ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT, CLIENT SUPPORT AND SALES, SPECIALTY CHEMICAL

ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT, CLIENT SUPPORT AND SALES, SPECIALTY CHEMICAL

IN BRIEF:
We are a chemical manufacturer that needs a brilliant and agile key accounts manager that can keep existing clients happy and coordinate the continuance of business (60%), expand those existing opportunities (30%) and pursue qualified leads uncovered along the way (10%). Our account manager is a businessperson and has an interest in the entire business process.

THE MISSION IN QUESTION:

We have a mature product line; mature by virtue of well-known and clearly defined applications. We have a stable client base. What that adds up to is business-to-business sales with interactions between our sales force and professional purchasing agents and corporate executives working on well-understood and defined programs. On that basis the person that we need is less the burgeoning cold calling door buster, and more a savvy and refined businessperson with a very high level of service orientation by nature and great analytical and tactical skills.

Most of the accounts to be serviced will be assigned. The primary mission is to keep them happy, make sure the company is fulfilling all service requirements, make certain that we are not missing opportunities, and to make certain that the company is operating under the most favorable possible terms which can apply to pricing issues, and also logistics issues. Working within our project teams to facilitate the deals you are brokering provides some of this client support. You are the client liaison and most sensitive to the overall environment, technical issues and people involved. You will help direct our staff to quality fulfillment and make sure all the issues are known and properly addressed.

A secondary issue is to expand the sales of our products to your assigned clients. That can be done by creative application sales, changes in the values of commodities that alter price/efficacy balance in the market, need for special delivery and handling we might address, of the expansion of our clients markets.

Finally, relationships with clients lead to additional opportunities and we expect our professional account manager to mine such warm leads.

To be effective in this pursuit we would expect our account manager to apply him or herself and learn the niche, the known chemical product applications, the position of out products, the chemical processes that use our products and principals by which they work, and the costs and benefits of our products when compared to potential alternatives which may include price, ease of use, safety and even the management of waste streams. That is a long way of saying that we expect sales support and salesmanship to be accompanied by genuine product, principals and applications knowledge. We expect you to know the competition and their strategies. We expect you to learn the marketplace and track changes and trends. This is a reasonable and modest body of knowledge.

In parallel with the client-centric mission is an internal mission that is just as important. We need our sales support staff to coordinate, facilitate, monitor manage and expedite as necessary internally. Your client needs must be heralded through our process. We are a solid and smart company that has been in the business approaching half a century, but we are still a collection of people. People make mistakes, miss deadline and there is occasional miscommunication. A great account manager follows their business through the system all the way, every day, every transaction, every time.

We have plants up and down the Eastern Seaboard, in the Southwest, in the Caribbean and the East. All of that spells coordination, follow-up, logistics management and that is if all the details have been ironed out and the customers are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

I liken it to twenty years of hearing the railroad industry tell us all that they will inevitability take over the position of the trucking industry as the staple bulk transporter for America. The reality is that if you ship by rail and do not track your 200,000 lb cars every inch of the way, through every switchyard and siding and do not get to know the systems and the people in every coordinated position and depot along the route?.if you do not do that with passion?you will never see your stuff. Every day, every shipment, every inch of the way, every time. We have quality of staff and passion that the rail industry will never have, but our most successful staff key accounts managers and sales representatives work our internal process, follow up and are involved through the entire interaction client side and company side.



ABOUT US:

We are a medium sized specialty chemicals manufacturer with a national and international footprint. We are a well run company, with a long history of profitable operations, business integrity and quality service. The business is big enough to be a meaningful international player, but is run on a personal level. We have great employee retention and the relationships between key people in the company have a nice personal dimension with loyalty that runs in both directions.

Visionary is a reasonable description of our operations and while the specific strategies of international materials acquisition, waste stream reclamation, and efficient international manufacturing may not be the heartfelt issues of the Key Accounts Manager, differentiation, efficiency, quality and price point are, particularly if you are going to commit yourself to a company with the idea of building a progressive career and even retiring with that firm. Differentiation and innovation are essential elements in a sales oriented customer service role. The company you join has to be led and equipped to be successful for you. In our realm it is not a flight of fantasy to suggest that we are bleeding edge in the industry, and management is young, smart and dedicated to systematic and controlled growth. We will be there and successful to support your good work.

We have locations on the Eastern Seaboard and southwest as well a locations internationally which are manufacturing locations. Clients are all over the place. The home base for this position could be ANYWHERE on the Eastern side of the US that is easy to an airport. That?s correct: Virtual office is a potential here, and we will address that below.

While we employ hundreds of people, remember we are a manufacturing organization. The executive staff are few, the layers few, the politics suppressed. You will know the owners and all key managers on a completely personal level. We have world-class tenure and that is because we are an intimate environment when talking about that handful of managers and executives (you being one). You will be connected here, and will feel connected. We are really nice people and that always helps.


QUALIFICATIONS

We need a person that can step into our business and do the job we described above is a reasonable description of the qualifications we seek, but we will try to describe the skills.

We need a great people person who can deal up and down the ladder of people types from labor to persons leading major corporations. We need a hierarchal thinker and a powerful and charismatic personality. We need a person with cach? and bravado well applied.

You will be negotiating sales and service contracts. You have to be a great thinker and be able to look at numerous variables and project out, envisioning exposures, issues and consequences that may not be part of past agreements.

We are not looking for a clerk. We need a leader. We expect passion, persuasiveness, great listening skills, empathy, emotional intelligence, resilience and toughness. You will be dealing with seasoned corporate purchasing and contracts professionals. Some of these companies are multi-billion dollar entities. Suffice to say that you will be toe-to-toe with some practiced and experienced staff on the client side.

You must speak well. You must be graceful under pressure. You must be a good thematic writer and get efficiently from thesis to conclusion in a concise and compelling way when dealing with everything from business letters to various proposals. You must be METICULOUS about grammar, spelling and structure, and have the discipline to proof your work and then proof it again.

We need a person willing to work hard, willing to do the routine administrative work accurately, and a person with the discipline to keep all of it up to date. You have to be a great time manager, have a natural sense of priorities and a sense of urgency.

We need an emotionally durable individual that can see the interests of all parties on a project, and keep a business perspective even though there are occasions that the practical approach must be second in line based on client needs or even our own company?s reaction to a change of standard operating procedures. Sales often take place externally AND internally to make something happened.

We need fortitude; guts if you will. Asking for things is something you will be doing. We need intellect and TALENT, meaning you will be constantly doing new things and will have to tap into all that you know applied in endless new and creative ways.

Last but not least we need PASSION. If you have no interest in the product, industry and the art of making systems on both sides of the fence meld (client and your company), you cannot succeed at this.

We generally require a BS, but if you are brilliant and can show ironclad historical effectiveness, you may be able to convince us otherwise. That will be a bit of an uphill battle. We are looking for five or more years in blended customer service, customer project coordination and sales.

We mentioned location as being anywhere in the Eastern half of the USA. We have some of our key sales staff and even sales management in virtual offices. This takes a special person and unique self-discipline. There is no point in pursuing a very open engagement if you are not a relentless and driven person.

Obviously there is travel involved with customer sites and our locations scattered domestically and internationally. You will be on the road during the week a maybe away from home one or two nights per week.

PERSONAL PRESENTATION:

It is unreasonable to expect that clients have or will take the time to get to know us personally or deeply, particularly with intermittent exposure. Given that reality, all of the client and sales management staff make an effort to present well. We would like to find a person who understands the value of good physical presentation. We are not talking about a beauty contest; we are talking about concern with all aspects of professionalism, which includes appearance. We believe in shoe polish, dry cleaning and ironing.

CAREER PATH

One of our ex-client service persons doing this precise sort of work is now the president of the company. It did not take all that long. We have grown every year for forty years and we moved all our good people up whenever possible. The likely progression for an account manager is a product manager?s position for a new line. There are numerous other possibilities in marketing and sales management.


PAY AND BENEFITS

This is a job that has a base pay range of $65 ? 85,000.00 based on experience and capability. It will not be money that keeps us apart if you are the archetype for this. We have a very good point of service medical plan paid for by the company. We have a well-managed 401K with an exceptional match. Two weeks vacation with a year of service. 10 paid holidays. We will provide a car allowance and gas reimbursement, computer and office consumables, travel costs and client entertainment expenses. We have a tangible bonus program. To make a long multi-goal story short, our folks in this position added 20 ? 30% to their respective base salaries.

REACHING US
EMAIL: tech@entermail.net
SUBJECT: KEY

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