Buffalo Grove, Illinois Headquarters position.
Skill Factors
A National Field Sales Director will be self-directed, self-disciplined, high-energy, forward and creative thinking with high ethical standards. He or she will possess strong leadership skills, self efficacy; planning skills, organization, and plan execution skills. He or she will be a persuasive and effective communicator and will be an enforcer of high ethics.
Skill factors include interpersonal skills, problem solving skills, and the ability to predict how the behavior of individuals is aroused, started, sustained and stopped. A National Field Sales Director will possess an understanding of character traits of individuals and what’s important to them as well as an understanding of group dynamics, which includes an understanding of what to expect from an individual one-on-one and how this person’s behavior often will change when she or he is subjected to group behavior.
Multitasking skills are essential to the job, as is the ability to perform in a work environment where multiple and frequent distractions are commonplace. The incumbent will be clear thinking and be able to prioritize while working in an environment of constant change.
A National Field Sales Director will possess the ability to teach, develop, coach, and be a mentor to the field sales force, which is also known as Senior Area Managers (SAMs): Plus, she or he will be vigilant in creating a work environment whereby SAMs are motivated to perform beyond expectations.
Computer skills and administrative acumen are required.
Education: University degree in marketing or equivalent. The individual will have a solid grasp of business practices and concepts, plus, a grasp of organizational behavior. The incumbent will have strong leadership and people skills.
Experience: Goal setting and identifying the means to attain them is required. Two to three years experience as a SAM operating in the field or someone other than a SAM with one to two years operating in a work environment of kind.
Effort Factors
Physical Demands: The individual will have a presence about her or him that will quickly earn the respect of colleagues and direct reports and employees. She or he will be articulate and will be fluent in English, written and oral.
Mental Demands: A National Field Sales Director will possess character traits such that he or she responds positively to constant stress brought about by demands of the job. He or she will maintain a positive attitude even during extreme situations.
Working Conditions: She or he will be working in the field and often case he or she will be mobile. The National Field Sales Director’s work environment is dynamic and requires that Sales Regional Managers and Regional Trainers are being supervised without feeling they are being micromanaged.
Duties
A National Field Sales Manager will participate in initiatives establishing sales objectives and devising strategies and programs related to attainment of those objectives; design and implementation of an effective sales team and leading the sales team in the total sales effort.
He or she will be responsible for managing SAMs, including recruitment (specification writing) and selection of SAMs. He or she will be responsible for on-the-job training and coaching of SAMs and for evaluating their behavior and work performance.
The individual is responsible for finding ways to improve on sales delivery mechanism effectiveness, which includes SAMs’ technical skills, communication skills – oral and written, and relationship building skills – internal to SMS and with clients, and selling skills. The National Sales Manager will clearly delineate the roles, responsibility, and limits of SAMs. He or she will build a framework and establish guidelines, which provide clarity with respect to expectations in terms of an individual’s performance and the means by which his or her performance can be measured.
He or she will set goals with each SAM related to cold calls (approx. 10 cold calls per day). She or he will take steps to ensure that cold calls are in fact cold calls, that an attempt was made to meet with the business owner, or t hat the owner wasn’t available but left business literature with advisement that an associate would call to arrange for an appointment, in which case a business card was forwarded to the particular sales person’s BC. This two step effort is referred to a hybrid lead.
Hybrid sales, which are made possible through the Be following through on hybrid leads, are designed to maximize teamwork in selling and creating warm leads for the BC. The individual therefore will ensure that steps are taken to ensure that SAMs are conducting their cold calls around their daily sales appointments.
A similar sale but separate sale is the self generated sale, which results from the SAMs effort without the involvement of the Be. A se lf generated sale is a successful cold call of the fi rst order. A National Sales Manager therefore is required to ensure that SAMs have self generated sales quotas over a finite period, plus, have the means and the mechanics in place to track them.
She or he will make certain that SAMs is aware that the person authorizing the survey understands that the Analyst will diagnose problems and make recommendations, but will not resolve the issue(s). Further, the person authorizing the sale must be made to understand that while there is no obligation on the part of the Prospect beyond the payment of the Survey Fee, the Analyst will discuss the cost of SMS services to implement the recommendations and will ask the Prospect for an immediate decision to Go-Ahead with the plan of action that SMS recommends.
A National Sales Director will coach and mentor Regional Managers on specific topics such as “what is an analysis and how is the analysis performed?” She or he will make certain that SAMs are being coached that a business analysis is both quantitative and qualitative review of the business and that its purpose is to diagnose problems in the business, which has a negative impact on the profitability of the company_ He or she will ensure too that SAMs convey to prospects that the Analyst’s approach to conducting a business analysis is to engage in “problem costing”, which estimates the cost of the problem in terms of lost profits. lastly, at the end of the business analysis the analyst will make recommendations to the business owner as to the corrective action needed to improve the business.
She or he will ensue that SAMs inform Prospects that the primary focus of the SMS business analysis is on management systems which are critical to the economic well being of the Prospect’s company. Further, on completion of the analysis the Analyst will have identified specific deficiencies in the business and will show the Prospect how those shortcomings are impacting on the profitability of the Prospect’s company. To do this the Survey Analysis will focus on six building blocks. The six building blocks: (1) Opening Conference; (2) Company Plan and Goals; (3) Financial Trend Analysis; 4) Employees Questionnaire; (S) Review of any agreed upon issues, and; (6) Findings/Closing Conference.
A National Sales Director will take steps to ensure that SAMs convey to Prospects that Analysts’ opening conference take approximately one to two hours, during which time the Analyst becomes familiar with the Prospect business. He or she will ensue that SAMs appreciate the importance of Prospects understanding the benefits derived from the opening conference.
She or he will make certain that SAMs talk to Prospects about the Analyst’s need to conduct interviews with the Prospects key personnel and to distribute questionnaires to other employees. Also, she or he will ensure that SAMs talk to Prospects about the Analyst’s findings/closing conference. Specifically, the SAM will inform the Prospect that the findings conference will last for about 2 hours on the day 2 of the Survey, during which time the Analyst will present his or her findings.
He or she will make certain that SAMs convey to Prospects the nature of the Analyst’s recommendations. Specifically, one group of recommendations will relate to work the prospect he or she can do and the second group or recommendations is concerned with work that will require professional services. For those recommendations requiring professional assistance, the Analyst will offer the Prospect an opportunity to have SMS’s Consulting Services implement the resolve to the problems.
A National Sales Director will ensure that SAMs are coached on the major areas Consulting Services cover, and that the SAM, in turn, will convey to the Prospects the services that Consulting Services provide. These services include, but not limited to: Profit and expense controls, which includes budgeting; employee incentive plans which will reduce costs, increase sales, improve quality, increase productivity, and improve profit; Financial management issues, which includes account receivables, account payables, cash flow, etc.; Organizational issues such as procedures, manuals, paper flow and the like; Operational issues relating to inventory controls, training manuals, etc.; Sales and Marketing such as sales controls, sales incentives, and sales and marketing plans; Management issues such as business planning, defining lines of authority, etc.; Industry specific issues such as estimating procedures for contractors and the like; Strategic planning and succession planning, and; Expansion planning, downsizing, and re-engineering.
A National Sales Director will devise a framework by which Regional Managers and Regional Trainers effectively communicate the above content to SAMs on an ongoing basis. The framework, in addition to being a viable enabler tool, will serve as the platform for system thinking and the glue that will hang the pieces together. It will become a teaching and coaching tool for Regional Managers and a ready reference and guideline for SAMs. Part of this framework will include techniques such as Spin Selling. He or she will draw heavily on such tools in an ongoing effort to improve on SAM sales productivity.