A well established wholesale nursery is looking for a Business Development Manager to join their team. The purpose of this role is to drive sales and marketing in the business, this includes maintaining and growing existing clients, sourcing and onboarding new clients, generating and distributing availability lists, managing and supporting two representatives on the road with communication, stock that is available, quality of stock, photographs, re-counting of available stock to have real time info available at all times. This role would also be strategically involved in driving marketing initiatives such as the designing, planning, implementing, and manning/leading the team on the two trade days per year, social media, adverts, online store possibilities, WhatsApp drives, and other campaigns, such as carnival/special days at client’s premises.

Responsibilities include:

• Managing real-time stock data and sharing product information and details of stock availability and special features
• Demand/Enquiries/needs from clients are gathered, moderated, and captured on the shared database. This is further discussed with the Production Team to determine what is realistic. A sales plan is drawn up to ensure that what was captured as demand and what is considered for production is promoted and sold on time to achieve set budgets.
• In close partnership with Production and Dispatch, ensure through training and development that quality plants are delivered according to customer expectations to reduce credits. Eliminate miscounting, only to pick the correct stock at the right quality. Stock is handled, packed, and offloaded with care.
• The stock counts are managed to capture the real-time available stock, generate and distribute the availability list.
• Run and minute weekly sales meetings to provide feedback on current sales progress against budget, customer demand, new opportunities, current market conditions, what new crops can be looked at to add to what we currently do well and are known for, new clients and onboarding progress, stock availability, etc.
• The process and discipline around the orders board are ensured in order to meet the delivery schedule and have good control over the dispatch teams to minimize overtime.
• Responsible for building process and discipline around the orders board and delivery scheduling.
• Lead the expansion of all product ranges.
• Attend to necessary email quotes; all RFQ’s and Forward Orders.
• Achieve growth & hit sales targets by successfully managing the sales team. The sales team is well informed & knowledgeable to meet operating requirements.
• Design & implement a strategic business plan that expands the company’s customer base & ensures its strong presence.
• Feedback on market demand is presented, amending the sales & production plan accordingly to meet market demands & customer satisfaction.
• Present sales, revenue reports & forecasts to the management team.
• Identify emerging markets & market shifts while being fully aware of new products & competition status.

Driving sales and managing the team.

• Responsible for building a high-performing team through recruiting the right people in the right roles doing the right work at the required standards, setting objectives, coaching, training and managing performance.
• Sales Routes are managed and ensuring Reps visit customers according to the set routes.
• Allocated space in garden centers is optimally managed, merchandised, and expanded, increasing the opportunity to write your own orders.
• Anticipating and managing the impact of Public Holidays where garden centres are busier than normal and we have less time to manage sales, dispatch, and delivery.
• Staff leave schedules are managed to ensure that business requirements can still be met, i.e. not authorising leave that fall between busy business periods.

Servicing and maintaining relationships with existing clients.

• Build & promote strong, lasting, excellent customer relationships to anticipate, understand, and meet customer needs.
• Quotes, tenders & proposals are developed for all clients, and alternatives are suggested for a better solution to meet their needs.
• Availability list & promotions are communicated to customers.
• Requests for plants are attended to, availability and recommendations are communicated to clients, supported with photographs and promotional/technical details.
• Customer enquiries are responded to promptly (within an hour), at least within 24 hours (not ideal as customers will phone the competitors). It is important to reach an agreement on when the customer expects a reply.
• Products are continuously introduced to clients to increase their orders.
• Orders collected with any additional details are immediately communicated to the office.
• 1-2 days per week are spent visiting the Landscape and key clients.
• Staying in touch with debtors regarding the state of accounts to sell responsibly.
• Client information is to be up to date and in full, available to the team on a shared folder. Data integrity is ensured by only having current and meaningful data available.
• Trade Day, Client Expo’s and Carnival Days are designed, built, attended, and cleaned up. This is to engage with clients and consumers to broadly market our products and services to all interested parties.
• Photos as a useful marketing tool are maximised, photos to be of well-composed, in focus, always accompanied by text, clarifying their size, price, quality, condition, and potential to perform.
• The photos WhatsApp group is used for all photos taken, this is then re-posted on this WhatsApp group to inform all teams, also that photos can be re-used, if current.
• Contribute to a culture of feedback and clear communication externally and within the business.

Finding and building relationships with new clients.

• Leads are pursued and moved through the sales cycle. New leads are followed up on, and meetings are arranged to grow possible new sales opportunities.
• Explore opportunities and build relationships to potentially sign them up as anchor clients on all delivery routes.
• Trade agreements are established with key and new clients.
• Our online presence is built to steer clients to utilise online capabilities and WhatsApp business marketing to improve sales.
• A marketing plan is developed, and branding is expanded and utilised to become the go-to nursery, the first nursery to phone when client need stock.
• A weekly engaging, enticing, and encouraging email is sent to all clients with the availability list by the end of day on Thursday to utilise the planning time to stock up for the new week.

• Managing real-time stock data and sharing product information and details of stock availability and special features
• Demand/Enquiries/needs from clients are gathered, moderated, and captured on the shared database. This is further discussed with the Production Team to determine what is realistic. A sales plan is drawn up to ensure that what was captured as demand and what is considered for production is promoted and sold on time to achieve set budgets.
• In close partnership with Production and Dispatch, ensure through training and development that quality plants are delivered according to customer expectations to reduce credits. Eliminate miscounting, only to pick the correct stock at the right quality. Stock is handled, packed, and offloaded with care.
• The stock counts are managed to capture the real-time available stock, generate and distribute the availability list.
• Run and minute weekly sales meetings to provide feedback on current sales progress against budget, customer demand, new opportunities, current market conditions, what new crops can be looked at to add to what we currently do well and are known for, new clients and onboarding progress, stock availability, etc.
• The process and discipline around the orders board are ensured in order to meet the delivery schedule and have good control over the dispatch teams to minimize overtime.
• Responsible for building process and discipline around the orders board and delivery scheduling.
• Lead the expansion of all product ranges.
• Attend to necessary email quotes; all RFQ’s and Forward Orders.
• Achieve growth & hit sales targets by successfully managing the sales team. The sales team is well informed & knowledgeable to meet operating requirements.
• Design & implement a strategic business plan that expands the company’s customer base & ensures its strong presence.
• Feedback on market demand is presented, amending the sales & production plan accordingly to meet market demands & customer satisfaction.
• Present sales, revenue reports & forecasts to the management team.
• Identify emerging markets & market shifts while being fully aware of new products & competition status