Manager - Retail Sales

Manager - Retail Sales

The Sales Manager Retail is fully immersed in and responsible for sales and Account Management of avocados sold to grocery and food retail stores, club stores, produce wholesalers, mass merchandisers, produce brokers and food service accounts. Participates in the development of strategic and operational plans for the work group, manages execution, and measures results.

Manages account activity, escalated matters, handles reviews, analyzes data, communicate, and works with customer representatives and internal department representatives. Demonstrates excellent product and customer knowledge to identify opportunities to grow overall sales, product lines, promotions and discuss potentially adding new product lines within a competitive market. Works closely with the VP of Sales, Director of Sales, and peers to support account activities when new prospects or increased product lines.

Responsibilities :

Primarily connects with potential customer account reps and builds customer relationships to build product sales. Responsible for Key-Account Management while identifying potential growth opportunities. Builds long-term account value with senior level relationships within key accounts. Routine responsibilities include :

• Creates strategic plans to pursue potential new business and develops rapport leading to new accounts and sales growth.
• Calls on new and existing accounts prospective accounts to solicit orders.
• Responsible for creating brand-specific annual priorities across the Pricing, promotion, Distribution and Merchandising, inclusive of assortment prioritization and optimization
• Assess competitors by analyzing and summarizing competitor information trends to identify new sales opportunities or developments.
• Influences the development of Long Range and Annual Operating Plans from a Category, Customer, and Competitive lens
• May create and deliver presentations to broad audiences to promote avocado sales. Prepare and coordinate customer product, customer reviews and customer meeting presentations.
• Manage and maintain account information that may impact products and relate to other parts of the business such as accounting, customer service, logistics, food safety, division locations / order delivery schedules, store counts, demonstrations, etc.
• Act as a customer / sales team advocate when communicating customer activity with appropriate parties and departments.
• Assist in the development of trade promotion strategies, trade merchandising plans, and major trade initiatives.
• Track, communicate, coordinate all account sales activity to appropriate parties and departments (launches, price requests, sample requests, new item requests, account set-up, changes, logistics, order-production-delivery cycles with appropriate parties and departments.
• Manage and coordinate execution related to Broker sales and activities.
• Tracks against the sales growth target strategy and considers budgetary needs and objectives.
• Prepare, communicate, and manage promotional calendar to customer value, coordinating product tastings and demonstrations, as needed, with required parties / departments.
• May research information and provide supportive assistance to accounting or customer service to resolve account activity, issues or discrepancies.
• Maintains a good, professional working relationship with account contacts supporting common sales messaging, seasonal changes, and competitor advantage.
• In the case of a product recall, becomes conversant with the scope of the recall and the impact to the customer for any remedial action.
• Maintains direct contact and notifications with accounts to maintain positive relations, or provide updates as directed.
• Participates or leads SWOT analysis or other sales training and development efforts to maximize account management opportunities.
• Provide product support, information, and technical knowledge to customers.
• Support and manage specialized packaging and labeling to customer needs considering cost and value.
• Coordinate and confirm plant approved sample items and deliveries with Operations and Product Development teams.
• Notify all appropriate parties-departments of upcoming new customer roll-out and new item launches or discontinued items and the impact.
• Coordinate customer meetings with appropriate parties-departments samples, presentations, price quotes, and special customer requests to ensure meeting requirements are fulfilled.
• Coordinate and communicate with required parties and departments to attain and establish individual account activity timelines to meet customer expectations.

Perform other duties and projects as assigned or required.

Basic Qualifications, Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities :

Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities :

Ability to apply critical and logical thinking skills, and exercise sound judgment

Ability to travel within the US; travel approximately less than 10%.

Compensation :