Fast Facts

Join a dynamic team as a Business Development Associate where you'll drive growth in higher education by engaging with faculty and leveraging relationships to enhance language learning resources.

Responsibilities: Engage with faculty to identify opportunities, conduct needs analysis, and manage the early-stage pipeline for sales. Collaborate with marketing and operate within Salesforce for tracking and updates.

Skills: Bachelor’s degree and 1+ years experience in sales support or business development, along with strong communication and CRM skills.

Qualifications: Preferred background in ed-tech or higher education and experience with Salesforce.

Location: Boston, Massachusetts, United States with a hybrid schedule of in-office and remote work.

Compensation: $50000 - $60000 / Annually

WHO ARE YOU?  You learn quickly, have a strong drive for success and possess a support-oriented mindset. You don’t shy away from a challenge, easily build valuable relationships and are looking to join a growing and supportive company.

WHO ARE WE?  We are passionate, innovative, lifelong learners, and creative thinkers working to develop culturally authentic language learning products for K-12 schools and universities. 

WHAT’S THE ROLE ABOUT?  As one of our Business Development Associates, you will be responsible for accelerating growth and course adoption in assigned higher education segments by prospecting, sampling, and qualifying new business opportunities. You will be a collaborative partner to marketing operations, field sales, and business operations in managing projects, maintaining detailed records, and approaching challenges with creative solutions.

WHY IS THIS EXCITING? We are a growth-minded organization adding to our Boston-based team in our continuous effort to have a positive impact on students, educators and administrators by providing language learning resources.

IN THIS ROLE YOU WILL: 

• Proactively, effectively and reliably identify and engage faculty and program leads in underserved or high-potential markets.
• Initiate contact through telephone calls, emails, and digital outreach to engage faculty and program leads.
• Converts initial contacts into meaningful conversations that advance the sales cycle and conduct structured discoveries and needs analysis with prospects.
• Qualify prospects through structured discovery, needs analysis, and consultative conversations, ensuring all activity and outcomes are accurately documented in Salesforce.
• Own the early-stage pipeline for smaller opportunities, progressing them through to close; for larger opportunities, ensure seamless, well-documented handoff to sales team.
• Qualify leads based on clearly defined criteria, and document progression in Salesforce.
• Facilitate organized and well-documented transitions of qualified opportunities to sales reps, providing thorough engagement summaries and suggested next steps.
• Execute regional sampling programs: distribute trial access and courseware, track engagement, gather feedback, and report actionable insights to relevant stakeholders to inform product strategy and drive adoption.
• Partner with Marketing to follow up on campaigns and events, respond promptly to all marketing-generated leads, and advance opportunities through the pipeline.
• Support retention and base business by aligning outreach with marketing and customer success messaging, leveraging data (e.g., Course Tech Usage, Student Buying Behaviors) to secure new edition adoptions.
• Maintain meticulous records of all outreach, sampling, and qualification activities to ensure data accuracy, transparency, and compliance with VHL standards.
• Demonstrate creative problem-solving and resourcefulness in overcoming access barriers and penetrating niche segments, while upholding VHL’s values and compliance standards.
• Provide regular updates activity volume, pipeline status, sampling feedback, and results.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (marketing, product, business operations, account management) to review pipeline quality, handoff effectiveness, identify opportunities for continuous improvement and align solutions with client needs.

YOU MUST HAVE (MINIMUM REQUIRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE): 

• Bachelor’s degree minimum
• 1+ years’ experience in sales support, business development, project coordination, or customer success
• Relationship building, interpersonal and communication skills to effectively and appropriately speak with potential customers and team members in a professional and meaningful way
• Experience using a CRM or similar sales tools to manage sales activities
• Willingness to travel up to 10% of time.

IDEAL IF YOU HAVE or ARE (PREFERRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE): 

• Experience in the education technology (ed-tech), higher education, language learning or publishing industry
• Experience using Salesforce.com

LOCATION: Boston-Hybrid  

Candidates must be located within reasonable proximity to our Boston office location. Position requires working a Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday in-office & Monday/Friday remote schedule. Relocation assistance is not available. 

SALARY: $50k-$60k annual base salary range

This position is salaried and is eligible for incentives based on employee and organizational performance.