Business Development Manager, South East & East of England in London

Business Development Manager, South East & East of England

We are hiring a Business Development Manager to open and grow the merchant, contractor and specifier network across London, the South East and East of England.

A new-business, field-based role reporting to the Managing Director, backed by a factory that has just doubled its capacity.

London, the South East and East of England (field-based) Full-time, permanent

About the role You own the sales number for your region.

That means three things: getting Polydrain stocked and selling through the merchant network, winning the groundworks and civils contractors who pull product through those branches, and getting Polydrain named on drawings by the engineers who specify it.

You run all three.

This is a new-business role.

There are accounts in the region already and you will keep them well served, but the job is opening the ones we don't have.

We are hiring a hunter, not a farmer, and we expect you to arrive with a network of merchants, contractors and specifiers you can start working almost immediately.

You will be on site, in branches and in design offices more than you are at a desk.

Reports to: Managing Director

Package: competitive basic plus commission, company car or allowance, pension, 28 days holiday, laptop and phone.

• Merchants
• Open branches that don't stock Polydrain today, across independent and national civils and landscaping merchants, and get a first order on the shelf, not just a listing on the system.
• Use your existing branch relationships to get in front of the right managers fast.
• Train branch staff so they quote us first, with internal sales covering the routine servicing between your visits.
• Run branch trade days and on-site demos, and judge them by the orders they produce.
• Contractors
• Map the top 20 groundworks and civils contractors in your region, get in front of the person who decides, and get them trading.
• Take our products to site: demos and trial installations against the incumbent products are how we win groundworkers.
• Turn every successful installation into a reference, a case study and content we can use in our marketing.
• Specifiers
• Get in front of civil and structural engineers, drainage consultants and housebuilder technical teams who have never specified us.
• Get Polydrain named in drainage strategies and Su DS designs, and defend that specification through to order.
• Deliver CPD sessions and technical support, backed by in-house technical engineering where needed.
• Pipeline and reporting
• Prospect every week: cold calls, site visits and branch drop-ins are the job, not what you do when the diary is empty.
• Keep every live project in the CRM with stage, value and next action, so forecasting is a report, not a conversation.
• Work project leads from planning through tender to order.
• Weekly pipeline call with the MD and a monthly forecast, with new accounts opened as the first number on the page.
• The wider business
• Feed what you hear on site back to product development and pricing.
• Represent Polydrain at national and regional trade events.
• What good looks like after 12 months
• New accounts opened and ordering inside 90 days, from the network you brought with you.
• Region revenue at or above target, a good proportion of it from accounts that were not trading with us when you started, and a pipeline that covers the following year.
• The top 20 contractors in your region mapped and met, with at least half of them placing repeat orders.
• A prospect list that is always longer than your customer list, and a CRM the MD can forecast from without ringing you.
• What we’re looking for
• At least three years in field sales for drainage, civils, Su DS or heavy-side building products, with a number you have hit.
• Existing relationships with civils merchants and groundworkers in the region: you should be able to name the branches and contractors you would call in your first month.
• Enough technical grounding to read a drainage drawing and talk attenuation volumes, flow rates and load classes with an engineer without reaching for a brochure.
• Comfort on a live site in PPE and in a consultant's boardroom, on the same day.
• The discipline to run your own diary and keep a CRM current without being asked.
• A full UK driving licence and willingness to travel across the region, with some overnight stays.
• Working knowledge of CIRIA C753 and the Su DS National Standards.
• A civil engineering or construction qualification, though track record counts for more.

How we work We are a family business.

Decisions are quick, titles are light and the owners and MD are hands-on.

We make things in the Black Country and we are proud of it.

We would rather you told us something was wrong than told us what we wanted to hear.

If you are good at this and tired of being one of forty reps in a large corporate, this is a chance to build a region your way and be seen doing it.

Polydrain Civils is an equal opportunities employer. If you need any adjustments during the application process, let us know.