Account Manager (Inside Sales)

Chefmaster; Fullerton (CA); Presencial; USD 71.000 - 75.000; Jornada completa

Ventajas ofrecidas por este puesto de trabajo

Medical coverage

Paid vacation and holidays

Company stability (90+ years)

Descripción de la vacante

Chefmaster in Fullerton, CA seeks an Account Manager to own a portfolio of smaller, high-touch accounts, drive growth, and introduce new products across departments. This on-site role requires proactive relationship building with distributors, retailers and foodservice customers.

You'll collaborate with Operations, Finance, Marketing and Product Development to fix root causes, manage quotes, and meet revenue targets while expanding the customer base through cross-functional teamwork.

Formación

• 3–5 years in inside sales, account management or senior customer service.
• Comfortable with high-volume outbound calling and handling rejection.
• Consultative selling skills: asks good questions, builds a recommendation.
• Strong analytical skills using sales and product mix data.
• Organized with the ability to manage multiple accounts.
• Excellent written and spoken communication with buyers.

Responsabilidades

• Own account relationships and manage a group of smaller, high-touch accounts.
• Grow revenue and add new accounts through outbound and warm leads.
• Develop account plans covering products, history, goals, growth opportunities.
• Collaborate with Operations, Finance, Marketing and Product Development to fix root causes.
• Provide forecasts and track account performance against targets.

Conocimientos

High-volume outbound calling

Analytical thinking

Customer-focused

Cross-functional collaboration

Herramientas

Excel

Microsoft Word

CRM systems (Salesforce/HubSpot/Zoho/Dynamics)

ERP / Order Systems (Macola/SAP/NetSuite/Sage/Epicor/QuickBooks/Dynamics)

PowerPoint

Outlook

Descripción del empleo

Type: Full-Time, Exempt

Pay Range: $70,500 – $75,000 per year

About Chefmaster

Chefmaster is a trusted leader in professional-quality food coloring, decorating and culinary products, serving distributors, retailers, bakeries, foodservice suppliers and home bakers. With more than 90 years behind us, we are passionate about empowering creativity in the kitchen. As we grow our customer relationships, we are looking for a proactive, results-driven Account Manager to join our team at our Fullerton, CA headquarters.

Position Overview

The Account Manager owns a portfolio of smaller, high-touch customer accounts, grows sales with them, and opens new accounts through warm and cold outreach. While a Customer Service Representative responds to what the customer asks for, the Account Manager anticipates what the customer needs. The ideal candidate knows each account's business, spots gaps in its product line, brings forward new products and programs, and works across departments so problems get fixed at the root instead of just closed. This role is based on-site at our Fullerton, CA headquarters.

Key Responsibilities

Account Relationship Ownership

• Serve as the main point of contact for an assigned group of smaller, high-touch accounts that need frequent, hands‑on attention: distributors, retailers, and bakery and foodservice suppliers.
• Build relationships with several people at each account, including buyers, category managers, owners and operations contacts.
• Develop and maintain an account plan for top accounts covering products carried, purchase history, goals and growth opportunities.
• Help systemize how we manage customer accounts: select and roll out a CRM platform, organize account, contact and pipeline data, and train Sales and Customer Service on the new process.
• Keep complete, up-to-date account records, contacts and activity notes.

Account Growth & Outbound Selling

• Analyze each account's sales and product mix to find gaps: items, colors, sizes or categories it doesn't carry but should.
• Contact accounts proactively to introduce new products, line extensions, seasonal and holiday programs, promotions and displays.
• Recommend product mix changes backed by sell-through data, category trends and results from similar accounts.
• Prepare quotes, proposals and program offers, and negotiate terms within approved guidelines with support from Finance.
• Spot at‑risk or declining accounts early and build a plan to win them back.
• Meet or exceed annual revenue and growth targets for assigned accounts.

New Business Development

• Prospect for and cold‑call new distributors, retailers, bakeries and foodservice suppliers.
• Follow up on warm leads from trade shows, the website, referrals and brokers.
• Qualify prospects, open new accounts and manage their first orders before bringing them into your account portfolio.
• Build and manage a pipeline of new business against targets.

Cross-Functional Problem Solving

• Own customer issues from first report through resolution and follow‑up, rather than handing them off.
• Work directly with Operations, Warehouse and Shipping, Quality, Accounting and Credit, Marketing and Product Development to resolve problems and keep them from recurring.
• Spot recurring issues (backorders, shipping errors, label or packaging problems) and recommend process fixes to the responsible department.
• Bring customer feedback, product requests and competitor information back to Marketing and Product Development.
• Partner with Marketing on account‑specific promotions, sales materials and launch support.
• Handle complex or sensitive account issues escalated by Customer Service Representatives.
• Work with Finance on order, pricing, credit and return questions that call for judgment or knowledge of the account's history.
• Coordinate large orders, first orders of new items and program orders so they arrive on time and correct.
• Share product and account knowledge with Customer Service so the team can serve assigned accounts well.

Forecasting & Reporting

• Provide sales forecasts by account to support inventory and production planning, especially for new items and seasonal programs.
• Track and report on account performance, upcoming opportunities and progress against targets.

Additional Responsibilities

• Attend trade shows as needed.
• Help onboard accounts handed over from outside sales or brokers.
• Perform other related duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications

• 3–5 years in inside sales, account management or senior customer service.
• Comfortable with high-volume outbound calling, including cold calls, and with handling rejection.
• Consultative selling skills: asks good questions, builds a recommendation and makes the case for it.
• Earns customers' trust and is seen as a partner, not an order taker.
• Strong analytical skills, using sales and product mix data to find opportunities.
• Takes ownership and follows problems through to resolution across departments.
• Clear, professional written and spoken communication, including presenting to buyers.
• Organized: manages a set of accounts and priorities without close supervision.
• Willing to learn the product line in depth, including technical and how‑to‑use questions.
• Meets the technical skill requirements listed below.

Preferred Qualifications

The following are not required but will be viewed favorably:

• Experience in consumer products, food ingredients or foodservice.
• Experience working with distributors or with wholesale or retail buyers.
• Familiarity with the baking, cake decorating or specialty food channel.

Technical Skills

This role requires strong Excel and solid Word skills from day one. Please be specific about your skill level and the systems you have used.

• Microsoft Excel: Work with large sales data exports: pivot tables, XLOOKUP/VLOOKUP, SUMIFS/COUNTIFS, IF logic, sorting, filtering and conditional formatting. Build account‑level sales and product‑mix analyses, simple forecasts and charts for buyer presentations. Clean and combine data pulled from ERP reports and other sources.
• Microsoft Word: Write and format professional proposals, program offers, account plans and customer letters; use templates, tables, styles, headers/footers and track changes; save and send as PDF.
• CRM Systems: Hands‑on use of at least one CRM, such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho or Microsoft Dynamics 365: managing accounts and contacts, logging calls and meetings, tracking opportunities and pipeline, and running reports. Experience setting up or implementing a CRM (configuration, data import, user training) is strongly preferred.
• ERP / Order Systems: Looking up orders, pricing, inventory and sales history in an ERP or order‑management system, such as Macola, SAP Business One, NetSuite, Sage, Epicor, QuickBooks or Dynamics.
• Organizational Tools: Outlook (email, calendar, tasks), Microsoft Teams or Zoom for customer and internal meetings, PowerPoint for buyer presentations, and shared files in OneDrive, SharePoint or Google Workspace.

Finalists may complete a short Excel and Word skills exercise.

What We Offer

• Medical, dental and vision coverage.
• Paid vacation, holidays and sick leave.
• Stability and room to grow with an established company that has been in business for more than 90 years.

The statements contained herein reflect general details as necessary to describe the essential functions of this position, the level of knowledge and skill typically required, and the scope of responsibility. However, this should not be considered an all‑inclusive listing of work requirements. Employees may perform other duties as assigned. Changes to the position description may be made at the discretion of the employer.

It is the policy of Chefmaster to not discriminate against any person with regards to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, marital status, or physical or mental disability.