Roth 401(k) options with employer matching.

• Flexible working hours so you can be productive at the times that work best for you.

• Generous time-off policy to allow you to renew and refresh through vacation, personal leave, and holidays.
• For new parents, 12 weeks of fully-paid parental leave that you can take at any point during the first year.

Liminal is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate all forms of diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. However you identify or whatever your path here, please apply if this job excites you. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the hiring process, perform essential job functions, and receive other benefits and privileges of employment.