Sales Manager at LexisNexis South Africa

About the Role:

• The Sales Manager is responsible for leading the acquisition of new customers and delivering revenue growth for LexisNexis research solutions. The role leads a team focused on winning new business across legal market segments by using consultative, value-based selling to position LexisNexis legal research, guidance and AI-enabled solutions, including platforms such as Lexis+ South Africa, Lexis+ AI South Africa, Lexis Library, Practical Guidance and related research products. The role combines commercial leadership, people management, pipeline development, forecasting discipline, product-led solution selling and cross-functional collaboration to achieve monthly, quarterly and annual growth targets

Key Responsibilities 

Sales Leadership and Revenue Delivery

• Lead and motivate the Research New Sales team to consistently achieve and exceed monthly, quarterly, and annual revenue objectives.
• Drive new customer acquisition and accelerate new-logo growth across designated market segments and territories.
• Develop and execute strategic territory, segment, and account plans aligned to broader commercial goals.
• Oversee the end-to-end sales process, from prospecting and solution demonstrations through to proposal development, negotiation, and deal closure.
• Negotiate commercially sound agreements, including high-value and multi-year opportunities where applicable.
• Maintain strong oversight of sales conversion, deal progression, profitability, and overall commercial performance.

New Business Development

• Develop and implement proactive business development strategies for legal research and guidance solutions.
• Ensure consistent pipeline generation through structured prospecting, networking, referrals, targeted campaigns, and market engagement initiatives.
• Identify untapped opportunities within the legal market and prioritise high-value prospects.
• Support the team in building relationships with key decision-makers, influencers, and budget holders.
• Monitor prospecting activity and ensure a healthy top-of-funnel pipeline to sustain future revenue growth.

Consultative Solution Selling

• Drive a consultative, value-led sales approach focused on customer outcomes rather than price-driven selling.
• Develop a deep understanding of customer challenges, workflows, and operational needs across legal research, compliance, drafting, and knowledge management.
• Present and position LexisNexis solutions through compelling demonstrations, presentations, and tailored proposals.
• Align customer requirements with the most suitable products and solutions across the legal research and guidance portfolio.
• Clearly articulate the productivity, efficiency, and decision-making benefits of LexisNexis’ AI-enabled and research solutions.

Team Management, Coaching and Capability Building

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing sales team focused on strong execution and customer engagement.
• Conduct regular coaching sessions, one-on-ones, pipeline reviews, and forecast discussions to drive performance improvement.
• Establish clear expectations around sales activity, opportunity management, pipeline discipline, and customer engagement standards.
• Support onboarding, product training, sales enablement, and accelerated time-to-productivity for new team members.
• Identify capability gaps and implement targeted coaching initiatives to strengthen prospecting, negotiation, objection handling, and closing skills.
• Foster a collaborative, accountable, and results-driven team culture.

Forecasting, Pipeline and Sales Operations

• Own pipeline quality, forecast accuracy and sales visibility for the Research New Sales team.
• Ensure disciplined use of CRM systems, including opportunity tracking, next-step management, pipeline staging and reporting accuracy.
• Review pipeline sufficiency and intervene early where coverage, progression or close plans are weak.
• Prepare weekly, monthly and quarterly action plans and sales reports.
• Track leading and lagging indicators, including activity, opportunities created, conversion rates, revenue attainment and forecast movement.
• Use sales data and market insight to refine team focus, account priorities and go-to-market execution.

Customer and Market Engagement

• Build and maintain strong relationships with customers, prospects, and key industry stakeholders.
• Participate in strategic client engagements, complex negotiations, major demonstrations, and late-stage deal support.
• Represent LexisNexis at industry events, seminars, client meetings, and market-facing engagements.
• Stay informed on industry trends, competitor activity, and evolving customer needs within legal research and AI-enabled legal workflows.
• Provide market and customer feedback to leadership, product, and marketing teams to support strategic decision-making.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with Marketing, Product, Customer Success, Finance, Sales Enablement, and Operations teams to support business growth objectives.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders on account strategies, campaigns, product positioning, and market initiatives.
• Align sales execution with business priorities, product launches, and commercial campaigns.
• Share market intelligence and customer insights to strengthen competitive positioning and customer relevance.
• Minimum 3 years’ experience in business development or B2B solution selling with a proven track record in target-driven roles.

Performance Management and Governance

• Manage team and individual performance against agreed sales targets and behavioural expectations.
• Address performance challenges proactively through coaching, development plans, and ongoing follow-through.
• Ensure compliance with commercial policies, pricing governance, approval frameworks, and contracting standards.
• Uphold high standards of professionalism, integrity, and customer stewardship across all sales activities.
• Experience in software, insurance, telecoms, legal tech, risk/compliance, or other subscription-based industries (preferred).

Required

• Proven success in B2B sales, solution selling, consultative selling or new business development.
• Experience selling legal technology, online legal research, subscription solutions, professional information services, SaaS, or enterprise solutions.
• Experience selling into legal-market segments such as law firms, corporate legal departments, compliance teams or government.
• Exposure to AI-enabled research, drafting or workflow tools.
• Experience in leading teams selling solutions with recurring revenue, multi-year contracts and value-based commercial models.
• Demonstrated experience leading or coaching sales teams to achieve commercial objectives.
• Strong ability to manage pipeline, forecasting, activity tracking and territory planning.
• Experience presenting solutions, conducting demos, developing proposals and negotiating commercial agreements.
• Ability to communicate clearly and persuasively in both verbal and written form.
• Strong commercial judgement, planning discipline and execution focus.
• Comfortable using CRM platforms, preferably Salesforce or equivalent.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent relevant work experience.