Join the Thogus team as a Commercial Sales Manager
Position Overview:
The Role
The Commercial Sales Manager owns all operational sales for Thogus — the account management team, the quoting and pricing process, the sales forecast, and the commercial terms that govern existing programs. This position reports to the President.
This is not a hunting role. We have a Director of Business Development who owns prospecting and market entry. What we need here is someone who runs the commercial side of an established book of business with real discipline — and is comfortable growing it by farming the existing customer base: additional programs, transferred tooling, adjacent SKUs, and volume currently placed elsewhere.
Thogus is rebuilding its costing and quoting methodology to reflect actual complexity and cost to serve. The Commercial Sales Manager is a primary owner of that discipline. The defining requirement of this role is that commercial processes are documented, followed, and reviewed on a defined cadence — not managed transactionally and not carried in one person's head.
Why This Role
Thogus has been in operation since 1950 and is family-owned. You would report directly to the President, with a short path between a decision and its execution.
Thogus is one of several manufacturing and technical services companies under common family ownership. Sustained performance here positions this role for expanded commercial oversight across multiple plants.
- Executive Management Position
- Office Hours: Monday-Friday 8:00am-5:00pm
- Company is open 24 hours/day, 5 days/week. Three shifts Monday-Friday
- 401k with Employer Match
- Comprehensive Benefits (including Medical, Dental, Vision, STD/LTD, Life)
- 12 Paid Holidays (including your Birthday)
- Temperature controlled (Air Conditioned)
What You Would Own
This role is organized around six areas of process ownership. Each is expected to run on a defined cadence — documented, followed, and reviewable by others.
Department Leadership
- Directly manage the Account Management team — priorities, workload allocation, and day-to-day direction
- Maintain a current account assignment matrix in which every active account has a named owner and a named backup at all times
- Conduct documented one-on-ones and performance reviews on a defined cadence
- Establish and hold a standing weekly department meeting with a published agenda and tracked action items
- Participate in the company management cadence, including the weekly written leadership update
- Develop the team's commercial capability — costing literacy, negotiation, and customer communication
Pricing and Quoting Discipline
- Own the quoting process end to end — intake, cross-functional review, costing input, submission and follow-up — against a documented turnaround standard
- Develop and approve pricing on new and existing programs, subject to Finance approval, consistent with standard cost and standard gross margin requirements
- Maintain a documented price file for every active SKU, with a full price review completed and documented on an annual cycle
- Execute price changes end to end — customer notification, effective dates, and verification that ERP pricing matches what was communicated
- Administer material pass-through and resin surcharge mechanisms where in place, including baseline documentation and periodic reconciliation
- Apply a consistent quoting methodology that reflects program complexity and actual cost to serve
Forecast and Reporting
- Own the monthly sales projection and the in-month push report; distribute on a fixed cadence and reconcile projection to actual every month
- Report quoting volume and conversion against production revenue on a defined cadence
- Maintain the CRM and ERP as the systems of record for pipeline, pricing and customer data — no personal spreadsheets as the primary source
- Present commercial results, risks and forward outlook to the President and Executive Team
Key Account Management
- Serve as the primary relationship holder for assigned key accounts, determined annually by customer concentration
- Maintain a documented contact cadence for every key account — relationship contact driven by schedule, not by escalation
- Own the customer scorecard process; ensure corrective action responses are complete, documented and submitted on time
- Identify and pursue additional volume within existing accounts — new programs, transferred tooling, and adjacent parts
- Escalate commercial and program risk promptly and in writing
Commercial Terms and Documentation
- Prepare and administer stocking agreements, supply agreements, forecast commitments, minimum order quantities and lead-time terms; route legal review through the President
- Take ownership of commercial requests originating from customers — define the process, assign the work, and drive it to closure
- Maintain complete documentation of pricing, commercial terms and customer commitments in the designated company directory, accessible to others
- Ensure commercial commitments are communicated to Operations, Purchasing, Quality and Finance before they are made to the customer
What We Are Looking For
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
- Working knowledge of custom manufacturing, preferably plastic injection molding, including tooling, secondary operations and the quote-to-launch process
- Demonstrated ability to build and hold a process — documentation, cadence and follow-through — across a team
- Practical command of standard costing and gross margin analysis; able to defend a price to a customer using cost data
- Proven success managing established programs and accounts over multi-year horizons
- Direct experience leading price increase or cost recovery efforts with sophisticated customers
- Ability to manage a small team and hold it accountable without losing the relationship
- Sound judgment under pressure, particularly when customer expectations and plant capability are in conflict
- Ability to travel to customer sites periodically, occasionally on short notice
Education, Training and Experience
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Sales, Marketing, Engineering or a related field preferred
- Progressive experience in sales management, account management or commercial management within a manufacturing environment
- Prior supervisory responsibility for an inside sales, account management or customer service team
- An equivalent combination of education and experience will be considered
Communication Skills
- Ability to write clear business correspondence, customer notifications and internal process documentation
- Ability to present information and respond to questions from managers, customers and cross-functional teams
- Ability to deliver unwelcome commercial news directly, with supporting data, and preserve the relationship
Analytical Skills
- Standard costing, gross margin and contribution analysis
- Cost justification and return on investment analysis
- Application of percentages, ratios and proportions to pricing and volume scenarios
- Ability to interpret operational data — cycle time, scrap, utilized hours — and translate it into commercial terms
Systems
- ERP experience required; DELMIAWorks (IQMS) preferred
- CRM experience required; Pipedrive preferred
- Advanced Microsoft Excel; proficient in the balance of Microsoft Office
Physical Demands
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to:
- Regularly required to stand, walk and sit
- Reach with hands and use hands to finger, handle or feel
- May be required to stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl
- Occasionally required to climb or balance
- May be required to lift and/or move up to 25 pounds
- Specific vision abilities required include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision and depth perception
Thogus Core Values
Passion — Desire to make a positive impact and inspire others to do the same.
Honesty and Integrity — Doing the right thing even when no one is watching.
Dedication — Team focused to execute tasks with a positive attitude, sense of significance, and enthusiasm.
Mutual Respect — Considerate of others' ideas, feelings, beliefs, or property; giving it even if you don't get it.
The Edge — Commitment to adaptation, breaking tradition, and accepting change.