Chief Operating Officer (COO)

HighRise Capital is seeking a highly driven Chief Operating Officer (COO) – Sales & Growth to take ownership of the company’s day-to-day operations, sales organization, employee performance, training, accountability, and growth.

The COO will act as the operational leader of the company and will be responsible for turning the CEO’s vision into daily execution.

This is a hands-on leadership position.

We are looking for someone who wants to be on the sales floor, understands what is happening throughout the organization, knows the numbers, develops employees, holds people accountable, and continuously pushes the company toward higher production.

The COO will be responsible for building a disciplined, competitive, high-performance culture where employees understand exactly what is expected of them every day.

Core Responsibilities

Run the Company Day-to-Day

Take ownership of the daily operation of the business.

The COO will:

• Run daily company operations.
• Ensure the office opens and operates effectively every morning.
• Make sure employees are on time, prepared, and working.
• Maintain structure and accountability throughout the sales floor.
• Coordinate sales, underwriting, processing, operations, and management.
• Identify operational problems before they become larger issues.
• Ensure management is executing company priorities.
• Create systems that allow the organization to scale.
• Report directly to the CEO on company performance.

The CEO should be able to set the direction of the company while trusting the COO to make sure that direction is executed every day.

Daily Morning Sales Meeting

The COO will personally lead a daily morning sales meeting.

The meeting should establish the tone and objectives for the day.

Topics should include:

• Previous day’s production
• Applications received
• Approvals
• Deals funded
• Funded volume
• Revenue generated
• Individual and team performance
• Current pipeline
• Daily targets
• Follow-ups that need attention
• Wins and lessons from the previous day
• Sales strategy
• Motivation and accountability

Every employee should leave the meeting knowing exactly what they are expected to accomplish that day.

Sales Floor Leadership

The COO will maintain an active presence on the sales floor.

Responsibilities include:

• Monitoring employee activity.
• Ensuring representatives are consistently calling and following up.
• Identifying employees who need assistance or additional training.
• Reviewing sales conversations and performance.
• Helping managers improve underperforming representatives.
• Maintaining urgency throughout the day.
• Ensuring leads and opportunities are being worked properly.
• Preventing strong opportunities from being neglected.
• Creating healthy competition between individuals and teams.

This is not a position for someone who wants to manage entirely from an office.

The COO should understand what is happening on the floor throughout the day.

Training & Development

Build a structured training program for new and existing employees.

Training should include:

• MCA and business-financing fundamentals
• Product knowledge
• Prospecting
• Opening a sales conversation
• Merchant qualification
• Application generation
• Follow-up
• Objection handling
• Closing
• Pipeline management
• CRM discipline
• Professional communication
• Compliance
• Sales psychology

The COO will also identify future managers and develop leadership internally.

Performance Management

Create clear expectations for every position.

Establish measurable KPIs for:

• Calls
• Conversations
• Applications
• Approvals
• Follow-ups
• Conversion rates
• Funded deals
• Funded volume
• Revenue

Performance should be measured objectively.

The COO will conduct regular performance reviews and work with managers to develop employees who are below expectations.

When employees consistently fail to meet expectations despite coaching and appropriate opportunities to improve, the COO will be responsible for making necessary personnel decisions in coordination with company leadership.

Recruiting & Team Growth

The COO will be responsible for helping High Rise Capital continuously improve and expand its team.

Responsibilities include:

• Establishing hiring targets.
• Working with recruiters.
• Interviewing senior and key sales hires.
• Building onboarding systems.
• Improving employee retention.
• Identifying future managers.
• Developing management layers as the company grows.
• Creating career paths for high-performing employees.

The goal is not simply to add headcount.

The goal is to continuously increase productive headcount.

Company Growth

The COO will be accountable for helping grow the overall business.

This includes identifying ways to increase:

Headcount → Applications → Approvals → Fundings → Funded Volume → Revenue → Profit

The COO should constantly evaluate where the company is being constrained.

That may include:

• Recruiting
• Training
• Management
• Lead flow
• Sales performance
• Technology
• Underwriting
• Processing
• Lender relationships
• Operational efficiency

The COO will work with the CEO to establish monthly, quarterly, and annual growth targets and then build the operational plan necessary to reach them.

Management Structure

The COO will oversee company leadership and ensure every department is operating toward the same objectives.

Potential direct reports may include:

• VP/Director of Sales
• Sales Managers
• Director of Dialer Operations & Performance Analytics
• Recruiting / HR
• Processing Manager
• Underwriting Manager
• Operations personnel

Department leaders remain responsible for their individual functions.

The COO is responsible for making sure all of those functions work together.

Daily Executive Reporting

At the end of each day, the COO should be able to give the CEO a concise picture of the company.

This should include:

People

• Headcount
• Attendance
• New hires
• Performance issues
• Recruiting pipeline

Sales

• Applications
• Approvals
• Fundings
• Funded volume
• Revenue

Pipeline

• Deals expected to close
• Major opportunities
• Deals requiring management attention

Performance

• Top performers
• Underperformers
• Team performance
• KPI trends

Operations

• Problems encountered
• Problems solved
• Outstanding issues

Growth

• Progress toward monthly targets
• Hiring progress
• Production trends
• Recommended changes

The CEO should not have to chase departments for this information.

The COO owns the operating picture of the company.

Bonus / Incentive

Highrise Capital offers a performance-based bonus opportunity for exceptional results. Additional compensation may be earned based on measurable improvements in dialer efficiency, data performance, application volume, funded volume, revenue, and overall sales-floor performance.

The stronger the impact you make on the acquisition engine, the greater the opportunity to participate in performance-based upside.

Requirements

Qualifications

The ideal candidate will have:

• Significant leadership experience in a high-performance sales organization.
• Experience managing sales teams and managers.
• Strong understanding of sales KPIs and performance management.
• Experience building and scaling teams.
• Strong recruiting and training capabilities.
• Excellent communication and leadership skills.
• Strong operational discipline.
• Ability to make decisions and hold people accountable.
• Strong understanding of P&L and business economics.
• Experience implementing processes and systems.

Experience in merchant cash advance, business lending, financial services, mortgage, insurance, debt settlement, or another high-volume outbound sales organization is strongly preferred.

Ideal Candidate

We are looking for an operator and builder.

The right person should walk into the office every morning asking:

• What are we producing today?
• Who needs help?
• Who needs to be pushed?
• What is preventing us from doing more business?
• Who are we hiring next?
• Which managers need development?
• Where are we losing opportunities?
• What process needs to change?
• What do we need to do to reach the next level?

This person should thrive on accountability, measurable performance, leadership, and growth.

Definition of Success

The COO succeeds when High Rise Capital becomes increasingly capable of operating and growing without requiring the CEO to personally manage every daily decision.

The organization should become more structured, more accountable, and more productive as it grows.

Success will be measured through:

• Productive Headcount
• Applications
• Funded Deals
• Funded Volume
• Revenue
• Profitability
• Employee Performance
• Employee Retention
• Operational Efficiency
• Growth

The ultimate objective is to build a disciplined, scalable organization capable of growing from a sales operation into a major financial-services company.

Benefits

• Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
• Retirement Plan (401k, IRA)
• Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
• Paid Time Off (Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)
• Family Leave (Maternity, Paternity)
• Training & Development