Business Development Specialist

General Description:

We are looking for a driven and energetic Business Development Specialist to accelerate our growth within the Salesforce ecosystem by building strong relationships with Salesforce Account Executives (AEs) and uncovering new business opportunities for ProQuest.

This role is ideal for someone with strong relationship-building skills, high energy, and an entrepreneurial mindset who loves connecting with people, creating opportunities, and being at the centre of the action. You will focus on partner engagement, ecosystem networking, and pipeline generation, helping line up meetings and introductions that create opportunities for ProQuest's leadership and consulting team to close.

Your mission is to ensure ProQuest stays top of mind with Salesforce AEs across NSW, VIC, and QLD, and to open doors with prospective mid-market and enterprise customers. Over time, this role can evolve into a full sales or account executive position for the right candidate.

You'll play a pivotal role in helping us achieve our FY26 growth goals and cement our position as Australia's #1 Salesforce partner for Service Cloud, Field Service, and Agentforce.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Ecosystem Engagement

● Build and maintain strong, productive relationships with Salesforce Account Executives across CBU and EBU teams

● Represent ProQuest at Salesforce and industry events, promoting our value proposition and booking follow-up meetings

● Coordinate and schedule 1:1 AE meetings, team presentations, and joint client introductions for the ProQuest leadership team

● Partner with Salesforce teams to identify upcoming opportunities and position ProQuest as the preferred delivery partner.

● Work with Marketing to coordinate AE-facing campaigns, roundtables, networking events, and customer story EDM campaigns that raise ProQuest's visibility.

Direct Prospecting

● Research and engage Salesforce customers directly (especially within Financial Services, Energy & Utilities, and Public Sector) to identify potential needs.

● Conduct outreach campaigns promoting ProQuest's Health Checks, Adoption Programs, Managed Services (CSPs), and project delivery expertise.

● Book discovery meetings with decision-makers to qualify opportunities and hand over to the leadership team for pursuit.

● Build awareness of ProQuest's value proposition across Salesforce customers through LinkedIn outreach, emails, and follow-up calls.

Operational Discipline

● Maintain an up-to-date log of meetings, interactions, and opportunities in Salesforce CRM

● Track weekly KPIs for AE interactions, meetings scheduled, and pipeline sourced

● Support pre-sales preparation by collecting initial customer context and briefing the sales or consulting team

● Develop a deep understanding of ProQuest's offerings, reference stories, and accelerators to represent us confidently

● Develop a strong knowledge of Salesforce Suite of products and remain up-to-date with the latest innovation in this space

● Demonstrate curiosity, commercial acumen and an ongoing learning mindset

● Travel locally and occasionally interstate for meetings and events as required

Territory

● NSW, VIC, and QLD as primary focus, with occasional WA opportunities.

● Vertical Markets: Financial Services, Energy & Utilities, Public Sector, Manufacturing and Retail & Consumer Goods.

Knowledge and Experience:

● 2–5 years' experience in business development, sales support, or partner management in the IT, SaaS, or consulting industry

● Proven track record of hitting activity and pipeline generation targets

● Strong people skills: approachable, engaging, and confident in building professional relationships quickly

● Comfortable attending in-person meetings, networking events, and presenting to small groups

● Excellent communication and organisational skills, able to manage multiple priorities and follow up consistently

● Energetic, proactive, and resilient: thrives on building new connections and doesn't take "no" for an answer

● Tech-savvy: proficient with Salesforce CRM, Google Workspace, LinkedIn Sales Navigator with a strong ability to leverage AI and LLM technologies (e.g. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) for prospect research, personalised outreach, and continuous learning.

● Motivated by measurable success and being part of a high-performing team

● Understanding of Salesforce ecosystem, partner model, and key cloud offerings (Service Cloud, Field Service, Marketing, Agentforce) advantageous and desirable

● Experience engaging with Salesforce AEs, consulting firms, or mid-market enterprise clients is highly desirable