Role: Inside Sales Manager
Experience: 7-12 years
Location: Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad (Hybrid - with 3 days in office)
Fission Labs is a product engineering and AI firm headquartered in Hyderabad, with a proven delivery base serving US and European mid-market clients. We build custom software, data platforms, and AI-led engineering solutions for technology companies and digital-native enterprises. Strong delivery is proven. What we are building now is the revenue engine — and this role is central to that.
Inside Sales Manager is a player-coach role. You will build, run, and improve the inside sales machine at Fission Labs — while still having skin in the game as an individual contributor on a floor target.
You are not inheriting a team. You are building one. Right now there is no playbook, no sequence library, no structured cadence — only a strong delivery brand, an active client base in the US, and a sharp leadership team that wants to grow. You will write the first version of everything: the ICP, the outreach strategy, the qualification framework, the handoff protocol, and the hiring criteria for the ISEs you will eventually manage.
If you have spent the last few years managing an outbound team at an IT services company and found yourself rewriting their playbook anyway — this role was designed for you.
WHAT YOU WILL DO
1. Build the Machine
- Design and own the outbound engine from scratch — ICP definition, account segmentation, persona mapping, sequence architecture, tool stack, and weekly cadence
- Write the master playbook: cold call scripts, email sequence templates, LinkedIn outreach framework, objection-handling guides, and discovery question banks — updated quarterly based on what is actually working
- Own the tool stack — configure and manage Apollo.io, Clay, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Outreach or Instantly, and HubSpot/Salesforce — not just use them, own them
- Build the SQL handoff protocol — standardise what a qualified lead looks like, what the handoff note must contain, and how the AE picks it up — zero ambiguity, every time
- Set up reporting: weekly pipeline dashboards, activity-to-SQL conversion ratios, sequence performance by persona/vertical, and call connect rates — visible to leadership without anyone asking
- Define targets by role and tenure — onboarding ramp expectations, week-4 and week-12 milestones, steady-state quotas — and own the attainment tracking
2. Run the team
- Hire, onboard, and ramp Inside Sales Executives — write the job brief, run the screen, design the 30-day onboarding, and certify them before they touch a live account
- Coach weekly — listen to recorded calls, review email copy, sit in on discovery calls, give specific feedback — not general feedback
- Run a weekly pipeline review: every ISE walks through their top 10 accounts — what happened, what is next, and what is stuck
- Spot underperformance early and manage it directly — first with coaching, then with a performance plan, never by hoping it fixes itself
- Protect team motivation — celebrate reply rates and booked meetings as loudly as closed revenue; outbound is a confidence game
3. Carry your own number
- Maintain a personal outbound book — own 20–30 named accounts, run your own sequences, and book discovery calls yourself — this role does not lose touch with the phone
- Handle escalated or high-value accounts directly — when a VP of Engineering at a target enterprise responds to your team's outreach and it needs a senior voice, that is you
- Meet a personal floor target alongside the team target — you are accountable to both
WHAT WE NEED TO SEE
- Outbound Track Record - 7–10 years in sales with at least 4 as an individual contributor running cold outreach — email, phone, LinkedIn — with documented SQLs and reply rates. Can name your average reply rate, call connect rate, and SQLs per month from the last 12 months.
- People Management - 2–3 years managing an outbound team of at least 2 ISRs or SDRs. Hired at least one person yourself. Can describe a specific underperformer you managed — what you did, what changed or did not change, and what the outcome was.
- Playbook Ownership - Have built an outbound playbook before — not contributed to one, built one. ICP definition, sequence architecture, call script, objection handling, and handoff protocol. Can share a version of what you built.
- IT Services Familiarity - Sold technology services, staff augmentation, or SaaS. Understands what a VP Engineering's problems look like and can speak the language of product engineering, cloud, and AI without reading from a cue card.
- Tool Stack Command - Hands-on ownership of Apollo.io or ZoomInfo, LinkedIn Sales Nav, a sequencing tool (Outreach / Instantly / Lemlist), and HubSpot or Salesforce. Has configured these tools — not just used them.
- US/Canada Timezone - Can work 5 PM – 2 AM IST with genuine EST/CST overlap — not just theoretically. Has done this before and can sustain it. Buyers are in their timezone, not yours.
GOOD TO HAVE
- Experience at an Indian IT services, offshore product engineering, or nearshore staffing company targeting North America
- Hands-on use of Clay for AI-personalised list building and sequence personalisation at scale
- Familiarity with intent data tools — Bombora, G2 Buyer Intent, Leadfeeder — and has used intent signals to prioritise outreach
- Has sold into engineering, product, or technology buyer personas (CTO, VP Eng, Director of Product) — not just IT procurement
- Built or managed an outbound function during a company's 0-to-1 stage — has seen what it looks like when nothing exists yet
- Has run A/B tests on sequences at scale and can articulate what worked, what did not, and why
THIS ROLE IS NOT FOR YOU IF
- You have managed a team but have not personally run outbound in the last 12 months — this is a player-coach role, not a pure management seat
- You built the playbook at your last company by adapting someone else's template — we need the person who wrote the first draft from zero
- You cannot give a number when asked your team's average SQLs per month, reply rate, or call connect rate from the last year
- You prefer a steady, mature outbound engine — this role is building one, which means it will be imperfect, iterative, and occasionally frustrating
- You are uncomfortable giving direct feedback to an underperformer — coaching here means saying the hard thing early, not waiting for a quarterly review
- Your management style is check-in heavy and instruction-light — ISEs here are adults who need coaching, not monitoring
