Sr Area Sales Manager

at  McLane Company

McLane is one of the largest and most stable supply chain services leaders in the United States. We’ve been at the forefront of delivering retail and restaurant solutions for convenience stores, mass merchants, drug stores, and chain restaurants for over 125 years. Our vision is to be an agile, innovative, and unified supply chain partner that delivers a superior customer experience, improves the lives of our teammates and community, and produces best-in-class returns.
This position is based in Oklahoma City, OK which will require the candidate to report and work from the office on a regular basis. Therefore, interested candidates should be within a 50-minute commute to Oklahoma City, OK.
The Senior Area Sales Manager is responsible for achieving profitable new business, growing sales in existing assigned accounts, responding to customer needs, monitoring accounts receivable, building strong customer relations, presenting new McLane programs, aligning McLane resources with the customer’s needs, managing customer expectations and perception of McLane and controlling expenses within budget guidelines.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS:

A teammate in this position must:

• Have a Bachelor’s Degree with 2 years experience in management or 5 years of experience in management in the grocery, sales, retail, or similar job fields.
• Be able to understand and compute the profitability of customers and product lines as well as produce accurate and informative business reviews and new customer presentations.
• Be able to understand and compute the profitability of customers and product lines as well as produce accurate and informative business reviews and new customer presentations.
• Possess leadership abilities to include both verbal and written communication skills, a professional attitude and appearance, organization skills, strong self confidence, multi-task oriented decision making skills and the ability to plan for success.
• Be skilled on Excel, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint PC programs.
• Be willing to travel as requested.
• Be experienced in managing staffs with a background in hiring, training, motivating and resolving employee relations issues.

Other duties may be assigned. A teammate in this position must have the ability to:

• Participate in forecasting budgeted sales for existing accounts as well as potential new accounts in their assigned areas.
• Achieve and/or exceed sales and gross margin budget.
• Ensure all new and existing accounts meet specified criteria such as credit qualifications, per stop standards, are sold through approved billing plans, etc.
• Issue credit and accounts receivable guidelines on new and existing accounts.
• Provide weekly follow-up on all A/R issues to the Section Sales Manager, per the requirements set forth by the finance department.
• Evaluate customer sales and gross margin to maximize budgeted goals through the following activities:
• Responsible to sell all business solutions of McLane Company in assigned accounts.
• Responsible to participate in divisional projects to include action plans on new business start-ups, seasonal load change communications and other projects necessary to provide excellent communication and follow-up.
• Work with and coordinate present customer needs as well as new customers through the assigned customer service representative.
• Present clear, concise direction and instruction with follow-up.
• Maintain field contact through store tours to resolve operational issues and identify areas for potential sales increases.
• Have a clear understanding of the information and reports available to assist in managing their assigned accounts and have the ability to extract and apply that data in a manner that is useful to the customer.
• Evaluate and understand all competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, financials, technology, new initiatives, limitations, etc. within defined territory.
• Spend a minimum of 50% of their time in travel related activities in their Region.
• Secure new business and working closely with the New Business Development Manager in their Region.
• Complete required sales and leadership training.
• Stay current on industry trends.
• Train customers on McLane technology applications.
• Understand and compute the profitability of customers and product lines as well as produce accurate and informative business reviews and new customer presentations.
• Maintain and grow the independent business in their assigned category.
• Manage and lead Retail Sales Representatives, Reset Specialists and Reset Coordinators to meet their objectives.
• Manage vendor relationships as assigned by the Section Sales Manager.
• Attend daily division operations meetings as assigned by the Section Sales Manager.
• Participate in division projects to include action plans on new business start-ups, seasonal load change communications and other projects necessary to provide excellent communication and follow-up.
• Share the following account responsibilities with Host/National Account Managers and be accountable for communications with host/national accounts and division staff:
• Establish, monitor, and achieve sales objectives.
• Ensure account profitability is at division operating income levels or higher.
• Service account with minimal impact on divisional expenses.
• Maintain visibility with customers in stores, meetings and at their office, per assigned call frequency.
• Joint presentations of annual/semi-annual business reviews and new programs, concentration of purchases, seasonal promotions, trade shows, cause marketing, SKU management, future deletions, plan-o-grams, overstock reduction, order guide integrity, McLane technology solutions, and any other new programs developed for future sales growth.