Account Executive, Brand Partnerships (Full Time)
About The Trek
The Trek is a media company dedicated to long-distance backpackers and thru-hikers. We educate, entertain, and inspire people to pursue their trail dreams. thetrek.co reaches hundreds of thousands of trail lovers every month with advice, trail profiles, gear reviews, and dispatches from the trail. We’re also home to the #1 hiking podcast, Backpacker Radio, and a social media following of over half a million.
At The Trek, we celebrate the Hiker Trash lifestyle: dirt tan lines, ramen bombs, and piling six or more bodies into a motel room. Whether someone is planning their first thru-hike or is a seasoned trail veteran, we aim to be their go-to resource for all things long-distance backpacking.
About This Role
As Account Executive, Brand Partnerships, you’ll own the full sales cycle across our portfolio: prospecting, pitching, closing, and growing brand and agency relationships. You’ll sell across YouTube, podcasts, social, sponsored editorial, and email, often combining them into integrated programs that actually solve a brand’s problem.
You’ll get warm inbound leads to work, but the heart of this job is generating new business. We have a highly engaged audience, a trusted brand, and fertile, largely untapped territory. We’re looking for a hunter who’s excited to build the pipeline, the relationships, and (with us) the systems and packages that make it all repeatable.
This is a hands-on individual-contributor role reporting directly to founder Zach Davis. It is not a management role, there is no team beneath you to start, though you’ll have significant influence over how we package, price, and sell.
What You’ll Do
- Prospect, pitch, and close net-new accounts. This is the core of the role. You own your pipeline from first contact to signed deal.
- Grow the accounts you win. Deepen relationships, expand spend, and become a trusted advisor to your brands.
- Sell the full catalog. Confidently pitch podcast, YouTube, social, sponsored articles, email, and integrated cross-platform programs, whatever best solves a client’s goal.
- Work inbound and outbound. Respond quickly to warm leads we route to you, while building your own outbound pipeline of brands and agencies.
- Own your forecast. Keep a clean pipeline, track next steps, and forecast accurately (we run lightweight tools currently, Google Sheets and similar, and you’ll help shape what we grow into).
- Show up for the category. Build credibility with outdoor and outdoor-adjacent brands and agencies, and be a first call when budgets open.
- Partner with our team. Work with editorial, marketing, video, and design to deliver campaigns we can execute without compromising the trust of our audience, and bring buyer feedback back to sharpen our products and pricing.
- Represent The Trek at industry events. Attend a handful of outdoor-industry trade shows, conferences, and other relevant events each year to develop new relationships, strengthen existing partnerships, and stay connected to the category.
What We’re Looking For
- A demonstrable track record of opening new accounts, not just growing existing ones. New business generation is the non-negotiable heart of this role, and we’ll ask for specifics.
- 3+ years in media or advertising sales with documented achievement against revenue targets.
- Comfort building from scratch. You’ve sold in scrappy, resource-light environments and can create order (pipeline, process, packages) where little exists. Experience at a challenger brand or online publisher is a strong plus.
- Range across digital inventory: podcast, video/YouTube, social, branded content, and newsletter. You can sell consultative, integrated programs, not just fixed units off a rate card.
- Existing relationships with outdoor or outdoor-adjacent brands and agencies are a significant advantage.
- A genuine understanding of and care for backpacking and our community. You don’t have to be a thru-hiker (though that is a major plus), but you should get what makes this audience special and why brands want to reach them authentically.
- Strong communication and collaboration. You can present and persuade across levels, and work well with a creative, editorial-first team.
Compensation
- Base salary: $55,000
- Uncapped commission, with fully ramped on-target earnings of approximately $100,000 at the annual sales target, and meaningful upside for exceeding it. We know the real draw of a sales role is the earning ceiling, and we’ve built this plan so a motivated seller is genuinely rewarded for the business they bring in.
Benefits & Perks
- Health insurance (Anthem Blue Cross): The Trek covers 75% of the employee premium.
- 401(k) with company match through Guideline, eligible immediately upon hire (100% match on the first 3% of contributions, then 50% on the next 2%).
- 14 days of accrued vacation (reaching the full balance by the end of your first year), plus 6 days of sick & wellness leave and 11 paid holidays.
- Flexible, remote-first schedule. Commit to 40 productive hours a week; outside of scheduled meetings and our 10am–3pm MT core hours, you decide when those hours happen.
- Prodeals and free gear from top outdoor brands, plus Trek swag.
- Company retreat / team gatherings to connect and celebrate.
Location
This role is remote and open to candidates anywhere in the United States (sorry, international friends). We’re based in Golden, CO, and while there’s no requirement to work from the office, local candidates are welcome to use it. Colorado-based candidates are a plus, but not required. This is not a travel-intensive position, but the role will include company-paid travel to a handful of outdoor-industry events and team gatherings throughout the year. Some events may require occasional evening or weekend availability.
How to Apply
We anticipate accepting applications through 9/1/2026. We may extend this window and will update this posting if we do.