Sales Operations & Inside Sales Manager | Manufacturing

Location: Anaheim, CA | Hybrid
Base Salary: $80,000 to $120,000 depending on experience
Bonus / Commission: Performance based
Expected Total Compensation: $120,000 to $160,000+

About the Role

This role sits at the center of our sales organization.

You will help run the day to day sales process, maintain an accurate CRM and pipeline, follow up on open opportunities, coordinate with estimating and production, reactivate old customers, and proactively reach out to new prospects.

This is not a passive sales administration or customer service job.

We want someone who is equally comfortable cleaning up a CRM, calling a customer about a six figure quote, working with production on a delivery issue, and picking up the phone to reopen a dormant account.

Your job is simple: make sure opportunities do not fall through the cracks and help turn more of them into revenue.

What You Will Own

Sales Operations & CRM

• Own the accuracy and discipline of our CRM and sales pipeline
• Ensure opportunities have accurate values, stages, expected close dates, next steps, and customer feedback
• Keep open, won, lost, and reactivated opportunities properly categorized
• Make sure sales activity and customer conversations are documented
• Build and maintain useful sales reports and forecasts
• Identify stalled opportunities and make sure someone is taking action
• Help management understand what is likely to close, what is stuck, and why

Quote Follow Up & Conversion

• Track open quotes from submission through purchase order or loss
• Follow up directly with customers by phone and email
• Ask why we have not received the PO and what needs to change for Pen to win the business
• Work with estimating and engineering when pricing, scope, lead time, or technical requirements need to be revisited
• Reengage lost quotes when there is an opportunity to win the work back
• Measure and improve quote to order conversion

Customer & Account Growth

• Maintain regular contact with existing customers
• Identify additional programs, parts, projects, and opportunities within current accounts
• Reactivate dormant and former customers
• Call customers who have stopped sending RFQs and understand why
• Develop relationships with purchasing, engineering, operations, and other customer stakeholders
• Make sure strong customer relationships translate into additional RFQs and revenue

Outbound Sales & New Markets

• Make targeted outbound calls to prospective customers
• Help Pen identify and penetrate attractive new markets and customer segments
• Work prospect lists and convert outreach into conversations and RFQs
• Support specialized outside sales and business development efforts
• Follow up on leads generated by marketing, referrals, trade shows, and other channels
• Help determine which markets and outreach strategies are actually producing opportunities

Manufacturing Coordination

• Work closely with estimating, engineering, production, purchasing, and operations
• Understand customer requirements, drawings, specifications, quantities, and delivery expectations
• Coordinate internally when customer opportunities require technical or operational input
• Communicate intelligently with customers about quotes, production status, lead times, and issues
• Help ensure the commitments Sales makes can actually be executed by the plant

Who We Want

We are looking for someone who combines the discipline of a strong sales operator with the urgency of a salesperson.

You should be:

• Extremely organized and disciplined about follow through
• Comfortable making outbound and cold calls
• Persistent without needing constant supervision
• Comfortable asking customers directly for the order
• Analytical enough to understand pipeline, conversion rates, forecasts, and sales performance
• Able to move between customers, CRM, estimating, engineering, and production throughout the day
• Curious about manufacturing and willing to learn how our products are actually made
• Comfortable working in an entrepreneurial environment where priorities move quickly
• Someone who sees an old quote, dormant account, or incomplete CRM record and instinctively wants to fix it

Preferred Experience

• 3+ years in sales operations, inside sales, account management, or technical sales
• Experience in custom manufacturing, machining, fabrication, engineered components, aerospace, or another made to print environment strongly preferred
• Experience working with RFQs, quotations, drawings, specifications, and manufacturing customers
• Experience with CRM pipeline management and sales reporting
• Demonstrated success following up on opportunities and growing customer accounts

Experience selling commodity materials or catalog products can be relevant, but we strongly prefer candidates who understand custom engineered manufacturing and the coordination required between customers, estimating, engineering, and production.

What Success Looks Like

You will be successful when:

• Management can trust the CRM and sales forecast
• Every meaningful quote has a clear owner, next step, and expected decision date
• Open quotes receive consistent follow up
• Lost opportunities are understood rather than simply marked lost
• Dormant customers are actively reengaged
• Existing customers are generating more opportunities
• New outbound activity is producing RFQs
• Sales and production communicate effectively
• Fewer opportunities fall through the cracks
• Quote conversion and revenue improve

Why Pen

This is an opportunity to help build the sales operating system of a growing manufacturing company rather than inherit a rigid corporate process.

You will work directly with sales leadership, estimating, engineering, and operations and have visibility into the entire process from the first customer conversation through production.

We are looking for someone who wants ownership, likes fixing messy processes, enjoys talking to customers, and wants their work directly tied to revenue growth.