Sales Specialist

Job Purpose:

To build strong partnerships with existing stakeholders/ customers, target new prospects and drive accountability for sales of Lubricants and associated products to relevant stakeholder so as to maximize volumes of product while maintaining appropriate contribution margins.

Location:

KZN

What you need to have done:

QUALIFICATIONS    
NQF Level 7 (Degree in Sales & Marketing/ Business Administration or relevant)        
5 years’ experience in Sales Distribution within the FMCG environment    
Good knowledge of technical products and/or automotive  

Advantageous
Degree in Marketing or Engineering 
Knowledge of Lubricants and dealing with Agric & SBP distributors 
Knowledge of SAP4 is desirable
SAIT

Key Accountabilities:

PLANNING & STRATEGY

•    Develop a thorough understanding of customer’s business needs and multiple channels to market and collaborate teams to develop innovative business techniques and models
•    Maintains and follows up existing accounts and defines the local prospection and growth strategy for their areas based on the regional growth strategy, The Sales Specialist is responsible for reaching their designated sales objectives.
•    Promote the brand and act as the brand ambassador and maintain relationships with allocated distributors on a regular basis 
•    Support the sales team of the distributor by giving technical training & business support through co-visits and support with coordinating and running of local events and related initiatives
•    Define regional go-to market strategy for the distributors in region in order to activate the sales in their sell-out channels through overarching objective of the division 
•    Build and maintain relationships with internal stakeholders (finance, marketing, supply chain & production) to define how the organization can support the customers on logistics, inventory management & pricing issues

ORGANIZATION ANALYSIS

•    Perform business analysis and reporting to management for decision making purposes
•    Develop business cases based on business analytics and competitive intelligence.
•    Recommend business improvements based on market and competitive trends.
•    Prioritize markets and determine market entry strategies for new regions and for new and existing product portfolios
•    Identify business gaps with proposed corrective actions and review/ recommend improvements to existing business strategies
•    Collaborate with various teams to collect business data to complete timely analysis
•    Prepare and execute annual reviews of distributors and monitor distributor pipelines
•    Develop accurate and realistic annual budget plan and monitor performance to budget and provide sales forecasts 

PERFORMANCE MONITORING

•    Distributor sales activities meet the objectives set in conjunction with the regional sales manager 
•    Ensure distributors are equipped with the necessary skills to increase performance and profitability
•    Develop and maintain a strong salesforce pipeline, which is built bottoms up from the distributor
•    Increase presence in distributor sector through new product introduction
•    Ensure that customer relationships are maintained and improved through exceptional customer service
•    Ensure that sales targets are well managed and adhered to and that operating costs are managed and improved to achieve continual growth and profitability

CAPABILITY MANAGEMENT

•    Ensure distributors are equipped with necessary skills to increase performance and profitability
•    Ensure customer support and that training capabilities of distributors is improved through ongoing product training and support.
•    Develop and maintain strong salesforce pipeline to drive strategic advantage over competitors 
•    Support sales team of the distributor through technical trainings & business support such as co-visits and support them in organising local events and activities

Working Condition:

Ability to travel regionally for longer periods