Business Development Manager, Freight Forwarding in Manchester

A Manchester freight forwarding branch within an established, privately owned and profitable logistics group that has traded for well over a century. The group operates accredited warehousing, storage and United Kingdom distribution alongside the freight business. The branch has capable operational people, real customs expertise, competitive rates and strong carrier relationships. What it needs is opportunities coming through the door.

The group came from road freight and haulage, and it shows. A container can travel twelve thousand miles and lose money in the final fifty, and this business understands that better than most forwarders because that final leg is where it started. On time delivery is measured and reviewed every week, and where something runs late the cause is investigated and designed out rather than excused. Behind the freight sits accredited warehousing and United Kingdom distribution within the same group, so you can sell a genuine end to end solution rather than a rate. For a business developer who is tired of competing on price alone, that is a materially better story to tell.

This is an individual contributor role first, and it should be understood that way. You will find, approach and win new forwarding customers, and you will own what you bring. Activity and conversion are the measures, and there will be no ambiguity about that.

You will build and work a structured target list of importers and freight decision makers across the region. You will map decision makers within those businesses and work more than one route in, rather than relying on a single relationship. You will grow and retain the accounts you bring on, and you will keep your pipeline and activity properly recorded so that progress is visible.

As the branch grows, so does your remit. You will take on coaching and leadership responsibility as performance and branch size justify it, with a genuine route into leading the branch. That is not a vague promise attached to fill a vacancy. It is the reason this role exists at this level, and it is being advertised alongside a more senior version of the same appointment precisely so that the right person can come in at either level.

You are a business developer working in freight forwarding today with a recent and demonstrable record of winning new business. You have a book of business or a strong network you could work from day one, and you know the importers and freight decision makers across the North West. You understand ocean and road freight, with a working knowledge of customs sufficient to hold a credible conversation with an importer. You have a structured approach to prospecting that you can describe, rather than a list of people you happen to know, and you can talk through how you have found and converted business that was not simply handed to you. Above all you are hungry, and you have the resilience to build from a low base. The pipeline will not be full on your first day and the early months will require persistence.

Be ready to talk in detail about what you have won recently: how you found it, how long it took, what obstacles you worked around, and what those accounts are worth now. We are more interested in the method and the consistency than in a single large win. Evidence that you have grown accounts as well as opened them matters too, because that is where forwarding margin is protected.

This is a business that decides quickly and expects people to get on with things. The owner is accessible and involved, and the culture is built on service, straight dealing and doing what was promised. You will operate with limited day to day supervision and will need to be genuinely self directed. You will also need the ambition to lead and the willingness to earn it. The route into branch leadership is real, but it is earned through performance rather than granted after a period of time. If you are looking for a title now, this is the wrong role. If you are looking for the platform to justify one, it may be exactly the right one.

£50,000 to £65,000 base depending on experience and on what you bring, plus a quarterly bonus of fifteen per cent of branch EBIT. Alongside that sits an uncapped long-term incentive of a further ten per cent of branch EBIT, accumulated and payable as a lump sum after ten years, with a review point at five years. The base is not the point. The point is that what you build, you keep being paid for, for years. Car or car allowance, private health insurance and pension sit alongside.

Office and field based in Manchester, not hybrid. Progress and performance are reviewed formally at six and twelve months, which is also how the route into wider responsibility is assessed.

Apply with your CV. We will brief you fully before anything is shared with our client. Second stage involves a short presentation.