Hybrid Director, Sales at DFA

General Purpose:

Under the direction of the General Manager, oversee the development, growth, and management of customer accounts, including sales into the strategic/key accounts as directly assigned. Guide and manage the sales function and any aspect, including tactical activities, that relate to assigned customer accounts to optimize profitability and operational efficiency. Build new relationships and develop business based on customer needs and market trends in the industry. Function as a go-to resource for the sales managers and team members for coaching, consulting, and modeling solutions selling strategies and techniques. Is accountable for business processes, team development, and management of sales metrics to ensure success. Manage multiple sales teams and/or areas such as sales support, sales administration, customer service, or other sales related teams or work functions

Job Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provide overall leadership of the sales function, including strategy, goal setting and performance management for the inside sales team.
• Guide, manage, and develop sales managers. Identify and develop up-and-coming talent on the sales team and in the organization to ensure a robust internal talent pool for future opportunities. Ensure superb sales training process for onboarding new sales team members and developing current team. Provide coaching by working through solutions for real scenarios with customers
• Identify gaps in account plans and support team members with planning and execution
• Teach and utilize a “solutions selling” approach drawing from organizational strengths and capabilities:
• Determine customer needs, problems, insights, and strategy
• Identify, clearly outline, and present the opportunity details including short- and long-term value to DFA
• Drive opportunities to commercialization internally, and most critically, “close” with the customer
• Drive to exceed budgeted volume and margin targets to help ensure the achievement of financial targets
• Personally lead and manage sales efforts with directly assigned strategic and key customers
• Maximize the use of CRM (such as Salesforce.com) to manage customer pipelines and track customer activity, which demonstrates high levels of service to the customer and ultimately leads to faster speed-to-market on winning new business. Ensure teams gather strategic and tactical insights though call reports
• Manage sales metrics of the team and ensure the metrics are met for overall success
• Ensure the team performs variance analysis of actual results against expected results and take action to address gaps in performance with team members
• Continuously improve the customer mix by working with the sales team to develop existing customers and determining new customer targets based on segmentation criteria
• Use company-supported systems to ensure self-sufficiency in creating, managing, and reporting to leadership
• Apply strong knowledge of DFA’s capabilities including understanding the functional and technical aspects of the products and how DFA’s capabilities differentiate us from others in the industry
• Foster connected customer relationships at various organizational levels across multiple functions (R&D, marketing, purchasing, quality assurance, operations) and facilitate the growth of customer counterpart relationships within DFA
• Listen to customers to learn their future needs and anticipate new areas of business development for DFA
• Identify new markets and the need for new products; initiate action plans to increase share of market with existing and new accounts
• Provide innovative ideas to customers by understanding their brands, platforms and strategies
• Continually develop a value-added sales pipeline that will enhance company returns
• Work closely with other teams to provide exceptional customer care through the entire sales cycle
• Work with urgency to resolve customer issues and problems in a transparent manner with DFA cross-functional stakeholders. Elevate and help resolve gaps with systems or processes to improve overall effectiveness
• Develop, deploy, and manage to customer account plans
• Ensure the sales team follows established sales processes (account/regional planning, pre-call, post-call, insights gathering, opportunity pipeline, execute, close, report)
• Assist in strategic planning to maximize the division’s opportunities with other DFA divisions relative to competitors, market conditions, customer situation, and our internal position
• In addition to sales, may also manage sales operations, sales administration, customer service, and/or related functions (e.g., pricing, pricing analysis, trade spending, trade spending analysis, tactical brand marketing, package development, financial planning and analysis)
• The requirements herein are intended to describe the general nature and level of work performed by employee, but is not a complete list of responsibilities, duties, and skills required. Other duties may be assigned as required