Sales Solution Architect

About the role:

The Sales Solution Architect role at Blackbaud is the penultimate position within the Solutions Consulting family, designed to drive strategic sales and enhance customer satisfaction. This role involves acting as a business architect and technical opportunity strategist, coach, and mentor, collaborating with Account Executives to define win strategies for high-value opportunities. Solution Architects are internal cross-functional experts and influencers, working closely with product managers, engineers, and marketing teams to ensure seamless product development and go-to-market strategies. Externally, they serve as thought leaders and brand ambassadors, representing Blackbaud at industry conferences and cultivating relationships with partners, influencers, consultants, and other vendors in the social good space. By rationalizing disparate products into cohesive solutions and leveraging strategic resources, Solution Architects significantly contribute to Blackbaud's market presence, innovation, and overall business growth.

What you’ll do:

Win Sales Opportunities 

• Is the “trusted advisor” during the sales cycle, gaining the confidence of the customer or prospect by offering consultation and recommendations drawing from industry and technology know-how as well as past experiences while ensuring Blackbaud’s approach to every opportunity is rooted in integrity. 

• Develop a comprehensive solution design that integrates structure, processes, and technology infrastructure. Align this design with the specific needs and expectations of the customer, ensuring that all systems and operations are optimized to deliver maximum value. 

• Serve as a strategic and technical resource for Sales and Solutions Consulting teams, leading the pursuit of large or strategic multi-product sales opportunities requiring creative and complex solutions.   

• Define a technical sales pursuit strategy, assembling and directing a team of key contributors to assist with pursuit and solution presentations. 

• Demonstrate expertise in and coach pursuit teams on consultative selling, Blackbaud and third-party solutions, industry and technology trends, best practices, and competitor analysis. Coach Solutions Consultants within a sales opportunity to address difficult or challenging situations during the sales cycle, turning a negative or adversarial situation into positive results. 

• Gain the confidence of customers or prospects by offering consultation and recommendations based on industry and technology know-how, ensuring Blackbaud’s approach to every opportunity is rooted in integrity. 

• Develop key relationships with customers and prospects at an executive level to advance sales and expand business through a consultative selling approach. 

• Lead in-depth discovery and assessment workshops to understand, define, and document customer requirements. 

• Identify and recommend partner solutions to address customer requirements beyond the scope of Blackbaud's offerings. Collaborate with partners to develop and execute a cohesive opportunity strategy. 

• Conduct solution development sessions, identifying the best solution fit based on requirements uncovered during discovery, including partner or third-party solutions, customizations, or recommended changes to customer business processes. 

• Document proposed solution that fully meets all technical and business requirements, addresses workflow processes, and considers integration of proposed solution into customer’s environment.  

• Document and present proposed solutions, demonstrating how they address requirements, articulate business value, and showcase ROI. 

Thought Leadership and Evangelism 

• Frequently represent Blackbaud through non-pursuit related presentations to various audiences at partner meetings, conferences, user groups and other Marketing events.  

• Independently participate in thought leadership activities, including (but not limited to) written articles for blogs or publications. 

• Engage and build relationships with other vendors in the social good sector, focusing on aligning their offerings with Blackbaud's Partner program to fill in gaps in Blackbaud offerings.  

• Network within the industry, market and accounts to bring new opportunities into the funnel. 

Internal Cross-functional Expert and Influencer 

• Align and partner with the Product and Technology Group (PTG) to help drive appropriate product enhancements and changes to technology roadmap. Recommend the development of new capabilities in support of market and customer needs. This includes representing Solutions Consulting in Core Team, Readiness, and other PTG workstreams.  

• Maintain expert-level knowledge in consultative selling, Blackbaud and third-party solutions, competitor information, industry trends, and vertical market(s) to help align customer business needs to products, solutions and services offered. Document and share best practices and case studies.  

• Work closely with other Sales and Marketing as an industry expert to Influence GTM strategy based on customer needs and industry trends. 

• Is a “go to” person for vertical and industry expertise.   

• Provide extensive mentorship and coaching to Solutions Consultants (SCs) in the context of sales opportunities and internal workstreams. 

• Advise Sales Directors on key plays for their sales vertical. 

What you'll bring:

• Nonprofit fundraising, financial and or operational experience required 

• 7+ years of experience working with Blackbaud solutions or equivalent industry experience 

• 4+ years of Solutions Consulting experience 

• 10+ years of experience in either presenting or managing complex solutions for nonprofit organizations 

• Ability to operate under minimal supervision leading strategic account level deals  

• Strong listening skills; demonstrated ability to ask effective need-development questions 

• Ability to influence others through presentations, demonstrations, and written communication 

• Experience developing and delivering presentations both to executive-level and working-level audiences 

• Ability to translate technical features into business benefits 

• Ability to recommend strategic workflows and policies as it relates to product solutions 

• Analytical and a knack for problem solving, with high attention to detail 

• Knowledge and experience working within a solution-selling or consultative selling environment  

• Has distinguished themselves for their innovation, expertise or operational execution.  '

• Ability to travel as needed, but no more than 25% of the time

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Blackbaud is a remote-first company which embraces a flexible remote work culture.  Blackbaud supports hiring and career development for all roles from the location you are in today!

Blackbaud is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to maintaining a diverse and inclusive work environment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, physical or mental disability, age, or veteran status or any other basis protected by federal, state, or local law.

To all recruitment agencies: We do not accept unsolicited agency resumes and are not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.

A notice to candidates: Recruitment Fraudulent Alert: Your personal information and online safety as a candidate mean a lot to us! At Blackbaud and our portfolio of companies, recruiters only direct candidates to apply through our official careers page at https://careers.blackbaud.com/us/en or our official LinkedIn page. Recruiters will never request payments, ask for financial account information or sensitive information like social security numbers, or conduct interviews via Skype.  Anyone suggesting otherwise is not a representative of Blackbaud. If you are unsure if a message is from Blackbaud, please email blackbaudrecruiting@blackbaud.com. 

Benefits Include:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance

• Remote-first workforce

• 401(k) program with employer match

• Flexible paid time off

• Generous Parental Leave

• Volunteer for vacation

• Opportunities to connect to build community and belonging

• Pet insurance, legal and identity protection

• Tuition reimbursement program