Business Development Manager, Direct Markets

Job Description:Job Title: Business Development Manager, Direct MarketsLocation: Remote | USA - Southeast Region Reports to: VP, SalesEmployment Type: Full-timeAbout the Role: The Business Development Manager, Direct Markets is a quota-carrying individual contributor responsible for driving new business growth across automotive dealers, dealer groups, auctions, and related direct-to-dealer market segments. This role is designed for an experienced sales professional who can independently develop opportunities, manage an assigned book of business, and represent the full JD Power Dealer Solutions portfolio in customer-facing conversations. The Direct Markets team supports franchise and independent dealers, regional and national dealer groups, auctions, and other dealership-adjacent customers by representing the full JD Power Dealer Solutions portfolio. Operating with a One J.D. Power mindset, this role partners consultatively with customers to help improve dealership performance through solutions spanning digital retailing, F&I, inventory, marketing, customer experience, data and analytics, operational workflows, and business decision support. This individual will connect customer needs with portfolio capabilities, drive awareness of the broader Dealer Solutions value proposition, gather market insights, and translate evolving business priorities into effective account strategies and field execution.In this role, you will: Prospect, develop, and close new business across assigned Direct Markets territories, dealer groups, independent dealers, franchise dealers, auctions, and related dealership-facing customer segments. Manage assigned opportunities, accounts, dealer groups, and customer relationships within the Direct Markets channel. Build consultative relationships with dealer principals, general managers, F&I leaders, variable operations leaders, fixed operations leaders, marketing leaders, digital retailing leaders, and other dealership decision-makers. Conduct discovery to understand dealership business needs across F&I, digital retailing, inventory management, lead generation, vehicle acquisition, customer experience, marketing, compliance-minded workflows, reporting, and operational performance. Position JD Power Dealer Solutions as a connected portfolio of capabilities, clearly explaining how the broader offering helps dealers increase profitability, improve process efficiency, strengthen customer engagement, and support operational decision-making. Deliver compelling product positioning, discovery, demonstrations, proposals, and executive-level presentations tailored to dealer needs, market conditions, and account strategy. Identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities across existing accounts and create account plans that expand customer relationships beyond a single product sale. Maintain disciplined pipeline management, CRM hygiene, opportunity documentation, activity tracking, and forecast accuracy. Coordinate with Product, Customer Success, Professional Services, Marketing, Finance, Legal, Revenue Operations, Sales Operations, and Executive Leadership to support account strategy, pricing, contracting, implementation readiness, launch readiness, billing readiness, portfolio messaging, and customer success. Represent JD Power professionally at dealerships, dealer group meetings, trade shows, industry events, partner meetings, and virtual customer engagements. Provide market feedback to leadership and Product teams regarding competitive activity, dealer buying behavior, customer objections, capability gaps, launch readiness, roadmap priorities, emerging opportunities, and field adoption barriers. Support informal mentoring, onboarding, solution knowledge sharing, and best-practice development with newer sellers or adjacent sales teams. Required Qualifications: Bachelor's degree preferred but not required. Equivalent experience, training, and demonstrated success in a related field will be considered. 3-5 years of successful quota-carrying B2B sales experience, preferably in automotive retail, dealership technology, SaaS, data, F&I, digital retailing, inventory, marketing, or dealer-service-provider solutions. Proven ability to manage complex sales cycles involving multiple stakeholders, longer decision timelines, larger revenue opportunities, and consultative solution selling. Strong understanding of automotive dealership operations, including sales, F&I, digital retailing, inventory, service, marketing, customer experience, and dealership profitability drivers. Demonstrated ability to prospect, qualify, build pipeline, negotiate, close, and expand customer relationships. Excellent presentation, communication, discovery, business writing, and executive relationship management skills. Ability to learn and credibly represent a broad Dealer Solutions portfolio, including dealership software, workflow, data, analytics, retailing, inventory, marketing, customer engagement, operational