National Sales Manager

A retail holding company based in Muizenberg is looking to hire a National Sales Manager. The aim of the role is to lead and develop a high-performance, customer-centric team that focuses on building and optimising wholesale customer relationships, with the goal of achieving sales and profit targets through effective planning, management and execution.
- **Duties**_:
**National Sales & Account Management**
- Responsible for the creation of budgets and forecasts for the Wholesale business within the territory
- Development and maintenance of sales pipeline to ascertain market potential
- Along with merchandising, keep product line tight and efficient, ensuring responsible segmentation
- Support trade marketing with a collaborative effort and effective communication of vision and strategies always to drive VM excellence, training, in-stock guidance per customer, potential upselling and relationship development
- Conduct store visits - own, customer and competitor - to review trends, customer-specific issues and competitor activities to help formulate strategic plans and be proactive in reacting to market conditions
- Responsible for building key account plans for all major accounts
- Foster good relationships with all customers, assisting them with growth strategies and suggestions for expansion, planning and in stock programs within their business
- Foster on-going professional relationships with existing customers and sales force, creating a culture of consultative selling, monitoring sell-through data, replenishment suggestions to maximise sales, promotion suggestions, seasonal planning
- Ensure customers meet order commitments
- Deal promptly and creatively with escalated queries and complaints from customers
**Brand Management**
- Together with marketing, ensure the brand is positioned in accordance with global strategies
- Seek out and manage marketing opportunities within the region
- Work with marketing to maximise and leverage brand opportunities
- Ensure the brand is presented efficiently and in an appealing way throughout the country
**Supply chain and operations management**
- Open order reports
- Order deadlines
- Placing orders
- Communication to global and local logistics on product movement
- VAS requirements arranged via logistics
- Regular communication and distribution reports ATS to customers
**Reporting**
- Report monthly on the wholesale sales forecast
- Seasonal analysis by key account
- Quarterly business review reporting
- To request regular sell out from key accounts
**Education**
- Relevant tertiary qualification (Sales and Marketing)
**Experience**
- Minimum 5 years' working experience within a South African retail or wholesale business, or similar sales environment
- Critical Competencies
- Advanced Microsoft office ability
- Ability to travel as and when necessary (Local)
- SAP experience advantageous
- Behavioural skills and knowledge required
- A strong understanding of lifestyle brands and the market opportunities within the retail, wholesale and e-commerce sector
- Business and commercial acumen
- Budgeting and reporting skills with a strong understanding of retail KPI measurements
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Highly organized and deadline driven
- Capacity to collaborate, integrate and facilitate teamwork
- Ability to network, build and sustain stakeholder relationships internally as well as with external stakeholders is critical
- Strong customer first service focus and flexible in approach
- Strong product focus and understanding

**Job Types**: Full-time, Permanent

**Salary**: R40,000.00 - R50,000.00 per month

**Education**:

- Bachelors (required)
**Experience**:

- Retail/Wholesale Sales: 5 years (required)