Area Sales Supervisor - Field Sales Department - Tier 3 at Diplomat Distributors

Job Purpose
To implement and drive the sales strategy and action plans for Tier 3 High Frequency Stores in the Regional Township market. The region specific action plans shall support the profitability and vision of the company.

Furthermore, this role includes the identification and development of Sub-distributors to handle the logistics on behalf of Diplomat SA within the emerging market.

Critical to this role is the management and capacity building of staff which is sourced through a third party service provider. The management of the sales team shall be in accordance with the business HR policies:

• Ensure all expenses are within the regional sales budget.
• Manage the achievement of the cost savings targets of the business.
• Communicate the business strategy and the impact on sales targets and revenues and ensure buy-in by all concerned.
• Develop and implement action plans to grow the regional customer base and increase revenue.
• Build and maintain business relationships with regional customers to enable sales and volume growth.
• Build relationships with sub-D's in the region to support and enable the business plans.
• Ensure understanding of the Diplomat Vendor expectations and communicate to own regional sales team.
• Drive the Golden store and Perfect store plans and ensure alignment with Vendor requirements.
• Implement launches and promotions to increase sales of categories/product lines in own region.
• Ensure compliance to point of sale and price point for products and continuously communicate to all sales team members.
• Utilise regional market, customer and competitor information to analyse trends and effectively identify threats.
• Manage the profitability of the regional sales team through accurate tracking of sales generated.
• Ensure compliance to all HR policies and procedures .
• Conduct effective workforce planning to ensure the regional sales team is staffed to capacity and all customers can receive an excellent service.
• Manage time and attendance and overtime of the regional sales team.
• Actively engage all areas of operations to facilitate support for the sales team to execute their plans.
• Manage the performance of the regional team to ensure outputs enable the achievement of the business plans.
• Mentor and coach the regional sales team to achieve sales targets.
• Review training needs analysis to determine interventions to increase capacity.
• Build capacity within own team to ensure succession planning is effective.
• Self development to stay abreast of latest developments in area of responsibility.
• Take responsibility for self-development through self-study, identification of learning opportunities.

Position Requirements

• Completed Matric or equivalent, accredited by SAQA.
• National Diploma in Marketing preferred.
• A minimum of 4 years relevant sales and marketing experience within the FMCG industry (Tier 3/Informal Trade).
• 3 years Field Sales team management experience.
• Working knowledge of MS Office programs.
• Good working knowledge of the informal market customer profile.
• Must be a local and reside in Eastrand, Gauteng.
• Problem-solving and analytical skills to interpret sales performance and market trend information.
• Excellent negotiation skills.
• Good budget and report writing skills.
• Presentation skills, written and verbal.
• Own vehicle with a valid driver's license.