About the position
Currently seeking a Regional Sales Manager for the Midwest food market, this position requires a minimum of ten years' experience in selling to industrial food processors and companies in this area. The Regional Sales Manager will be responsible for selling directly to a complex set of customers within a defined geographical region, where account sizes can range from small to very large across various sectors including food, beverage, pet food, and other related industries. The primary goal is to grow sales by building and maintaining business relationships with Research & Development, New Product Development, Purchasing, and Supply Chain groups. The successful candidate must develop a thorough understanding of the customer's business plan and operations, leveraging our supplier's expertise to continually provide innovative solutions that assist customers in developing new products and addressing their challenges. Key responsibilities include meeting divisional sales goals, typically achieving 10-15% gross profit growth annually, and fostering strong multi-level relationships with key decision-makers within the customer base, including Purchasing, R&D, Marketing, Operations, and Quality departments. The Regional Sales Manager will also be tasked with planning for prospecting new customers through effective referrals, networking, and cold calls, while negotiating in a cooperative atmosphere to ensure mutual understanding of agreements. Regular communication of customer visit results through weekly reports to division management is essential, as is the need to build strong internal relationships across all Skidmore departments. The role requires the development and execution of a detailed sales strategy plan, ensuring that sales revenues, volume, growth, and contribution margins are achieved or exceeded, while also updating the project pipeline monthly to identify and act on opportunities.
Responsibilities
- Meet divisional sales goals, usually 10-15% gross profit growth annually.
- Build, retain and expand strong multi-level and cross-functional relationships with key decision makers within the customer base including Purchasing, R&D, Marketing, Operations, and Quality.
- Develop a thorough understanding of customers' business plans and operations.
- Create compelling reasons for customers to take action by linking their needs with Skidmore's unique value proposition.
- Plan for prospecting new customers through referrals, networking, and cold calls.
- Negotiate agreements in a cooperative atmosphere, ensuring mutual understanding.
- Utilize suppliers' expertise to bring new ideas and solutions to customers.
- Communicate results of customer visits via weekly reports to division management.
- Develop and execute a detailed sales strategy plan with input from the Regional VP Sales.
- Ensure that sales revenues, volume, growth, and contribution margin are achieved or exceeded.
- Conduct customer calls in a friendly manner that reflects knowledge of the customer and industry.
- Investigate and initiate cross-selling opportunities within the Skidmore Group of companies.
- Develop and lead customer-specific technical and marketing projects to completion.
- Prepare meeting agendas for all customer visits and utilize Salesforce to document key customer activities.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Food Science or a related discipline required.
- At least 10 years of experience in food ingredients sales with a track record of demonstrated sales growth.
- Experience with industries such as meat, poultry, dairy, baking, flavor companies, confections, snack foods, and nutraceuticals preferred.
- Strong organizational skills and attention to detail, able to manage multiple tasks and meet deadlines.
- Superior verbal and written communication skills.
- Ability to connect and interact effectively at all levels of the business.
- Ability to handle sensitive information with confidentiality.
- Strong business literacy and understanding of sales metrics.
- Ability to gather and analyze data and present sound alternatives and recommendations.
- Experience with Salesforce and Sage X3 is a plus.
- Proficient in Microsoft Office, particularly Outlook and Excel.
Nice-to-haves
- Experience in product development within the food industry.
- Familiarity with customer relationship management (CRM) tools.
- Knowledge of market trends in the food and beverage sector.
Benefits
- Competitive salary based on experience and performance.
- Opportunities for professional development and training.
- Flexible working hours based on business needs.
