Account Manager Connective Web Design | Remote (U.S.-Based) The short version We're an 18-person web design, branding, and marketing agency looking for an account manager who thinks like a business owner. Not a coordinator or project manager with a strategic title. A partner who understands how clients make money, where we fit into that picture, and where the next opportunity lives. Why this role exists Connective has a strong delivery operation, a creative team with real depth, and a client base with genuine loyalty. What we're building now is a dedicated strategic account management function that matches the quality of everything around it. Your primary job is growing client relationships, expanding revenue within accounts, and being the kind of advisor clients want in the room when they're making important decisions. What this role actually is You own a portfolio of roughly 20 clients. Some are high-touch anchor accounts with ongoing projects and marketing retainers. Some only reach out a couple times a year. You operate at both speeds. Your job is to know your clients' businesses almost as well as they do. Their industries, competitors, technology stacks, vendor ecosystems, who actually holds budget authority. You're asking questions that go beyond the current project, building deep client profiles over time, compounding your understanding so every conversation gets sharper. When you find an opportunity, you scope it, build the proposal, price it, and sell it. Your Director of Delivery validates anything over $1,000 before it goes to the client, and once they say yes, he handles resourcing and assignment. You own the what and why. He owns the how and who. This is account growth, not new sales. Your guiding metric is spend under management: the total budget you're controlling across your portfolio. That number should go up. What this role is not When a client calls and says "I want a brochure," you don't start asking about size and paper stock. You listen, step back, and ask whether a brochure is actually the best use of their money for the objective they're trying to hit. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. But you're the person who asks the question, because you know the brand, the industry, and the client's goals well enough to push back with credibility. How you work with the team You report to our Director of Delivery and work alongside our existing account managers. Your portfolio's growth feeds directly into his scorecard. You work closely with our creative team, and how you do that matters. You present creative work from a place of strategy, not personal preference. You think at the campaign level, not the task level. When a client requests a deliverable, you understand what it's connected to and make sure creative gets the full picture. You respect the boundaries between creative direction and execution, and you stand united with the team in front of clients. When branding or positioning work gets done, you keep it alive in ongoing conversations and catch it when something drifts. What you're walking into Connective is building a strategic account management function. The delivery infrastructure is solid. The creative team is strong. The client relationships are real. What's new is the layer you'd be operating in. Some accounts haven't had a proactive business conversation in a while. You'll inherit relationships where the client sees Connective as "the people who built my website" rather than a strategic partner. Shifting that perception is on you, one conversation at a time. There's revenue inside existing accounts that hasn't been surfaced because the right questions haven't been asked. These aren't easy wins. They'll take genuine curiosity and conversational legwork. And because we serve diverse industries across a broad service mix, the learning curve is real. You'll have good people around you. A Director of Delivery who thinks clearly about how account management and delivery connect. A Creative Director with nearly 40 years of agency experience. A CEO who built this company on the kind of advisory relationships you'd be carrying forward. The person who thrives here You're genuinely curious. You listen more than you talk, but when you speak, it lands. You handle pressure well: when a client isn't happy, you walk into that conversation, not away from it. You care deeply about outcomes but don't take feedback personally, don't panic when clients go quiet, and don't overshare internal matters. On a random Tuesday with nothing on fire, you'd be studying your clients' industries, reviewing transcripts for missed opportunities, mapping vendor ecosystems for patterns you haven't noticed before. What your first year looks like First 30 days: initiated outreach to every client in your portfolio, deep in learning mode on business models, account histories, and team capabilities. By 90 days: at least one strategic business conversation (not a project conversation) with every active client, a few real opportunities surfaced, and a working rhythm with delivery and creative. By year's end: spend under management has grown, retention is strong, and you've expanded at least a few relationships from single-service to multi-service. What we need from your background Required. Agency experience (not corporate, not in-house). You've worked across the service mix: web design, branding, marketing, and ideally beyond digital into print, direct mail, trade shows, packaging, etc. You can talk about WordPress from earned experience. You've scoped, priced, and proposed work independently. You understand proposals well enough to hold both sides accountable. You've grown accounts, not just maintained them, and can walk us through specific examples with real numbers. This can't be your first time. Strongly preferred. Enough working knowledge of SEO, PPC, content, email, and branding to spot opportunities and hold credible conversations. Comfort with AI tools as a force multiplier. Experience with Asana (or similar), Google Workspace, time tracking, and ideally a CRM. Flexible. Degree not required if your experience tells the story. Compensation and structure Base salary: $65,000 to $85,000, depending on experience. Performance bonus: Tied to spend under management growth and client retention. Structured KPIs, not commission. Grow your portfolio's spend, grow your comp. Benefits: Medical, dental, vision. 401(k) with match. Accrual-based PTO (increases with tenure). 16 paid holidays including Christmas week. Remote work. Profit sharing based on company profitability. Structure: Fully remote, U.S.-based. 38 to 40 hours per week. Semi-flexible schedule. Reports to Director of Delivery.