National Sales Director

Overview

National Sales Director

Location:

Remote/CA
Department:
Wholesale

Reports to:

CEO

At Golden State Cider (Sonoma Craft), we’re a passionate, tight-knit crew dedicated to crafting exceptional beverages and building brands that people truly connect with. Our team is collaborative, creative, and driven by the work we do — and we’re looking for someone who can help elevate our story even further.

We are seeking a National Sales Director who is a strategic, hands-on leader with extensive experience in the beverage or alcohol industry with a proven ability to build and expand markets. The ideal candidate is a trusted distributor partner, an effective people leader, and a growth-focused operator capable of launching new territories, expanding distribution within existing states, and leading a high-performing sales team.

This role requires the ability to balance long-term strategy with strong field execution, leverage market insights to drive decisions, and collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to deliver sustained revenue growth and strengthen brand presence across priority and emerging markets.

Job Summary

The National Sales Director is responsible for driving revenue growth and expanding distribution across priority states including Georgia, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona, while launching and scaling neighboring state markets. This role leads all aspects of sales strategy, distributor management, and team development, ensuring strong execution, profitable growth, and consistent brand presence.

Key responsibilities include leading and developing a regional sales team; building and managing distributor partnerships; identifying market opportunities and whitespace for expansion; overseeing sales planning, forecasting, and budgeting; and cultivating key retail and on-premise accounts. The role works closely with Marketing, Operations, and executive leadership to align sales initiatives with company objectives, support successful market launches, and represent the brand at industry events and distributor engagements.

Sales Leadership and Market Development

• Achieve annual depletion, shipment, revenue, and profitability goals for the Northern California region while managing to the approved budget.
• Drive distribution, visibility, velocity, and brand presence across all assigned markets. Identify high potential accounts, market opportunities, and competitive insights to inform proactive strategy.
• Lead all regional sales planning, goal setting, territory execution, and performance management for the Sales team.

Distributor Management

• Build strong relationships with distributor leadership, account managers, and Sales Representatives.
• Conduct regular market visits, work withs, performance reviews, and business planning sessions with distributors.
• Monitor inventory levels and communicate proactively to prevent out of stocks or overstock issues.
• Ensure timely and accurate forecasting, pricing alignment, ordering, and program execution.

Account Development and Key Accounts

• Cultivate relationships with key retail, chain, bar, restaurant, and independent accounts throughout the region.
• Support new item placements, menu features, displays, programming, promotional execution, and visibility initiatives.
• Lead strategic account presentations, category insights, and brand education sessions.

Team Leadership and Training

• Lead, train, develop, and mentor Sales Representatives and Territory Sales Managers.
• Provide coaching, ride along, ongoing performance feedback, and support to drive accountability and consistent execution.
• Foster a positive, collaborative, high performance culture across the regional team.

Cross Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Marketing to align programming, brand priorities, and field execution.
• Work closely with CEO and leadership team on planning, budgeting, and business reviews.
• Provide frequent market feedback to support product development, innovation, and strategic planning.

Brand Representation

• Professionally represent Sonoma Craft at trade events, festivals, distributor meetings, and consumer facing engagements.
• Deliver exceptional brand education, training, and…