National Account Manager, Kroger Team

INCPG; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 85,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

ARI (Axcel Recruiting Inc.) is seeking a results-driven Sales Leader to drive the Kroger business in the Los Angeles/SoCal market. You will oversee the sales and profitability of all company products within the assigned customer, build strategic plans, and manage promotions, displays and marketing initiatives.

You will lead cross-functional teams, communicate contracts and pricing, and develop budgets to optimize trade spend while cultivating long-term customer relationships.

Qualifications

• 5–7 years of related experience in customer relations or sales.
• Strong project management skills and ability to lead teams.
• Experience leading and influencing others (6+ months).
• Excellent written and oral communication and negotiation ability.
• Analytical skills including financial reporting.

Responsibilities

• Represent DSD company products across brands for Los Angeles/SoCal market.
• Be responsible for sales and profit of all products within assigned Customer (Kroger).
• Manage corporate selling efforts: promotions, new items, displays and marketing.
• Build and maintain relationships with decision makers inside Customer and internal partners.
• Lead and coordinate customer activities, liaising between Customer team and Sales Operations.
• Convey contracts, incentive programs and pricing updates to customers and internally.
• Develop strategic plans to grow market share and optimize trade dollars.
• Perform pre/post analysis on promotions with Customer Planning.
• Create annual customer budgets and manage spend including pricing and marketing programs.
• Develop business plans for sustainable growth and profitability.
• Maintain long-term relationships with retail customers and represent the company professionally.

Tools

PowerPoint

Excel

Word

SharePoint

Outlook

Job description

Position Summary

This role will represent DSD company products, across all brands for the Los Angeles/SoCal market. This position will be responsible for the sales and profit of all products within assigned Customer (Kroger). This position will also be responsible for managing corporate selling efforts; including promotional strategies, new items, displays, marketing initiatives. This position will be required to build and maintain solid business relationships with all decision makers within the Customer as well as with internal business unit partners.

Key Job Responsibilities

• Responsible for overall sales of all company products in specific divisions.
• Ability for High Influence and overall impact to division level merchandising
• Provide leadership and direction for all assigned Customer activities serving as a liaison between Customer team and Sales Operations organization.
• Provide strategic direction and plans for assigned Customers with the intension of positively impacting and influencing company’s short and long-term strategic priorities, with a specific focus on growing share and optimizing trade dollars.
• Responsible for any headquarter and member/group level business reviews with assigned Customers.
• Convey timely contracts, incentive programs and marketing initiatives, and maintain up-to-date customer pricing files both internally via company’s systems and with within Customers’ systems.
• Garner competitive intel and develop action items that bring about overall improvement to strategic brand portfolio.
• Responsible for pre and post analysis on all promotions, in tandem with Customer Planning team, to identify and correct missed opportunities.
• Work with Customer Planning team to create annual customer budgets and manage overall customer spend including, but not limited to, temporary pricing changes, promotional activity, marketing programs, marketing contracts, display execution, category management, thus optimizing total trade spend.
• Full year projection and volume forecast accuracy
• Develop and present business plans to attain sustainable growth and achieve true profits on an as-directed cadence.
• Responsible for cultivating and maintaining long-term productive relationships with all retail customers assigned.
• Represent the company professionally during customer interaction and business activities.

Job Requirements

Key Behavioral Competencies

• Ability to respond effectively to direction if needed; works primarily as an independent contributor.
• Ability to work independently with limited supervision but maintain strong cross-functional relationships across teams
• Guides junior colleagues to set tasks and achieve objectives within project timeline.
• Accountable to lead entire projects having modest scope/impact or portions of projects having considerable scope/impact to business results.
• Ability to manage an advanced area of work.
• Ability to manage a moderately complex problem.
• Ability to exchange detailed information and communicate messages to reach consensus.
• Ability to manage a project budget.
• Seek potential new business and perform special projects and assignments as requested by Leadership.
• Ability to provide a high level of customer support and service
• Results achiever
• Experience and expertise in customer negotiations.
• Excellent presentation and communication skills required.
• Additional duties as assigned.

Education and Work History

Ideal candidate will possess:

• 5-7 years of related experience in customer relations or sales. CPG/DSD experience is preferred.
• Strong project management skills.
• At least 6 months experience leading and influencing others.
• A combination of training and experience that results in demonstrated competency to perform the work may be substituted.
• Requires excellent written and oral communication skills, as well as the ability to effectively negotiate and influence others.
• Excellent organizational and planning skills.
• Computer skills and proficiency, specifically PowerPoint, Excel, and Word, SharePoint and Outlook is required.
• Bilingual - English/Spanish a plus.
• Must have strong analytical skills including financial reporting.
• Strong working knowledge of sales processes and procedures, space management programs and DSD operations.
• P&L, business analysis & merchandising experience preferred.
• Knowledge of Market6, 84.51, IRI, and margin miner a plus.
• Travel Required 50% or as needed across the country.