National Account Manager in Sittingbourne

A great opportunity is available for a National Account Manager to join an established business who supply and wholesale a wide range of products to major retail clients. The role requires good organisational skills, the ability to help project manage multiple concurrent tasks to achieve deadlines and a keen eye for detail. This is a fast-paced role and requires someone with energy and enthusiasm to join our team and help us deliver for our ‘household name’ customers.

The role would suit someone used to working in a product focused environment, either within sales, category development, marketing or buying. You will be responsible for the sales growth and development of your accounts to achieve the company’s financial targets. You will need to know the customer’s range and business, be able to identify changes, gaps and sales opportunities. You would be expected to develop excellent relationships with your customers to ensure that we’re supplying product ranges to meet their needs.

You will be expected to liaise internally with other departments to ensure your customers' needs are met and to offer effective solutions. This would include Operations, Supply Chain, Transport and our Design Studio. Other requirements can include price negotiations, market/trend analysis and reporting on sales and margins. You will be part of a Commercial retail supply environment and join a small but productive team, where you will be an integral member.

Key Responsibilities:

• Help the team beat internal sales targets by creating opportunities in range renewal, new product ideas, beating competitors, short term promotions, pricing, route-to-market etc.
• Present Sales and Category Analysis to key stakeholders.
• Develop projects through our internal processes to meet customer expectations, ensuring timely and complete communication and information for all supporting departments.
• Work with customers to manage their existing product catalogue and ensure new product ranges are being listed.
• Help manage the day-to-day relationship with the customer and delegate or escalate issues to a successful conclusion.
• Manage product lifecycle with our Supply Chain team and the customer, implementing new product selections, ensuring we deliver to the required lead times and maintaining stock to support sales.
• Know competitor activity and ranges and feedback to the wider business.
• Effective data management especially the input, accuracy and maintenance of complete pricing and customer data.
• Co-ordinate samples as they arrive, ensuring that they go through all the different departments design checks, testing, photography and then showroom - or sent direct to customer.
• Support the National Accounts team in responding to ad hoc customer enquiries.

Experience / Requirements:

• Ideally 2-3 years of Account Manager experience working.
• Experience in similar retail/buying/marketing roles will also be considered for the right candidate.
• Good working knowledge of Microsoft packages – experience of Microsoft Navision is an advantage.
• Exceptionally high standards with meticulous attention to detail.
• Strong organisational skills with the ability to multitask across different projects and tasks.
• Excellent communication skills (both written and verbal).
• A self-starter with a positive, enthusiastic ‘can do’ attitude and a down to earth approachable manner.
• A problem solver with the ability to assume responsibility and act on own initiative.
• A flexible team player with the ability to work proactively.