General Manager, SMB

Job description

**Job Summary:** As General Manager, Small & Medium Business (SMB), reporting directly to the EVP, Industries, you will own the strategy, growth, and profitability of Toptal’s SMB business, with full P&L and budget authority. You will improve how we win new clients, retain and expand existing relationships, and bring more of Toptal’s capabilities to market. You will decide where to invest, build the team, and be accountable for the results. SMB requires consistent and strong commercial judgment at a high volume. New clients arrive with an immediate need; within 15 minutes your team must quickly understand the problem, explain how Toptal can help, and move the opportunity toward a sale. In addition to strengthening the inbound execution, you will grow our nascent outbound sales motion, improve our client expansion motion, develop more targeted marketing with our Enterprise industry teams, and activate a partnership ecosystem to bring new clients and revenue to Toptal. You will lead a high-energy sales organization with clear expectations and rigorous performance management. You will listen to calls, speak with clients, examine where opportunities are lost, and coach your leaders through specific performance issues. You will know whether a shortfall comes from demand, selling quality, pricing, capacity, or the client experience, and act with the responsible teams to address it. Your managers should see the standard you expect in your own work. You will build on an established client base and inbound demand to expand the problems small and medium-sized businesses trust Toptal to solve through our services, AI-based solutions, and talent-based capabilities. You will have the authority to build the team and invest in profitable growth. This is a remote position. We do not offer visa sponsorship or assistance. Resumes and communication must be submitted in English. **Responsibilities:** *The following information is intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, or required skills.* - Set and execute the SMB strategy. Identify the client needs, offerings, and sales approaches with the strongest growth potential. Build a business plan with clear financial objectives, priorities, and investment choices. Strengthen the existing talent business while developing additional sources of growth. - Own the P&L and budget. Be accountable for revenue, profitability, and spending. Understand how conversion, retention, pricing, offering mix, and the cost to acquire and serve clients affect results. Allocate resources, evaluate returns, and act when performance diverges from the plan. - Improve conversion from first contact to first engagement. Set clear standards for response speed, discovery, qualification, and closing. Ensure sellers maintain ownership as specialists resolve technical questions and clients move through the buying process. Find where momentum is lost and address the underlying causes. - Grow and retain the client base. Build an account management approach that gives clients appropriate attention based on their needs and potential. Expect proactive conversations about upcoming work, engagement outcomes, and opportunities to do more with Toptal. Address reasons clients leave and develop practical ways to earn repeat business. - Build outbound sales and targeted marketing. Grow the nascent outbound motion into a repeatable source of revenue. Work with Marketing, Sales Development, and Enterprise industry teams to select target clients, develop relevant propositions, and run coordinated campaigns. Use shared industry insight and client experience to sharpen targeting, then assess results through conversion, revenue, and acquisition economics. - Activate a partnership ecosystem. Build partnerships that create qualified demand and new revenue for SMB. Identify and recruit the right partners, equip them to sell with Toptal, and develop joint plans with clear opportunity ownership. Turn promising relationships into active referral, co-selling, or resale motions, and invest in those that produce profitable growth. - Expand adoption of services and AI-based solutions. Help sellers recognize when a client’s needs extend beyond an individual talent request. Work with Services leaders and specialists to develop relevant propositions, bring expertise into client conversations, and close business. Build the team’s ability to sell broader solutions while maintaining progress on the client’s immediate need. - Build a high-performing sales organization. Recruit strong managers and sellers, set demanding but achievable expectations, and establish a daily and weekly rhythm for performance management. Hold managers accountable for call quality, conversion, productivity, and commercial results. Review their coaching, demonstrate stronger approaches, recognize strong performance, and address underperformance promptly. - Match capacity and coverage to the work. Plan staffing around demand, response expectations, active opportunities, and account needs. Give teams clear ownership and workable client portfolios. Coordinate with Operations, Matching, and Delivery so internal transitions preserve context and keep clients moving forward. - Run the business with reliable evidence. Establish a consistent view of acquisition, engagement starts, retention, expansion, seller productivity, and financial performance. Build forecasts that reflect the speed and volume of SMB sales. Test changes against clear baselines, distinguish temporary movement from sustained improvement, and use technology and AI to improve execution. **In the first week, expect to:** - Learn Toptal’s business model, capabilities, SMB sales process, and client value proposition. - Meet your leadership team and the functions supporting acquisition, account management, partnerships, matching, and delivery. - Listen to client calls and begin reviewing the funnel, client portfolio, P&L, budget, and team performance, while exercising discretion and independent judgment. **In the first month, expect to:** - Develop an informed view of where SMB wins, where clients lose momentum, and what limits growth. - Assess your leaders and teams, including coaching, performance, capacity, and hiring priorities. - Establish a consistent rhythm for commercial reviews, forecasting, financial management, and coaching. - Present your proposed SMB business plan, including priority outbound campaigns, partnership opportunities, financial assumptions, and investment choices. **In the first three months, expect to:** - Be executing an agreed business plan with clear objectives, resource allocations, and ownership. - Have implemented initial improvements to conversion and retention, with baselines and a clear way to assess their impact. - Be running targeted outbound campaigns with Marketing, Sales Development, and Enterprise industry teams, and activating initial partner opportunities. - Have made the initial talent and leadership decisions needed to strengthen execution. **In the first six months, expect to:** - Demonstrate measurable progress against the plan in revenue, profitability, conversion, and retention. - Show that coaching and consistent performance management are improving seller and manager effectiveness. - Show early commercial results from outbound campaigns and activated partners, with evidence to guide further investment. - Manage the P&L against the budget and address material variances with specific actions. **In the first year, expect to:** - Deliver against the agreed SMB revenue, profitability, and budget objectives. - Have built a stronger leadership team with clear accountability, effective coaching, and consistent execution. - Demonstrate sustained improvement in acquiring, retaining, and growing clients, including broader adoption of Toptal’s capabilities. - Have established outbound sales and partnerships as measurable contributors to growth, with a clear plan for scaling them. **Qualifications and Job Requirements:** - Bachelor’s degree is required. An MBA or a master’s degree in engineering, computer science, physics, or mathematics is preferred. - 12+ years of B2B commercial experience, including SaaS or services sales, with a sustained record of scaling high-volume sales to small and medium-sized businesses. You can demonstrate your personal contribution to growth and improved commercial performance. - 5+ years leading sales and account management teams, including experience managing managers. You have built high-energy teams, set clear performance standards, improved results through specific coaching, addressed underperformance, and developed future leaders. - Experience leading both new-client acquisition and account management, with evidence of improving conversion, retention, and expansion. - Demonstrated accountability for commercial results and resource decisions. You can explain how your choices on pricing, staffing, investment, and client coverage affected revenue and profitability. - Experience building outbound sales and working with Marketing and Sales Development on targeted campaigns that produce measurable revenue. - Experience activating commercial partnerships and turning partner relationships into qualified opportunities and revenue. - Strong analytical judgment. You can trace a performance problem through the sales process, test competing explanations, and determine whether a change produced a meaningful improvement. - The ability to improve a high-volume sales operation while introducing new offerings or ways of selling. You can make changes without losing control of daily execution. - Sufficient fluency in technology, AI, and services delivery to discuss client priorities intelligently, evaluate commercial opportunities, and recognize when specialist expertise is needed. - Clear, persuasive written and verbal communication. You can explain the business, make a compelling investment case, and give teams specific direction. - Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, including proposals and presentations. - Ability to work in a fast-paced, rapidly growing company and handle a wide variety of challenges, deadlines, and a diverse array of contacts. - Regular or periodic travel to meet and engage with Toptal clients and customers both inside and outside of your geographic location. - You must be a world-class individual contributor to thrive at Toptal. You will not be here just to tell other people what to do.