Business Development Senior Manager, Sports & Media

ABOUT APPLY

APPLY is the Agentic Customer Experience (ACx) partner for the world's most ambitious consumer and entertainment brands. We bring together deep domain expertise across Retail, CPG, Sports, and Media with AI-native delivery capability, designing and delivering agentic solutions that turn CX vision into commercial reality. We are the partner of choice for brands like Arc'teryx, NFL, Lululemon, and Kraft Heinz. For more information, visit applydigital.com .

LOCATION: APPLY is hybrid/remote friendly. The preferred candidate should be based in the United States or Canada, working in hours that preferably align to ET (Eastern Timezone) however, qualified candidates in PT (Pacific Standard) will also be considered.

THE ROLE:

We are looking for a Business Development Senior Manager to help drive growth for APPLY's Sports & Media vertical. Our ideal candidate is an experienced, consultative seller who excels at building trusted relationships, creating opportunities, and navigating complex enterprise sales cycles. They are energized by the potential of AI to transform how brands serve their customers and comfortable engaging senior executives on how digital experiences, technology, and emerging capabilities can drive meaningful business value.

This is a senior individual contributor role for someone with 5+ years of business development and sales experience who is ready to own a meaningful portion of our Sports & Media growth target. You'll work closely with our Vertical Growth Lead, but you'll be expected to independently develop target accounts, originate opportunities, lead client conversations, and run pursuits from initial engagement through close.

This is not a traditional cold-calling or SDR role. It's a strategic, account-based business development role that requires curiosity, creativity, commercial instincts, and the ability to create genuine value exchanges with senior prospects who may not know APPLY yet — but absolutely should. You'll combine targeted prospecting, industry relationships, partner channels, events, and thoughtful account-based strategies to build a high-quality pipeline.

You'll own a portfolio of priority accounts and be responsible for turning account intelligence into relationships, relationships into qualified opportunities, and opportunities into revenue. Once an opportunity is established, you'll lead the pursuit — shaping the opportunity, mobilizing the right APPLY capabilities, developing the proposal and pitch, and helping navigate commercial conversations through close. You'll have the support and strategic oversight of our Vertical Growth Lead and Pursuit Operations team, but you'll be expected to operate with meaningful independence and accountability.

Success in this role means building a strong, sustainable pipeline and closing $3M+ in new revenue in your first full year. We're looking for someone who has already developed strong consultative selling skills and is ready to take on larger accounts, more complex pursuits, and greater ownership of revenue.

APPLY believes that diversity of ideas leads to the best solutions, so collaboration is critical. We need someone who can build trusted relationships externally while bringing together the right people internally to win complex opportunities. More than anything, we're looking for a driven, commercially minded relationship builder who can create momentum, energize pursuit teams, and turn conversations into meaningful client partnerships.

RESPONSIBILITIES:: Account Intelligence & Research

• Build awareness and generate your own leads.

• Build and maintain deep intelligence briefs on target accounts — including organizational structure, strategic priorities, technology investments, recent news, leadership changes, and competitive landscape.

• Monitor trigger events (funding, exec changes, partnerships, product launches, league/team activity) and surface timely engagement opportunities.

• Develop and maintain a target account tracker that serves as the operational foundation of our vertical GTM motion.

Top-of-Funnel & ABM Execution

• Design and execute account-based outreach sequences that are personalized, value-first, and tailored to each account's specific context — not templated blast campaigns.

• Collaborate with APPLY marketing to activate campaigns, events, and content assets as engagement vehicles for target accounts.

• Create bespoke outreach materials: one-pagers, account-specific research briefs, personalized decks, and leave-behinds that open doors and establish credibility before a first conversation.

• Support event strategy and execution — identifying relevant industry events (league summits, sports tech conferences, sponsorship forums) and helping develop engagement plays around them.

• Follow up on APPLY marketing campaigns and inbound leads.

Introductory & Discovery Support

• Qualify and schedule introductory and discovery calls on behalf of the Vertical Growth Lead.

• Prepare pre-call intelligence packages and talking-point briefs for every meeting.

• Attend introductory and discovery calls to support note-taking, next-steps tracking, and follow-up execution.

• Draft follow-up communications, recap emails, and initial materials to advance early-stage conversations.

Pursuit & Pipeline Ownership

• Manage and evolve a vertical/territory sales plan, including key targets and stakeholders.

• Qualify new opportunities along with the sales support team.

• Support pre-qualification scoring and deal qualification in collaboration with the Vertical Growth Lead and Pursuit Operations.

• Work closely with the APPLY partnerships leads and external partnerships contacts (Google Cloud, Contentful, Twilio, etc) to account map and coordinate co-sell opportunities into mutual target accounts.

• Assist in proposal development, pitch preparation, and RFP responses for active pursuits.

• Coordinate with APPLY's Pursuit Operations Lead on proposal logistics, internal alignment, and deal support activities.

• Help manage CRM hygiene, pipeline reporting, and deal status updates to keep the GTM motion organized and visible.

REQUIREMENTS:: Experience & Background

• 5+ years of experience in a business development, sales, ABM, or GTM-adjacent role — ideally at a consultancy, agency, technology firm, or within the sports/media industry itself.

• Some exposure to a full sales cycle is strongly preferred — we want someone who understands where top-of-funnel fits in the bigger picture, not just how to fill a calendar.

• Familiarity with account-based marketing principles and tools; comfort creating outreach materials and research assets without heavy template reliance.

• Experience in or genuine passion for sports, entertainment, media, or live experiences — an informed point of view on this industry is a real asset.

• Comfortable working knowledge of AI tools and agentic workflows, enough to speak credibly with clients and collaborate effectively with delivery teams.

Skills & Attributes

• A strategic relationship builder and great listener who can quickly develop trust and build rapport.

• A natural storyteller with the ability to take clients on a journey.

• Solid interpersonal skills – you're comfortable working alongside technical directors, salespeople, designers, and CEOs alike.

• A natural researcher who goes three layers deep and finds angles others miss.

• Strong writer — your outreach reads like it was written by a thoughtful human, not a sequence tool.

• Creative and resourceful: you find non-obvious ways to get in front of the right people.

• Organized and systems-oriented: you can manage a large target list with rigor and keep the machine running without dropping threads.

• Comfortable working in ambiguity and building structure where it doesn't yet exist.

• Collaborative by nature — you work well alongside senior sellers, operations, and marketing.

• Intellectually curious and genuinely interested in how APPLY's capabilities create value for sports and media brands.

• Ambitions that extend beyond an SDR motion — you want to learn how to sell, consult, and eventually own a territory.

NICE TO HAVES::

• Experience using AI tools for research, content creation, or outreach personalization.

• Familiarity with the sports tech, sponsorship, fan experience, or media rights landscape.

• Exposure to Google Cloud or technology partner ecosystems.

• Experience with tools like HubSpot, Common Room, Apollo, or similar GTM platforms.