Catering Director of Sales
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Company: Feast Your Eyes Catering
Reports to: CEO / Owner
Submit Resumes to: [email protected]
Feast Your Eyes is seeking a strategic, hands-on Director of Sales to lead revenue growth and the sales function for a high-volume off-premise catering company serving weddings, corporate, nonprofit, museum, cultural, and social events throughout the Greater Philadelphia region. This leader oversees the sales pipeline from lead intake and prospecting. Reviews proposals, contracts, event execution, and post-event follow-up with sales teams. The Director of Sales is expected to balance aggressive business development with disciplined pricing, strong client relationships, operational feasibility, event profitability, and a deep understanding of how Feast executes events in the field. Responsibilities may evolve as company needs, sales priorities, venue relationships, and operations change.
What You Bring
- A leader who believes in Feast and its culture, builds trust with team members, leads with respect and steady fairness, holds themselves and others accountable, conducts active listening with team members.
- 8-10+ years of progressive catering, hospitality, venue, or event-sales experience, with significant direct experience selling and planning full-service off-premise catered events.
- Demonstrated success leading a sales team, achieving multi-segment revenue goals, and managing a complex pipeline with long- and short-lead business.
- Strong knowledge of the Greater Philadelphia event market, including venues, planners, corporate and nonprofit buyers, event partners, and the competitive catering landscape.
- Deep understanding of off-premise event economics and logistics, including staffing, rentals, transportation, venue access, load-in/load-out, temporary service environments, and event-specific cost drivers.
- Proven ability to evaluate pricing, negotiate contracts, protect margin, and balance client expectations with operational feasibility.
- Strong command of CRM and catering/event-management systems, forecasting, reporting, and data-driven sales coaching.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication, presentation, negotiation, listening, and relationship-building skills.
- Highly organized, detail-oriented, calm under pressure, and comfortable making decisions in a fast-paced, deadline-driven event environment.
- Ability and willingness to move between strategy and the field - attending key client meetings, tastings, site visits, networking events, and selected evening/weekend events, while maintaining firsthand familiarity with loading, temporary kitchens, setup, and service execution.
Sales Leadership & Revenue Strategy
- Develop and execute annual, quarterly, and monthly sales plans tied to company revenue, event-count, profitability, and market-segment goals.
- Translate company revenue goals into individual sales targets, activity expectations, conversion goals, and account-development priorities for the sales team.
- Own weekly sales pacing and forecasting, including booked revenue, tentative business, weighted pipeline, lost business, event mix, and projected close dates.
- For each account, identify gaps in budget early and create specific recovery plans by account, date range, or event type.
- Manage sales capacity against culinary, staffing, equipment, transportation, and operational realities so the company grows without overcommitting execution resources.
- Lead weekly sales meetings focused on pipeline movement, next actions, obstacles, pricing decisions, upcoming tastings/site visits, and closing priorities.
- Personally lead or support the pursuit and closing of strategic, high-value, high-profile, or complex accounts and events.
New Business Development & Philadelphia Market Growth
- Proactively generate new off-premise catering business through direct outreach, referrals, networking, relationship development, and targeted account prospecting.
- Build relationships with corporate decision-makers, event planners, nonprofit and association leaders, universities, cultural institutions, museums, venues, destination-management companies, and other event-industry referral sources.
- Develop and maintain a focused list of key accounts and target accounts with defined contact strategies, next steps, potential annual value, and ownership within the sales team.
- Identify and pursue preferred, exclusive, and semi-exclusive catering relationships with venues and event spaces throughout the Greater Philadelphia market.
- Maintain strong working relationships with planners, venues, rental companies, production partners, florists, entertainment companies, photographers, and other event professionals who influence catering referrals.
- Monitor the local competitive landscape, venue openings, event trends, pricing shifts, and changes in client buying behavior that may affect sales strategy or opportunity.
Lead Management, CRM & Conversion
- Establish and enforce standards for inquiry response time, discovery calls, follow-up cadence, proposal turnaround, and lead ownership.
- Ensure every qualified inquiry has a documented next action and that leads do not stall because of missed follow-up.
- Oversee lead distribution based on salesperson workload, event complexity, venue knowledge, client relationship, and sales opportunity.
- Maintain disciplined CRM and event-management data standards so pipeline value, event status, probability, source, next action, and close date are accurate and reportable.
- Track conversion by salesperson, event type, lead source, venue, market segment, and reason lost; use findings to coach the team and improve closing performance.
- Create rebooking and reactivation practices for past clients, lapsed accounts, annual events, and recurring corporate or nonprofit programs.
Proposal, Pricing, Profitability & Contract Oversight
- Set standards for proposal quality, accuracy, speed, customization, and presentation; review strategic or complex proposals before they are presented to the client.
- Maintain pricing discipline and protect established margin expectations across food, beverage, staffing, rentals, equipment, transportation, production, and other event-related costs.
- Approve or escalate discounts, concessions, value-adds, waived fees, and non-standard contract terms in accordance with company policy.
- Partner with culinary and operations leadership to validate feasibility and cost assumptions before committing to unusual menus, challenging venues, compressed timelines, complex service styles, or labor-intensive event designs.
- Ensure changes in guest count, rentals, staffing, equipment, menu, service style, timing, or scope are reflected in revised client pricing and contracts rather than absorbed by the company.
- Review average event value, upsell performance, gross profit contribution, and margin trends; coach the team to sell solutions that elevate the client experience while remaining operationally sound.
- Support accurate deposit schedules, final billing, and resolution of sales-related invoice questions or scope discrepancies in partnership with finance/accounting.
Client Experience & Sales Process
- Set the standard for a polished, responsive, consultative client experience from first contact through signed agreement and planning handoff.
- Ensure discovery conversations uncover the client’s priorities, guest experience goals, budget parameters, venue requirements, dietary needs, decision process, and event logistics before proposals are developed.
- Oversee the strategy and quality of client presentations, menu discussions, tastings, and venue/site visits with a focus on conversion and expectation-setting.
- Coach the sales team to guide clients confidently rather than simply take orders, offering creative alternatives when budget, timing, venue, or execution constraints require a different solution.
- Establish standards for post-proposal follow-up, contract follow-through, deposit collection, post-event communication, rebooking, referrals, and recovery when a client concern arises.
Team Leadership & Accountability
- Recruit, onboard, train, coach, and develop a high-performing sales team with clear standards for professionalism, responsiveness, client care, accuracy, and accountability.
- Conduct regular one-on-ones, pipeline reviews, performance evaluations, and development conversations with each sales team; recognize strong performance and address gaps promptly.
- Set measurable expectations for revenue, conversion, prospecting, follow-up, CRM accuracy, proposal turnaround, account development, profitability, and client retention.
- Build a collaborative culture between sales, culinary, operations, staffing, finance, and venue teams, with particular focus on accurate information transfer and respect for departmental responsibilities.
- Establish and administer sales incentive and commission structures that reward profitable revenue, strong client retention, and responsible selling behavior.
- Model Feast’s hospitality standards and company values in every client, partner, and employee interaction.
- Maintain hands-on visibility at selected events and be prepared to support event supervision or other client-facing event functions when business needs require, particularly for high-profile, complex, first-time, or strategically important accounts.
Revenue & Reporting
- Prepare and review weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual sales reports for leadership, including booked revenue, pipeline, forecast, conversion, average event value, event count, revenue by segment, and salesperson performance.
- Track year-over-year pacing and future-booked business by month and event segment to identify seasonality, compression dates, soft periods, and growth opportunities.
- Report reasons for lost business, discounting trends, venue/source performance, repeat-business rates, and profitability indicators that require leadership attention.
- Maintain a reliable forward-looking forecast that supports staffing, purchasing, production planning, cash-flow planning, and broader company decision-making.
KPIs / Success Metrics
- Achievement of annual and quarterly event-sales revenue goals.
- Qualified pipeline value and forecast accuracy.
- Inquiry-to-proposal and proposal-to-booking conversion rates.
- Average event value, upsell performance, and event profitability.
- New-account production and growth in repeat/referral business.
- Response time, proposal turnaround, CRM accuracy, and lead follow-up compliance.
- Client satisfaction, retention, and successful rebooking of recurring events.
- Sales team productivity, goal attainment, development, and retention.
- Quality and accuracy of sales-to-operations handoffs and reduction of preventable scope or billing errors.
Why Join Feast
At Feast, we are committed to creating an inspiring workplace where every team member is valued and supported. We believe that exceptional events come from talented people working together with care, accountability, creativity, and a shared commitment to hospitality.
We encourage people of all backgrounds and experiences to apply. Feast Your Eyes is an equal opportunity employer committed to building a diverse and inclusive team.
Pay: From $75,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k) matching
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
Work Location: In person
