Director, Sales

Job Overview

Our Director, Sales is a self-motivated professional with proven managerial experience and an outstanding track record in the sales industry with specific experience in food or CPGs. In this position, our Director, Sales will be responsible for developing new business opportunities to help meet our annual sales targets within new and underdeveloped accounts, motivating our sales team, designing strategic sales plans, and assessing costs and competition. In addition to being an excellent communicator, our ideal candidate will also demonstrate exceptional negotiation and leadership skills to ensure the success of dedicated direct sales employees.

Job Responsibilities

Account Management

• Support and Direct team on best in class account development behaviors through coaching and regular feedback
• Build and maintain strong, long lasting relationships with customers and partner with customer leaders to better understand their business objectives and needs
• Set and actively re-assess account assignments among team to ensure balance and proper resources are assigned to support customer needs
  
  

Bid Management

• Develop contract strategies and negotiate contracts in accordance with company standards and business requirements
• Understand and ascertain all new business requirements for emerging customers such as food quality standards, audit requirements, distribution terms ect and coordinate with all cross functional teams to assure proper support can be attained prior to customer onboarding
• Direct the team in effective project-management of internal cross-functional coordination in support of bids including Pricing, Procurement, Engineering, Supply Chain, etc. as well as customer-facing presentation of bid proposal
  
  

Broker Management

• Provide oversight to quarterly broker scorecard management, review, feedback and audit of expectations. Negotiating, auditing and renewing annual broker contracts where applicable
  
  

Forecast Management

• Hold team accountable for reviewing forecast compared to actual sales at the beginning of each month for the month prior to identify any major discrepancies and identify root cause to determine if any future forecast adjustments recommendations need to be made to supply chain planning
  
  

People Leadership

• Lead succession planning efforts for your entire team and ensure that career planning conversations are happening at all levels
• Responsible for training existing and new account managers on your team on expectations, roles and responsibilities
• Responsible for attending weekly team meetings and identifying areas where leadership involvement may be needed
• Responsible for holding one on one status meetings with each direct report weekly
• Create comprehensive onboarding plan (Cross-functional lunches, HR formal onboarding, team peer shadowing, functional expertise sessions etc.) utilizing tools provided
• Complete annual employee bonus planning, compensation planning and success planning
  
  

Promotion Management

• Responsible for setting strategic priorities and gaining leadership alignment for promotional support for the team if we have limited capacity for promotional activity within the team
• Set a strategy for proactive approach to promotion management by leading the team to seek out promotion opportunities within areas of the business where there is excess capacity, high margin, etc
  
  

Prospecting Accounts

• Responsible for identifying and setting the strategy and goals for prospecting accounts that fall within assigned pod as well as off-boarding an account to the proper channel after launched programs are developed
  
  

Strategic Selling

• Develop and Create the strategy for ensuring corporate initiatives are being executed on and implemented with customers when needed
• Responsible for setting the selling strategy for new product innovation that includes a specific targeted selling approach and sales goals
  
  

Team Selling

• Provide clear feedback to team on creating impactful and relevant content for customer facing presentations
• Leverage talent and ensure cross functional team members are made available as resources to assist the team in customer facing meetings when subject matter experts are needed
  
  

Required Education And Experience

• 8 + years years or more experience in direct selling, customer facing client relationship or people management roles
• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, sales or related field
• Expert level written and verbal communication skills with ability to present data in an organized manner
• A demonstrated ability to manage and motivate people to ensure engagement and development through goal setting, coaching and constructive feedback
• Advanced interpersonal skills with aptitude in building relationships with senior level customer leaders and professionals of all organizational levels
• Advanced presentation skills and ability to build a sales story using Microsoft PowerPoint presentations
• Strong ability to develop customer focused, differentiated and achievable solutions to problems
• Demonstrated Ability in proactively identifying areas of risk and determining plan for addressing
• Advanced experience setting strategy and negotiating complex business deals that are mutually beneficial for all parties
• Creativity in managing culturally diverse customers, changing market requirements and shifting priorities.
• Must be highly motivated individual with a strong work ethic
• Must have the desire to exceed expectations in a fast-paced and highly competitive environment
• Ability to operate independently to make sound decisions and recommend solutions based on functional expertise and experience
• Highly skilled at goal setting and resource planning
• Demonstrated ability to coach others on how to work comfortably in cross-functional settings, and have an ability to work on multiple projects which will include training on effective prioritization and time management to handle multiple tasks and customer requests simultaneously
• Demonstrated ability to maintain composure during times of stress and uncertainty and identify areas of opportunity for coaching team on tools that can be used to master this skill
• Proven experience driving sales initiatives and achieving or surpassing business targets.
• Strong team leadership and management skills – demonstrated ability to attract, develop, and maintain high performers
• Ability to identify areas of opportunity through regular review of sales performance metrics
• Ability to analyze and assess organizational needs and provide solutions accordingly
• Ability to facilitate creative and strategic discussions in order to address emerging problems and opportunities.
• Highly Skilled in resolving interpersonal and interdepartmental conflicts, coordinate solutions to critical problems and ensure completion of planned deliverables.
• Ability to create a positive environment while remaining focused on priorities and tackling obstacles
• Ability to clearly communicate information, initiatives and instructions to team members
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite.
• Up to 50% travel.
• Must be legally authorized to work for a company in the United States without sponsorship.
  
  

Preferred Education And Experience

• 5 years or more of people leadership experience
• Dairy industry experience
• Retail experience
• Food industry or CPG experience
• Strong project planning, tracking & organizing skills.
• Exceptional analytical skills and High proficiency in Excel data reporting
  
  

Working Conditions

• Occasional exposure to industrial operations including: temperature extremes from approximately 35ºF to 100ºF; noise levels in excess of 85 dB; moisture and moving machinery.
• Work is performed in an office setting.
  
  

EEOC & Disclaimer

Great Lakes Cheese is an Equal Opportunity Affirmative Action Employer.