About the Role:
As an Area Sales Manager (ASM) in Lubumbashi, your primary responsibility will be to ensure that sales targets for the assigned area are not just met but exceeded. Reporting to the Regional Sales Manager, you will be the driving force behind creating a high-performance sales team, expanding the geographical reach of sales efforts, and ensuring a smooth and efficient sales process. You’ll also be responsible for on-ground marketing activities, customer service, and addressing staff and customer queries and complaints.
Duties and Responsibilities:
- Build and Lead a High-Performing Team: Your team will consist of Team Leaders and Activators (or Field Sales Agents). You’ll be responsible for hiring, retaining, and motivating them to deliver outstanding results. You will ensure your team is disciplined, process-driven, and committed to providing the best customer experience.
- Exceed Sales Targets: Meeting or exceeding sales targets is crucial. You’ll work closely with your sales leadership and the team to set and achieve sales targets each month.
- Expand Geographically: Identify new locations, including cities and neighborhoods, where you can sell BURN products. Your goal is to maximize every sales opportunity by setting up sales teams in these locations.
- Guide and Train: Provide clear guidance to your team leaders regarding their daily tasks, sales targets, and prospecting plans. Ensure that your sales teams have predefined sales routes/areas, understand how to pitch BURN products effectively, and can handle basic customer resistance.
- Manage Prospection Data: Daily prospection data is essential. You’ll collect, distribute, and ensure any issues with rejected prospects are addressed promptly. You’ll also support agents and team leaders in coordinating customer deliveries.
- Training: Continuously assess the performance of your team leaders and activators to identify knowledge gaps. Provide necessary training on company processes and industry best practices related to sales, cash collections, products, technical aspects, and inventory.
- On-Ground Marketing: Collaborate with team leaders to create a weekly activation calendar. Support organizing market activations and roadshows, ensuring the company maximizes the return on investment for marketing activities.
- Weekly Calls: Stay in close contact with team leaders, the top 5 activators, and the bottom 3 activators in each team. These interactions could be in-person meetings, joint sales efforts, or calls. The goal is to boost their performance and resolve any issues faced by the area sales team.
- Review Team Meetings: Ensure that team leaders conduct daily meetings and reviews with activators. Conduct surprise visits to field meetings and areas to ensure that sales processes and standards are of the highest quality.
- Fieldwork: Engage in joint fieldwork with groups of agents to evaluate compliance with sales and prospecting processes. Ensure agents clearly articulate the unique selling proposition of BURN products and the importance of collecting and verifying end-user details.
- Support Inventory Reconciliation: Ensure that team leaders perform accurate daily reconciliations of cash collections and serial number sales. Submit supporting documentation and update relevant trackers.
- Resolve Agent Issues: Provide exceptional support to your agents, addressing product delivery, data registrations, commission disputes, personal challenges, and professional growth.
- Promote Team Spirit: Foster an environment that encourages collaboration, high performance, and a shared vision through team-building activities.
- Strategic Thinking: Keep an eye on regional competition and take measures to protect and grow your business. Provide input to the Regional Sales Manager to develop and improve the regional distribution plan.
- Reporting: Provide daily and weekly updates on sales, agent recruitment, customer issues and resolutions, and preparations for launching in new areas as agreed upon with your manager.
Skills and Experience:
- A degree or diploma in any educational background.
- Minimum of 4 years of field sales experience, preferably in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), solar energy, telecom, or TV distribution industries.
- Strong managerial skills, including experience in managing teams of at least 5 skilled employees.
- Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills.
- Highly organized and process-oriented with excellent time management skills.
- An entrepreneurial spirit, able to work independently, think innovatively, and problem-solve effectively.
- Committed to BURN’s social mission of providing clean cooking products to consumers.
- Fluency in French and the relevant national language, both written and spoken.
- Written and spoken competencies in English are advantageous but not required.
Qualified Female Candidates encouraged to Apply
Note: BURN does not charge any fees at any stage of the recruitment process, including application, interviews, meetings, processing, training, or any other fees.
