Commercial Sales Manager in Cardiff

The WRU Commercial team is growing. If you are passionate about driving commercial growth that impacts and supports all elements of the rugby ecosystem, from grassroots to national team, this may be the opportunity for you. We are seeking passionate, disciplined and structured team members who want to apply and hone their commercial skills and play a key role in the future success of Welsh rugby.

The Commercial Sales Manager will play a key role in building and maintaining a healthy and vibrant sales pipeline and converting sales leads into new business to maximise the commercial return and drive commercial growth for the WRU. The role will be primarily focussed on partnership/sponsorship sales but will also support the hospitality sales team during peak sales periods across for both rugby and third party events.

The Person Knowledge, Skills & Experience

• Demonstrated sales and business development experience, ideally in sport partnerships and/or hospitality.
• Direct sales / outreach experience.
• Demonstrable experience of developing relationships with key buying decision makers in local and national businesses.
• Understanding and experience of commercial / sponsorships rights.
• Experience of presenting at introductory and other meetings to a variety of stakeholders.
• Ability to balance competing demands and requirements to find mutually acceptable solutions.
• Experience of contract negotiation and contract management.
• Self‑motivated, proactive and driven to achieve results.
• The ability to work on own initiative effectively, both as an individual and as part of a team.
• Excited by challenges and motivated to find solutions that work for all parties.
• Excellent attention to detail.
• Excellent IT skills, specifically Microsoft package.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills are essential.
• Strong interpersonal and relationship management.
• Ability to communicate and work through the medium of Welsh is desirable.

The Role

• Partnerships (new business): Build and maintain a healthy and vibrant sales pipeline to convert sales leads into new business to ensure the agreed budgets and targets are met. Desktop research to identify potential sales leads. Support in the identification and documentation of a real‑time and up‑to‑date list of all available partnerships inventory so that it is clear what is available to be sold. Ensure the relevant system is kept up to date. Support in establishing a clear and agreed rate card for the available inventory. Support in the development of a commercial strategy as to how the inventory is to be packaged, taken to market and sold. Use data sources, desktop research and industry knowledge and networks to identify target lists of clients and drive a coordinated approach to selling to these clients, tracking and recording updates in the outreach process. Support in the process of ensuring the correct systems and processes are in place to track the sales pipeline and capture all contact details for sales targets (e.g. management of a B2B database for lead generation). Identify opportunities for creating bespoke commercial partnership proposals. Work with the commercial team on the creation and ongoing maintenance of a suite of templated sales materials that can be quickly and easily refined to apply to any sales opportunity (e.g. WRU intro deck, sales decks, rights package summaries, etc). Direct outreach to potential clients to set up sales meetings. Support in the preparation of sales materials for such meetings, with support from the wider team. Work with commercial agencies engaged by the WRU Group to support Partnership Sales, as relevant. Drive sales opportunities through to the signing of contracts. Ensure smooth and detailed handover of sold opportunities to the Partnerships team to enable them to deliver the contracted rights.
• Partnership Management: Support the Partnerships team as required, especially as it relates to ensuring the partnerships team are fully briefed on the rights that have been sold to partners.
• Hospitality Sales: Support the hospitality sales team to build and maintain a healthy and vibrant sales pipeline and to convert sales leads into new business particularly during peak hospitality sales periods throughout the year. Ensure all sales activities and pipeline opportunities are recorded centrally to maintain a full customer database that can support forecasting.
• Alternative Revenue Streams: Work collaboratively with the Commercial team to develop strategies to identify and develop new commercial revenue streams that drive innovation and growth.
• Stakeholder Management: Build excellent working relations with internal stakeholders and prospective partners / sales leads.
• Event Day Commercial Operations: Invite, host and manage business development prospects (in collaboration with the broader Commercial team) on event days as required. Support the Hospitality Sales team, as required, to ensure that everything runs smoothly in the hospitality spaces on event day and that everything runs seamlessly for hospitality clients. Support the Partnerships team, as required, to ensure that everything runs smoothly with regards to partner rights delivery.
• Budgets: Ensure that cost budgets and sales targets are closely monitored and reported upon.
• Reporting: Ensure that the right level of reporting is readily available and always up to date with regards to the state and health of the sales pipelines. Input into internal reporting processes in a timely manner and in a way that clearly enables team members to understand the state of the commercial sales program. Flag risks and issues early to enable plans to be put in place to mitigate risks.

WRU Requirements

• The WRU require that individuals are proficient in IT skills, specifically Microsoft packages.
• Excellent written and verbal communications are essential, along with the ability to build strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
• Ability to communicate through the medium of Welsh and a Valid UK Driver's License is desirable.
• This role is subject to a basic/enhanced DBS check.

The Perks

• As a permanent member of the WRU Group, you will have access to our full range of employee benefits, including:
• Salary Sacrifice Pension (5% employee contribution, matched by WRU)
• Life assurance scheme
• WRU Group Ticket Allocation (in line with ticketing policy)
• One additional paid day off (birthday leave)
• Employee assistance programme
• Team Tactics – hybrid working arrangements
• Free stadium parking and gym
• WRU Group store and tour discounts
• WRU Group partnership offers
• Eye Care Voucher Scheme
• Cycle to Work Scheme

How to Apply

Please click “Apply Now” to begin your application.