Business Development Manager
Remote, project-based business development: one market, opened by someone who already lives in it
We are opening markets and need a name behind each one
What You Will Actually Do
One market, opened from the inside, at a pace you set.
Responsibilities
You own the work that makes one market real for us and keeps it producing.
- Market opening Your own market from first contact to first signed engagement: who to approach, in what order, and through which relationships
- Partnerships and referrals Agencies, studios, consultancies, and trade associations in your market that would rather send work than compete for it
- Local visibility Being the recognisable face in your market: events, communities, local press, and the places buyers there actually look
- First conversations Discovery calls with buyers who would never shortlist an agency based somewhere else, and honest qualification before anything is promised
- Handover to delivery Passing a qualified opportunity to the specialists who will run it, together with the local context a written brief never carries
- Market feedback Telling us what does not work in your market: pricing, positioning, payment terms, procurement habits, and the claims that fall flat
Requirements
What we need from you to be effective in this role.
- Business development experience 5+ years opening accounts, partnerships, or channels, with results you can describe specifically
- A real network Existing relationships in one market that you can use on day one
- Market fluency You understand how buying decisions are made where you are: who signs, how long it takes, and what kills a deal
- Services literacy Enough grasp of digital marketing to qualify an opportunity honestly and hand it over cleanly. You are not expected to deliver it
- Communication Excellent written and spoken English, because all internal communication runs in English, plus native or near-native fluency in the language of your market
Nice to have
Not required, but these make you a stronger fit.
- Agency-side experience You have sold marketing services before and know what makes a signed scope profitable
- Association and event access Membership, a speaking record, or standing invitations inside your market's business community
- A second market Credible reach into a neighbouring market or language cluster on top of your primary one
Why business development managers take this over a sales job
Four things this offers that a quota-carrying role does not.
You pick the market and how it opens
No inherited territory and no quota handed down from a plan you did not write. You pick the market you already know and decide how it gets opened.
Nobody here covers your market yet
Almost every country and language page we publish still ships without a named specialist behind it. You would be the first name on one of them, with no internal competition for its accounts.
You sell whatever your market needs
Search, paid media, app marketing, content, web work: whatever your market wants, the network already delivers it. Your job is the relationship, and the network matches the service to what the buyer needs.
Upside on what you actually bring
10% of what a client you brought pays us through their first 12 months, 5% in months 13-24, and 5% for as long as you run a client who came in through the site. It is counted only on money that has actually arrived, and it stacks with the 40% delivery share if you do the work as well.
How business development managers earn at Onlinuum
10% of what the clients you bring actually pay, not a salary or a quota bonus, plus the 40% delivery share if you deliver too.
10% on the Clients You Bring
You bring a client, you earn 10% of what they pay for the services you brought them in for, through their first 12 months, and 5% in months 13-24. After 24 months that client stops paying out. A client who arrived through the site and was handed to you pays 5% for as long as you run the relationship, with no decay. The base is paid revenue, and the clock starts at the client's first payment.
- 10% in months 1-12, 5% in months 13-24
- 5% on inbound clients while you run them
- Stacks with the 40% delivery share
Profit Participation
20% of company profit distributed annually across the team. Unit-based allocation reflecting contribution, responsibility, and impact.
- 20% of distributable profit
- Unit-based allocation
- Annual bonus
Phantom Equity
For key contributors: long-term financial upside aligned with company growth. Phantom equity does not make you a shareholder.
- Long-term upside
- Impact-based
- Aligned with growth
From application to an open market
Five steps, and the terms go in writing before you start.
Apply
Send your background, the market you can open, the relationships you already have there, and your working languages.
Fit Call
We discuss your market, your network, how you would open it, and what the first six months realistically look like.
Market Review
We look at the market together: what we already publish for it, who is competing there, and where the first real conversations sit.
Terms
We put the numbers in writing: 10% of what the clients you bring pay through their first 12 months, 5% in months 13-24, 5% on inbound clients you take over, plus tools, reporting, and communication rhythm.
Open
You start opening the market, with the delivery network behind you for every conversation that turns into real scope.
Services You Would Be Opening Doors For
What the network delivers once you bring the conversation in.
Productized SEO services: technical, content and multilingual growth. Audit from $1,190, fixed-price delivery programs from $1,990 per cycle.
PPC digital marketing for paid search, Shopping, and remarketing, with multilingual campaigns priced per market. Start with PPC Starter from $400/month.
App Store Optimization services for iOS and Android: keyword research, metadata optimization, and A/B testing. See pricing.
Content marketing agency for teams publishing in many languages: native writers, one editorial standard, six fixed-price scopes. Audit from $500.
Paid social advertising across Meta, LinkedIn, and TikTok, managed for ROAS with creative testing and cross-platform attribution. Book a consultation.
Web development for marketing teams: landing pages, CMS builds, and Core Web Vitals fixes. Sites built to load fast, rank, and convert.
Common questions about business development manager jobs at Onlinuum
How the role works, what to expect, and how compensation is structured.
How is this different from a country manager role?
A country manager normally owns a P&L, a local entity, and a team. This role owns none of those. You own the relationships and the first conversations in your market, while delivery runs through the specialists in the network and the shared operating system behind them. In practice you get the interesting half of a country manager job, the market itself, without a branch office to run or headcount to defend.
What does opening a market actually look like in the first months?
Mostly conversations. You map who matters in your market: agencies that would rather refer than compete, trade associations, and the events people there actually attend. Then you start a small number of relationships and do them properly. Alongside that we make the market real on our side, so the country and language pages carry your name and a buyer searching in your language finds a named person to talk to.
What is the pay for a business development manager here?
There is no salary and no quota bonus. You are paid on what you bring: 10% of what a client you brought actually pays us for the services you brought them in for, through their first 12 months, and 5% in months 13-24. After 24 months that client stops paying out, which we would rather tell you here than let you find in month 22. A client who arrived through the site and was handed to you pays 5% for as long as you run the relationship, with no decay, and it stops when you stop. Anything you upsell a client you brought joins the same schedule on that client's original clock. All of it is counted on paid revenue, the clock starts at the first payment, and it stacks with the 40% delivery share if you deliver work for that client too. Company profit participation and, for key contributors, phantom equity sit on top of that.
Do I need to know digital marketing in depth?
Not in depth. You need enough to qualify an opportunity honestly and hand it to the right specialist: what SEO, paid media, app marketing, content, and web work actually solve, and roughly what they cost. Delivery is somebody else's job here, on purpose. The person who opens the market and the person who does the work are not the same person, and neither is quietly doing both halves.
Is this a full-time job or part-time?
Part-time and project-based by design. Most people in this role spend 10 to 20 hours a week on it alongside other work. In its first months, opening a market takes a small number of well-chosen conversations, repeated patiently. Once the market moves, the hours grow with the business.
What support do I get when a conversation turns into a real opportunity?
The delivery network, the same proposals, pricing, and case material every other role uses, and a specialist on the call when the conversation gets technical. You are never expected to answer a scoping question you cannot answer, and you never have to invent a deliverable to keep a conversation alive.
Can I apply if my market is not listed here?
Yes. The markets on this page are the ones we want covered first, and others are open too. If you can open a market we already publish pages for and nobody covers it yet, that is exactly the conversation we want. Many of the strongest relationships here started from an introduction that matched no open listing at the time.
Have a different question?
Ask UsIf you can open one market, tell us which one
Send your background, the market you would open, the relationships you already have there, and your working languages.