Key Account Manager – JHB

1

Key Account Manager – JHB

Sales ~ Textile/Clothing

To manage the day-to-day sales of the Home channel of the company’s current customer base and to ensure achievement of the annual sales budget and margins for their allocated Home customer base.
Must implement the company sales strategy to achieve the budgeted sales target for their allocated Home customers, whilst monitoring customer service levels. Be involved in development of new business opportunities with new customers, and the on boarding of these customers should they be successful in signing them up.
Duties and Responsibilities
 
Sales Management – own accounts
    • Assist with the developing of the annual budgets, as well as quarterly forecasts for the Home channel of the company for the BDD/CEO approval
    • Offer premium, efficient and customer centric sales solutions at all times:
        • Always accommodate the client as best as possible and work from a value offering stance
        • Maintain a neat, professional, clean demeanour and dress accordingly
        • Close the sale by driving a solutions based win-win sale for both The company Uniforms and the customer
    • Monitoring and reporting on monthly progress of actual sales and margins per the allocated Home channel customers, to budget and forecast;
    • Investigate and implement corrective action plans on margins on individual items on a monthly basis, which are below the accepted minimum margin for that category
    • Creation and implementation of sales strategies for key Home customers
    • Liaise with the customer on overdue outstanding debt, and assist the finance team in this regard
    • Liaise with the customer should the Customer Service Administrator/Customer Service Controller have a query on an order where they require the customer’s permission to make any change to that order
    • Manage the implementation of annual price increases during the year with Home customers;
    • Responsible for the creation of credit notes to customers, for approval by the Finance Director;
    • To regularly communicate with the customer to gather information on events/promotions/ new contracts etc, that can be fed back to the BDD/CEO and Procurement & Purchasing Director, so that they can plan stock levels accordingly.
    • Drive the sale of slow moving/obsolete stock to customers, to recover at least the cost price of the stock item
    • Manage quality issues with the customer, and get internal sign off from the CEO before putting in a corrective action plan to replace the items for the customer
 
Sales Management – assist accounts
Assist the lead KAM on the House accounts with
    • Liaise with the customer on overdue outstanding debt
    • Liaise with the customer should the Customer Service Administrator/Customer Service Controller have a query on an order where they require the customer’s permission to make any change to that order
    • To regularly communicate with the customer to gather information on events/promotions/ new contracts etc, that can be fed back to the BDD/CEO and Procurement & Purchasing Director, so that they can plan stock levels accordingly.
    • Drive the sale of slow moving/obsolete stock to customers, to recover at least the cost price of the stock item
    • Manage quality issues with the customer, and get direction from the Lead KAM before putting in a corrective action plan to replace the items for the customer
    • Investigate margins and implement corrective action plans on individual items on a monthly basis which are below the accepted minimum margin for that category
New Business development
    • Liaise with current customers on new potential fabrics/accessories for them
    • Work with the BDD to execute his new business development strategy for the year
    • Once a lead has been created, liaise with the potential customers to get mock ups/samples made and to determine pricing for sign off by the BDD/CEO
    • Be part of the “pitch team” for the presentation to a new customer
    • Assist with the performance of competitor analysis to determine market trends, pricing and service offered by competitors, as well as new competitors entering, and those exiting the market;
    • When losing a deal, understand why the deal has been lost (price, product offering or other)
 
Customer Service
    • Constantly liaise with the Customer Service Manager, to understand if there are any issues that you need to assist them with, relating to one of your House customers.
    • Constantly liaise with the Lead KAM on House accounts you are the Assist on, to discuss all issues pertaining to this customer, and to agree upon strategies to resolve any issues
    • Constantly liaise with the Customer, to understand their business better, to determine whether any new potential contracts are coming up, there are any value -add services that we can provide to them, or any issues that you need to assist them with.
 
Reporting
    • Provide daily/weekly/monthly feedback to the BDD on actual sales and margins for their allocated Home channel customers against budget and forecast;
    • Provide the BDD a monthly report on new business development, and the status of each prospect
    • Provide daily/weekly/monthly feedback to the BDD on challenges you encounter (being undercut by a competitor, new product feedback, customer solutions we may not yet offer)
 
 
 
 
Branch Management
    • Assist branch employees with “day to day” issues in the branch that they experience when performing their duties, and feed this back to the Head of the stream where the issue pertains to;
    • Assist with the leave and absenteeism process in the branch, in conjunction with HR
    • Foster a culture of teamwork and understanding in the branch
    • Assist with carrying on HR functions in the branch e.g. disciplinary hearing, staff functions, when requested
 
Qualifications & Experience
 
    • Diploma/Certificate in Sales or a similar relevant industry qualification and experience
    • At least 5 years relevant experience as a sales representative in the retail sector;
 
Skills and Competencies
 
    • Must be able to work under pressure and meet deadlines
    • Excellent presentation skills
    • Strong business acumen
    • Excellent assertiveness skills
    • Taking initiative, efficiency orientation and adherence to standards
    • Team building and leadership skills to drive and motivate performance through effective coaching skills
    • Excellent negotiation skills
    • Exceptional communicator with the ability to build relationships  
    • Self-starter who works un-supervised and manages own time an activities