Sales Team Leader at Distell

Reference Number: 15841
Locations: Abuja/ Port Harcourt, Rivers
Company: Distell Limited

Job purpose statement

• Accountable for the sustainable and profitable achievement of sales and trade marketing objectives associated with the assigned market, segment, merchandising and sales team being managed.
• In addition, this role is responsible for the assigned team’s sales productivity, merchandising and the directing of their efforts in order to have the greatest overall impact on company results.
• The role manages all aspects of running an efficient sales team, supervising, coaching, disciplining, and motivating direct-report sales associates.
• The role is responsible for managing customer service via the appointed distributors according to the agreed contracts and service level agreements.
• Must be comfortable with cold calling and public speaking, as part of business development.

Dimensions (budget, staff number and levels):

• Applicable as per individual country needs

Key customers/relationships (internal and external):

• Distell Sales and Trade Marketing and Distribution (TM&D)  function in Country and at Head Office
• Country leadership team
• Brand marketing, operations, finance, HR, corporate and legal functions in Distell and in country
• Project Management Office (PMO)
• All stakeholders including suppliers and agencies that impact the business
• Relevant Government  agencies
• Business partners such as distributors, key accounts and other trade partners

Key responsibilities and functional outputs
Operational:

Responsible for Sales and Operations processes:

• Coordinating the involvement of sales and trade marketing support personnel, including customer support, service, and management resources, so that team performance objectives and customers’ expectations are met
• Proactively inspecting sales activity, merchandising activity and effort among sales associates managed, ensuring that the quality and quantity of sales, trade marketing and in-market and in-store effort meets company expectations
• Working with line management to ensure market-level strategic and business objectives are met in collaboration with the appointed distributors
• Leading field forecasting efforts among the team managed, ensuring that accurate forecasts are completed on a timely basis to feed into the Sales and Operational Planning (S&OP) process
• Assessing business performance of Distell and competitors for respective channels/customer segments, in order to enhance effectiveness of developed trade and brand programmes by channels and execute effectively via planned cycle plans
• Providing input into the implementation of the S&OP process, with the purpose of effectively reviewing business performance; strategic assessment and achievement of the company’s strategic objectives. This will need input from marketing, primary supply chain, finance, manufacturing teams and business partners. The process will be owned by the Country Manager/GM
• Ensuring distributor contracts with the associated service level agreements are in place, tracked, monitored and executed according to the performance agreements
• Focussing on the 4A`s and the ‘picture of success’ to get the basics in place
• Implementing the brand, channel and cycle plans and reviewing the effectiveness and ROI of these activities
• Carrying out quarterly business reviews with own team, distributors and key business partners and planning/adjusting accordingly for the following period of sales

Leadership:
Responsible for leadership of the Sales team:

• Identifying deficiencies in skills among staff managed, and working to improve individuals’ capabilities through coaching, development, and training. Focussing on training on the job, in the field of execution
• Positively impacting the performance of individual team members by implementing and managing field support tools, including training programmes, productivity initiatives, account and territory planning methodologies, and customer communication tools
• In alignment to the HR talent strategy, managing the talent development across markets/territories/routes to enhance and improve the leadership pipeline at all levels
• Driving a high performance culture through active engagement with key stakeholders within the identified sales and TM&D communities
• Keeping the sales and TM&D staff fully informed at all times of strategies, directions, and objectives plus future action plans by ensuring that regular meetings and effective ways of communication are in place
• Exploiting new learnings from other regions/markets, to improve volume and revenue for own area of responsibility
• Defining and agreeing sales, TM&D KPI’s to track performance in key areas/zones and ensure corrected actions are in place, when not on track or target are not achieved.
• Aligning to Distell's six strategic imperatives

Strategy:
Responsible for key strategies for the success of the Sales department:

• Directing and supporting the consistent implementation of company initiatives in line with agreed strategy
• Ensuring that all strategy plans are focused on driving sustainable volume growth, incremental profit and cost optimisation through and efficient secondary supply chain structures
• Driving process alignment in key markets in order to have a competitive edge and defining tracking, and follow up of KPI’s (such as stocks, sales, call compliancy, on time and in full deliveries, strike rate, drop size, call visits per day, etc) which will allow the business to have enhanced transparency for improved decision making

Relationships:
Responsible for establishing and maintaining relevant relationships:

• Proactively assessing, clarifying, and validating customer requirements and satisfaction by engaging key customer accounts in conjunction with sales personnel managed.
• Providing a management-level point of contact for key customers
• Building and maintaining strong customer relationships
• Building peer support and strong internal-company relationships with other key management personnel.

Establishing productive relationships with field marketing based on frequent in-field accompaniment (3 x week), communication, collaboration, and the effective allocation of marketing investment in the marketplace, managed as per agreed budget

Innovation:
Responsible for innovative solutions that align with Sales strategic objectives:

• Identifying opportunities for improvement of trading terms (margins, information, credit, etc) with assistance of the Revenue team
• Driving strategic exploitation of market trends through engagement with key stakeholders and building on learning from other markets
• Seeking new ways of optimising/improving systems and processes to drive productivity, growth, effectiveness and efficiency
• Looking to other industries/companies for ideas to enhance our effectiveness and efficiency
• Identifying opportunities for improvement of trading terms (margins, information, credit, etc) with assistance of the Revenue team

Working environment (knowledge of special working practices, breadth of management skill required, customer impact, responsibility, efficiency):

• Intermediate management skills level
• Efficiency in managing team of sales representatives, telesales representatives, key accounts representatives and merchandising representatives
• High level customer impact
• Responsible for sale’s team productivity

Competency Profile
Education and training:

• Four year relevant degree from an accredited institution

Relevant experience:

• Minimum of five years of relevant sales and marketing and line management experience in a business, sales and trade environment

Knowledge:

• Competence in the use of the MS Office Suite (Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint)
• Competence in the use of relevant technology platforms and systems would be advantageous
• Sound business acumen
• High versatility to adapt to complex multinational environment
• Ability to create and maintain productive strategic relationships
• Ability to work effectively within a team environment
• Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction
• Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, designing forms and other office procedures and terminology
• Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques, and sales control systems
• Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar

Skills:

• Active listening by giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times
• Talking to others to convey information effectively. Reading comprehension and understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents
• Actively looking for ways to help people
• Critical thinking, using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems
• Must be self-motivated and able to function under pressure
• Ability to build and maintain strategic business partnerships
• Good understanding of the sales environment and existing markets
• Passionate about achieving sales targets, problem solving and implementing solutions
• Flexible working style with action-orientation and hands-on approach
• Creative problem-solving ability
• Good interpersonal skills with ability to engage and communicate effectively across all levels
• Excellent presentation skills
• Always align to Distell's six strategic imperatives
• Must have a valid driving license and be willing to work irregular hours and travel extensively.