Business Development Representative

About Canals

Canals builds software for wholesale distributors, helping them operate more efficiently through automation and AI.

Our customers are the companies responsible for moving the materials that power the real economy; electrical supplies, plumbing products, roofing materials, HVAC equipment, and more. Every day, thousands of people rely on Canals to help process orders, manage purchasing, handle accounts payable, and streamline critical business workflows.

We're a profitable, rapidly growing company with a team of roughly 140 people distributed across North and South America. We care deeply about building great products, hiring exceptional people, and creating an environment where talented individuals can do the best work of their careers.

The role

We're hiring our first BDRs. As a founding member of the team, you'll work directly with Jonathan, who leads our BDR team, and partner with our Account Executives to create pipeline across electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and other industrial distributors. It's a market where reputation travels: these businesses share people, systems, and relationships, so doing right by one account opens doors at the next.

This role is heavily outbound. Our buyers run distribution businesses. They don't spend their days reading about AI. They answer the phone, go to trade shows, and respect people who have done their homework. You'll reach them through cold calls, emails specific enough to earn a reply, LinkedIn, and conversations on trade-show floors.

"Founding" means the playbook doesn't exist yet. You'll help write it: which messages land, which roles respond, how we qualify, and what a great handoff to an AE looks like. What you figure out becomes how every BDR after you works.

What you'll do

• Prospect into industrial wholesale distributors, researching each account well enough to say something specific about how they take orders or process invoices.

• Run high-volume, high-quality outbound across phone, email, and LinkedIn. Phone is a core part of this job.

• Book qualified meetings for AEs and hand them off with enough context that the AE never starts from zero.

• Work industry events: outreach before the show, starting conversations on the floor, and following up after.

• Learn the industry and product deeply, including what an inside sales rep's day looks like, how distributors use their ERP, and why invoice matching matters to a controller.

• Write down what works so the next hire can use it, and share wins and misses openly with the team.

• Bring what you hear from the market back to marketing and product, candidly.

What we're looking for

Grit. You've done something hard that took a long time, and you kept going when it stopped being fun. You follow up after silence and call back after a "not now."

You lean into discomfort. You'll walk up to a stranger at a trade show, cold call an owner who has run his business for 30 years, and ask questions that reveal what you don't know yet. You do these things because they're how excellence happens, not because you enjoy them.

Coachability. You want direct feedback, and the next call is different because of it. You can tell us about a specific time feedback changed how you work.

Creativity. You find angles others miss: a new way into an account, a better first line, a reason to call that isn't "just checking in."

Intelligence. You learn fast and ask sharp questions. You can understand a business you've never seen, from distribution margins to ERP data, and explain it back simply.

We hire on traits, not tenure. You may have carried a quota for years, or you may never have held a sales title. If you've been a competitive athlete, worked the counter at a supply house, run your own business, worked a demanding service job, or done anything else that took persistence and thick skin, we want to hear from you. Prior SDR/BDR experience, a background in distribution, construction, the trades, or manufacturing, and familiarity with HubSpot are all a plus. None of them is required.

This probably isn't for you if

• You want a finished playbook handed to you.

• You'd rather send 200 templated emails than make 50 real calls.

• Direct feedback feels personal.

• You need heavy structure to do your best work.

Why Join Canals

We're building software that solves real problems for an industry that keeps the world running. Our customers rely on our platform every day to operate their businesses.

We've found strong product-market fit and continue to grow quickly, creating opportunities for people who want to have a meaningful impact on the trajectory of a company.

We believe great people build great companies. That's why we invest heavily in hiring, development, and creating an environment where talented individuals can do the best work of their careers.

You'll work alongside ambitious, thoughtful teammates who care deeply about what they do, challenge each other directly, and have a lot of fun along the way.

We value ownership, transparency, and continuous improvement. Good ideas can come from anywhere, and people are trusted to make things happen.

We're remote-first, flexible, and distributed across North and South America, bringing together talented people from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences.

Canals.ai is an equal opportunity employer. In addition to EEO being the law, it is a policy that is fully consistent with our principles. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to status as a protected veteran or a qualified individual with a disability, or other protected status such as race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, pregnancy or age.