Company Overview:

Fouts Bros Inc. is a family-owned, privately held commercial vehicle manufacturer founded in 1952. The company designs, manufactures, and distributes work trucks, fire apparatus, defense vehicles, specialty bodies, and parts for customers nationwide.

• Founded: 1952
• Founders: C.J. Fouts and Jerry Fouts
• Ownership: Family-owned (third generation)
• Corporate HQ: Milledgeville, Georgia
• Facilities: Milledgeville, GA and La Grange, TX
• President & CEO: Scott Edens

Historical:

Fouts Bros began as a single service station in Smyrna, Georgia in 1952. Over subsequent decades, the company expanded into truck body fabrication, commercial upfitting, and fire apparatus manufacturing, ultimately evolving into a multi-brand industrial group. By the late 20th century, Fouts had established itself nationally in commercial tankers and work trucks, and in 2019–2020 consolidated major operations in Milledgeville, GA to support scale manufacturing. Today, Fouts Bros operates a portfolio model, with specialized subsidiaries addressing discrete market segments—commercial fleets, fire and defense, parts distribution, and electric vehicles.

Corporate Structure:

• Fouts Bros Inc. (Holding Company)
  • Smyrna Truck – Commercial truck body manufacturer
  • Fouts Commercial Vehicles (FCV) – Specialize commercial truck dealer & fleet solutions
  • Fouts Fire – Fire apparatus manufacturer
  • Big Deal Parts – Parts & aftermarket distribution
  • Electric Commercial Vehicles (ECV) – Electric fleet solutions

Customer Relationship Management:

• Establish and nurture relationships with principal clients, fleet managers, dealers, and key stakeholders.
• Address customer requirements effectively and continuously enhance satisfaction levels.
• Segment the customer base to tailor strategies and product offerings appropriately.
• Identify and prioritize high-value segments for targeted acquisition and retention efforts.

Strategic Sales Leadership:

• Develop and implement comprehensive, long-term sales strategies aligned with organizational goals to optimize market share and profitability. Drive sustainable revenue expansion.
• Generate accurate sales forecasts using historical data, market analysis, and current industry trends.
• Utilize forecasts for setting realistic targets and guiding production planning.

Sales Channels and Expansion:

• Uncover and develop new sales opportunities—including partnerships, distribution channels, and online avenues—to bolster market presence and diversify revenue streams.
• Establish ambitious revenue objectives, forecast demand using market analytics, and ensure profitability across all client categories.
• Monitor results versus objectives, modifying strategies as necessary.
• Refine and streamline the entire sales process, from lead generation through conversion, to achieve optimal efficiency.
• Deploy sales automation tools to improve workflow productivity.

Pricing Strategy and Margin Management:

Develop and maintain a comprehensive pricing framework for each division, incorporating raw material costs, labor, overhead allocation, and targeted gross margin thresholds. Margin floors must be defined by product line and enforced through the approval process.

• Own the discount authority matrix. Establish tiered approval levels for discounts — what a sales rep can offer independently, what requires director approval, and what requires EVP sign-off. No deal should close outside of defined margin parameters without executive escalation.
• Conduct quarterly margin compression analysis across all divisions. Identify which product lines, accounts, or geographies are underperforming on margin and develop corrective action plans. Revenue without margin is not success.
• Partner with operations and finance on job costing accuracy. In a manufacturing environment, pricing decisions made in sales must reflect actual production costs. The EVP must maintain a working understanding of cost-plus pricing models, material cost variability, and how labor inefficiencies impact deal-level profitability.
• Monitor competitive pricing intelligence. Develop a structured process for gathering competitor pricing data through dealers, lost bid analysis, and market feedback. Use this intelligence to position Fouts Brothers competitively without sacrificing margin.
• Lead annual pricing reviews by division. Escalate recommended price adjustments to the CEO based on cost trends, market conditions, and margin performance data.
• Evaluate and approve all cooperative purchasing pricing submissions (Sourcewell, HGAC, GSA/DLA). Ensure that contract pricing supports volume growth while protecting company-wide margin targets.

Salesforce CRM – Platform Ownership & Sales Culture:

Salesforce is not a reporting tool — it is the operating system of the sales organization. The EVP of Sales is the executive sponsor of Salesforce at Fouts Brothers and is accountable for platform adoption, data integrity, and the translation of CRM data into actionable management decisions.

• Set and enforce non-negotiable CRM standards across the entire sales organization. Every opportunity must be logged. Every customer interaction must be documented. Every stage change must reflect an actual sales event, not wishful thinking. Pipeline integrity is the foundation of accurate forecasting and production planning.
• Define and maintain Salesforce opportunity stage definitions that reflect the actual Fouts Brothers sales process — from initial contact through quote, committee approval, contract execution, and invoicing. Stages must be meaningful, consistently applied, and tied to probability percentages that reflect real close rates.
• Use Salesforce dashboards and reports as the primary management tool. Weekly pipeline reviews, monthly performance analysis, and quarterly forecasting sessions must all be driven by Salesforce data — not spreadsheets or verbal updates. The EVP sets this standard by example.
• Drive Salesforce adoption accountability. Sales reps and directors who are not maintaining CRM standards are not meeting job requirements. Salesforce activity levels — calls, meetings, quotes logged, stage updates — are performance metrics, not optional activities.
• Partner with IT and Salesforce administrators to continuously improve the platform. This includes custom fields, workflow automation, integration with quoting tools, and dashboard development that gives the EVP and division directors real-time visibility into pipeline health, close rates, and rep activity.
• Use Salesforce data to identify coaching opportunities. Low conversion rates at specific pipeline stages, long deal ages, or high quote volumes with low close rates are signals that require management intervention. The EVP uses CRM analytics to identify these patterns and respond with targeted coaching or process changes.
• Oversee Salesforce forecasting accuracy. Hold the team accountable for the difference between forecasted and actual closed revenue. Chronic over-forecasting or under-forecasting is a management issue that the EVP must address directly.

Sales Culture:

• Model the behaviors that define the Fouts Brothers sales culture — urgency, accountability, customer obsession, and competitive intensity. The tone of the sales organization is set by its leader, and the EVP must embody what great looks like every day.
• Build a recognition culture that celebrates wins publicly and proportionally. Individual achievements, team milestones, and division records should be acknowledged in ways that reinforce the behaviors driving results — not just the results themselves.
• Create psychological safety within the sales team so that reps and directors will surface problems early — lost deals, unhappy customers, pricing issues — rather than hiding them until they become crises. A culture of transparency begins with the EVP demonstrating that honesty is always rewarded over comfortable fiction.
• Foster healthy internal competition through leaderboards, performance rankings, and division-level contests while maintaining a collaborative culture where team members support each other and share best practices across divisions.

Cross-Functional Collaboration:

• Work closely with marketing, supply chain, and production teams to ensure cohesive alignment in achieving sales forecasts and broader corporate initiatives.

Team Leadership & Management:

• Direct, mentor, and hold accountable for a team composed of directors and sales professionals.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

• Define, track, and analyze relevant KPIs, including conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, customer lifetime value, and pipeline metrics, to assess and drive departmental performance.
• Gross margin percentage by division, product line, and rep (Job jacket review)Average discount rate vs. target
• Margin variance between quoted and invoiced amounts
• Lost deal analysis tied to pricing competitiveness

Risk Management:

• Anticipate and address potential risks within the sales function, including market fluctuations and supply chain challenges.

Sales Technology Integration:

• Remain abreast of advancements in sales technology, analytics, and e-commerce platforms.
• Oversee the seamless integration of these solutions to support and enhance sales operations.

Industry Expertise:

• Monitor competitor activity, evaluate market trends, and provide informed strategic recommendations to executive leadership and the board.

Key Qualifications & Experience:

• Experience: Minimum of 10 years’ experience in senior sales leadership roles, preferably within the automotive, commercial vehicle, or industrial manufacturing industries.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in business, Marketing, or Engineering required; MBA preferred.
• Skills: Strong analytical capabilities for data-driven decision-making, exemplary negotiation skills for large-scale contracts, and proficiency in CRM platforms (e.g., Salesforce, HubSpot).

Compensation & Structure:

This role reports directly to the Chief Executive Officer. Compensation includes a competitive base salary and substantial performance-based incentives, reflecting the critical importance and direct impact of the position on company revenues.