Associate Manager Small Format

The Hershey Company•Lower Swatara Township, PA

22h•Remote

About The Position

This Associate Sales Manager position is a unique and exciting opportunity to join an established and very well-supported company but also be a catalyst to driving tremendous growth for an emerging brand in the West Region. This position is responsible for developing brand strategy within the small format channel for the West, leading brand sales activities and helping support exponential growth in distribution. Reporting to the Director of Small Format, this role will play a critical and cross-functional role across the Small Format team. The ideal candidate will demonstrate experience and success in leading sales for an emerging brand, building go to market strategies and showing tactical execution.

Requirements

Bachelors equivalent
Minimum 3-5 years related industry experience with CPG company
Proficient in Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, Powerpoint, Access)
Strong understanding of C-Store Channel dynamics, relationships
Strategic channel insights/category management and ability to drive effective customer and channel planning processes
Ability to interpret data and determine key actions in response
Superior communication skills, both verbal and written
Ability to be effective in highly volatile and ever-changing marketplace
Ability to travel ~50% of time

Responsibilities

Lead execution of annual Business Plans for Regional convenience retailers, working across such customers as AMPM, Extra Mile, Quik Trip, United Pacific, Maverik, Core Mark, Harbor Wholesale, etc.
Direct the development of annual convenience channel business plans; strategy, tactics (new products, distribution, shelving and merchandising). Establish trade promotion plans and generate the annual customer promo calendar while staying within the approved trade budget.
Conduct quarterly business reviews with Convenience customers, identify opportunities to fulfill customer objectives, and recommend changes to the promotional planner that will achieve targets at the assigned trade budget.
Collaborate with Marketing on developing solutions and products that appeal to the Convenience channel.
Establish specific sales and merchandising objectives and achieve those sales targets with end-to-end visibility from supply to fulfillment.
Develop ongoing tracking and assessment of all activities, setting objective goals at distributor and retailer level.
Work closely with Sales Analysis for ongoing reporting of internal sales data to monitor customer performance.
Provide timely and accurate forecasts of volume and trade spend; develop promotional plans for all West Convenience customers and create corresponding forecasts.
Champion of West Broker/Partner Team Development (training, orientation, coaching, motivation); manage performance and monitor progress vs. plan with regards to volumes, budgets, spending, etc. Direct and participate in the Quarterly Broker Review Meetings and provide input into preparation of Broker selling tools. Conduct periodic business updates with brokers to educate on new initiatives or products, provide selling tools and targeted accounts.
Responsible for building sales presentations and reports to share both internally and with distributor, retailer, and broker partners that will provide an action-oriented response.
Penetrate customer’s key decision makers, understand their business model and key initiatives to meet customer needs and business objectives. As appropriate, bring in Senior leadership to align with customer strategically.