Dairy Ingredients Sales Manager
About The Position
Dairy Ingredients Sales Manager is based in Arden Hills, MN Seeking a Sales Manager to lead the Seasonings & Ingredients (S&I) core sales team. This position combines strategic account management with leadership of a high-performing sales team to achieve value-added ingredient business objectives. This role focuses on positioning Land O’Lakes as the preferred provider of dairy flavor solutions within the ingredient space and leads the team to deliver on evolving consumer and customer needs. Success requires close collaboration with Marketing on strategic planning and with R&D to drive innovation and deliver customer values. Position Description: The sales manager plays a key role through sales team leadership, account management, and business strategy. Primary accountability involves leading a team of three direct reports in achieving S&I core objectives related to volume, revenue, profitability, and project adoption by aligning with cross-functional partners on development, forecasting, production planning, and inventory strategies. This role oversees the development of long-term sales engagement plans and customer segmentation, ensuring the commercial pipeline remains robust and prioritized. In addition to sales team leadership, this role holds direct account management and new business development responsibilities for key strategic enterprise customer(s). This role owns the customer relationship and is responsible for cultivating a long-term partnership and advancing projects forward. By cultivating senior-level stakeholder relationships, the role positions the organization as a premier dairy ingredient partner. The sales manager is part of the S&I leadership team, helping to drive business growth by shaping customer strategies and delivering market insights that influence strategic decisions. The role fosters a customer-first culture to ensure alignment across all levels of the organization. Furthermore, the sales manager represents the organization within the broader industry, participating in SNAC leadership conferences and trade shows.
Requirements
- Exceptional interpersonal communication skills
- Proven ability to partner and collaborate driving innovation and sound decision making
- Results leadership with strong ownership to delivery of plan
- Ability to inspire, coach, and develop a high-performing sales team
- Proven experience in customer-facing roles developing custom solutions and driving business growth
- Strong business acumen, understands the organizational impact of sales decisions
- Analytic problem solving skills
- Strong negotiation skills
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience
- 10 plus years in food sales, with a focus on B2B business – required
- 7 plus years of experience developing strategic customer business relationships - required
- 7 plus years of experience forming and leading cross-functional teams with demonstrated business results - required
- 4 plus years of experience leading team of direct reports - required
- Ability to travel domestically and internationally (LTAM) – required
Nice To Haves
- Custom solutions business model experience - preferred
- Working knowledge of dairy industry/products - preferred
- Experience with risk management tools – preferred
- New business value added sales - preferred
Responsibilities
- leading a team of three direct reports in achieving S&I core objectives related to volume, revenue, profitability, and project adoption by aligning with cross-functional partners on development, forecasting, production planning, and inventory strategies
- overseeing the development of long-term sales engagement plans and customer segmentation, ensuring the commercial pipeline remains robust and prioritized
- direct account management and new business development responsibilities for key strategic enterprise customer(s)
- cultivating a long-term partnership and advancing projects forward
- cultivating senior-level stakeholder relationships
- shaping customer strategies and delivering market insights that influence strategic decisions
- representing the organization within the broader industry, participating in SNAC leadership conferences and trade shows
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Manager
Number of Employees
5,001-10,000 employees
