Sales Manager, Catering & Conference Events

Job Description

Job Description

Full-Time, Exempt Salaried

Compensation: $105,000–$120,000 base + variable; $150,000 on-target earnings

Primarily weekday business hours, with occasional evenings and weekends for client events and site visits

Location: San Francisco (primary) with regular Bay Area travel to client and event sites

Reports to: CEO

ABOUT US

Founded in San Francisco in 2010, Off the Grid is a leading mobile food innovator changing where and how food is consumed and created by transforming underutilized and temporary spaces into community gathering places. Through public markets, corporate dining services and catering options, Off the Grid brings communities together around food while increasing economic opportunity for mobile food entrepreneurs. Acclaimed for reinvigorating the Bay Area street food scene through public events and catering that feed more than 100,000 people weekly, Off the Grid also offers a suite of business to business products and services, including Off the Grid Catering.

POSITION SUMMARY

The Sales Manager is the person who makes OTG's revenue predictable. This role owns the catering pipeline—its honesty, its velocity, and the forecast the company plans against—and develops the reps who fill it.

We’re looking for a builder. We want this dedicated Sales manager to build on the infrastructure the Sales team uses now refining the enablement playbook, the outbound engagement motion, and the rules governing the structure of the Sales process and Sales rep workflows. 

This is not a closing role and it does not carry a quota. Your value is multiplied through your team, not added through your own deals. You will personally open doors while OTG's outside sales channel is being proven, but you hold relationships, not a book, and you hand proven relationships to your reps.

The ideal candidate is a seasoned sales leader who coaches rather than closes, who has built a forecast they would stake their credibility on, and who understands that in hospitality the sale is the client's first experience of the brand.

HOW THIS ROLE CONNECTS TO OTG'S SUCCESS

Everything OTG does begins with someone deciding to work with us. Catering is roughly 90% of the 2026 revenue plan, and this role owns whether that plan holds—not by closing deals, but by building the discipline and the demand that make closing predictable.

Every event the team books is a paid day for independent food creators and another space activated for a community. This is where OTG's purpose meets its plan: the more reliably we sell, the more local businesses we strengthen and the more often we get to do the thing we exist to do.

THE DEMAND–DELIVERY CHAIN

OTG's revenue moves through a single chain; marketing generates demand, sales converts it, production delivers it. This role owns the middle link and is accountable at both of its gates.

Marketing → Sales · the gate is a qualified lead

• Marketing owns generating and qualifying demand.
• The Sales Manager owns what happens next: who routes a qualified lead, the SLA from qualified to opportunity, what happens when one sits untouched, and how campaign attribution survives through to a closed-won deal.
• Lead-quality feedback flows back to marketing in days, not quarters. You broker that loop in both directions—what marketing sends, what reps actually work, and what converts.

Sales → Production · the gate is sales handoff

• A signed contract is a promise the field has to keep. The Sales Manager is accountable for what is sold being producible—scope, headcount, site, and margin—and for the completeness of what reaches the Production Manager.
• The Production Manager plans against that handoff through event-ready.
• Ownership of event scope and handoff in order to ensure margin and scope is actionable by production team. 

These are quality gates, not walls. An oversold event is an operations emergency, not a sales win.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Pipeline Integrity & Forecast

• Own the honesty of the catering pipeline—stage-advance criteria, a next step and a date on every open opportunity, and close-lost discipline when a deal is done
• Maintain pipeline coverage at or above 3× forward revenue, and drive deals without movement past two weeks to zero
• Produce a weekly and monthly forecast built on OTG's own stage-level close rates and probability weighting—a commitment leadership can plan against, not an estimate
• Manage activity as rigorously as pipeline: roughly a third of booked revenue comes from deals created and closed inside the same month, and never appears in a pipeline snapshot
• Reduce single-rep and single-deal concentration as an explicit goal, not a footnote

Rep Coaching & Development

• Run weekly 1:1s with every rep—pipeline review, deal coaching, and development goals, with notes that persist and compound
• Coach two structurally different motions on their own terms: a large-deal book of corporate and conference work, and a high-volume book of schools, nonprofits, personal events, and seasonal renewals
• Build the enablement the team is missing—a value-articulation playbook per vertical (tech-corporate, civic, cultural) and trial-close discipline as a condition of stage advance
• Use call and activity data as coaching evidence rather than intuition; track each rep against a competency ladder you can articulate
• Own hiring, onboarding, and ramp as the team grows

Outside Sales Engagement

• Design OTG's outbound engagement motion—target segments, cadence, and a values-aligned approach that makes the first conversation welcome rather than intrusive
• Personally open and hold a defined set of relationships to prove the motion works, then transition proven relationships to rep ownership
• Build OTG's presence where community happens—venue partners, chambers, business improvement districts, civic and neighborhood organizations, and our creator network as a source of introductions
• Set weekly outbound commitments per rep and hold the team to them
• Own the measurement: touches, meetings held, and opportunities created from OTG outreach

Client Relationships

• Set the standard for the sale as hospitality, every inquiry answered with a real proposal in under four hours, and a client who never has to ask what happens next
• Deepen key account relationships so repeat and referral business grows year over year
• Jointly own client recovery when an event underdelivers, in partnership with the Production Manager and make sure the lesson reaches the plan, not just the apology
• Coach reps to lead with added value rather than discounting; escalate pricing exceptions per policy

Team Rhythm & Program Improvement

• Run the operating cadence: daily team clock-in and clock-out, sales standup, weekly kickoff, and the weekly forecast to leadership
• Document what has never been written down—the marketing-to-sales routing rule and the sales-to-production handoff criteria, and then enforce both
• Report and resolve sales-side defects; partner with the Production Manager on planning-side defects, using the handoff bounce-back as the model
• Partner with the Marketing Director and Finance on targets, commission design, and territory or segment structure

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• 3–6 years managing quota-carrying sales reps , including a real example of a rep who measurably improved under you—not just a team that hit a number
• Forecast discipline. You have built a forecast from stage-level close rates and probability weighting, and stood behind it
• Outbound build experience. You have stood up or substantially rebuilt an outside sales motion—targeting, cadence, and measurement—not just inherited one
• CRM fluency deep enough to build reports, enforce stage criteria, and recognize data insights generated by team activities
• A coach's instinct. Your first move on a stuck deal is a question; you also know when questions have stopped working and it is time to be direct
• Catering, hospitality, events, or experiential background strongly preferred, you understand that a signed contract is the beginning of the work, not the end
• A natural communicator who is warm, direct, and confident with clients, venue partners, creators, and your own team
• Strong writing discipline; Escalations, forecasts, and coaching notes must carry their full context in writing
• Proficiency in Google Suite; comfort with sales enablement and reporting tools
• Valid California Driver's License with a clean driving record; reliable transportation to Bay Area client and event sitesBachelor's Degree preferred, not required

PHYSICAL DEMANDS

This role combines office and field work. You'll spend time at client sites, venues, and OTG events—standing, walking, and moving through event spaces for extended periods at times. The role occasionally involves lifting up to 25 lbs, and outdoor work in variable Bay Area weather is part of the job. Reasonable accommodations may be made for individuals with disabilities.

OFF THE GRID IS FOR EVERYONE

We're committed to building a team that reflects the communities we activate in. Off the Grid is an equal opportunity employer and considers all qualified applicants regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or protected veteran status.