Director, Sales - Books and Consumer Products

Department: Consumer Business

Reports To: Vice President, General Manager - Books & Consumer Products

FLSA Status:

Revision Date:

Position Summary:

We are hiring a Director of Sales to grow sales, market share, shelf space, and retailer share of mind in a wide variety of sales channels including national bookstore chains, wholesale, Canada, international, and others. The Director will be responsible for managing the efforts of a national distribution sales team for 50-100 frontlist titles per year and for creating strategic and direct selling relationships with important customers. The ideal candidate will have deep experience in kids book publishing sales, current relationships with national account buyers, and an entrepreneurial spirit with a desire to make big impact, engineer high growth, and push themselves and the team to do great things.

Core Focus:

• Create, continually iterate, and passionately implement strategic plans for major channels
• Lead efforts to significantly grow sales in each assigned channel and as a whole. Raise the bar on expectations and infuse the team with the ideas, energy, and incentive to invest in the success of our partners
• Serve as sales director for the national distribution sales team for assigned sales channels

Specific Responsibilities:

Driving Sales Growth

• Create, maintain, and execute strategic plans relative to sales initiatives, relationship development, product development, and marketing initiatives for key channels/customers

• Propose and advocate for new categories, product lines, formats, price points, positioning devices, etc. that will maximize the opportunity in strategic customers/channels

Sales Director for Distribution Sales Force

• Regularly meet with distribution sales personnel and provide sales direction relative to the strategic plan - calling them to a higher level of sales results
• Develop aggressive and data-informed sales projections for each channel and frontlist title prior to publication, communicate each to the sales teams, and direct sales efforts to achieve each goal
• Develop personal relationships with key buyers and executives in each key account
• In field accounts, develop personal relationships with local and strategically-important customers as well as field representatives to understand the thought processes, systems, needs, interests, and opportunities to enhance the relationship with each
• Passionately advocate for the needs and opportunities of strategic customers and channels to editorial, marketing, and leadership; continually bring market intelligence derived from reps and customers to the editorial team

Direct Selling - House Accounts and Business Development

• Manage a small portfolio of house accounts for printed product that have annual revenue expectations of $75k or more in any of the assigned channels.

• How to manage sales teams for growth and how to develop your own personal relationships with customers managed by other team members
• How to thoughtfully create and execute strategic plans by listening to internal partners, market forces, and the needs of the customer and then building support internally and externally

• Identify the most important channels in need of strategic planning and develop a framework for such plans
• Perform a gap analysis in each assigned channels and work to immediately increase sales

• Create a close, vibrant relationship with sales executives and representatives of the distribution team, working to proffer best-in-class partnership and support and driving sales and innovation across all channels
• Create strategic plans for all major assigned channels and be actively implementing them for verifiable impact
• Have a strong, collaborative relationship with editorial, design, analytics, marketing and operations and be actively partnering with them on new product development, marketing plans, category expansion, and more

Supervisory Responsibilities:

Possibly a sales coordinator.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelors' Degree in Business Administration, Marketing, or commensurate experience
• 10 years' experience in kids book publishing sales and management of manager-level-and-above sales employees or a distributor-sales force

Qualifications:

• A high level of personal business ambition/drive, self-motivation, and autonomy; this is a team that is playing to win that the highest level which brings a need for strong drive and expectations
• Current direct relationship with kids buyers in multiple channels
• A verifiable history of delivering exceptional sales growth in assigned channels
• Experience in and desire to continue developing as a Director of Sales - one who directs the efforts of other sales professionals to maximize impact
• An analytic mind - one able to find opportunity in and the channel the power of data to drive sales
• Strong attention to detail and excellent follow-through
• Strong interpersonal skills and a demonstrated ability to work collaboratively and cross-functionally at all levels

Physical Requirements:

Add any physical requirements that are applicable to the position.

• Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer
• Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times
• Prolonged periods of working while standing while exhibiting at trade shows

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