National Account Manager

PPC FLEX•Buffalo Grove, IL

About The Position

The National Account Manager is responsible for maintaining and growing sales in existing accounts as well as in PPC’s core target markets to support growth and profit expectations. In the event of absence, these job responsibilities will be covered by other employees in the “National Account Manager” position.

Requirements

Four-year Bachelor’s Degree and 5+ years of Sales, Service or related field managing customers and accounts through strategic growth initiatives.
Experience in Flexible Packaging sales is a strong plus.
Ability to self-manage and deploy multiple verbal and computer-related instructions.
Quantifiable track record of results in developing account growth through “farming” within account portfolio.
Strong ability to identify and grow “whitespace” sales opportunities within account portfolio.
Persuasive communication and presentation skills; an influencer that can deliver clear and concise presentations.
Strong critical thinking skills and advanced negotiation skills.
A high level of emotional intelligence and the ability to grow strong business relationships.
Strong desire to continue to learn (life-long learner).
Leverage Technology to sell - LinkedIn Navigator, Facebook, Twitter, Virtual meeting spaces.
Strong ability to build and maintain a robust sales opportunity pipeline.
Maintain and leverage Salesforce CRM (Past Salesforce CRM experience desirable).
A team-player orientation with a collaborative onboarding approach.
Ability to sell value over price and operate within a customer’s reality.
Sound financial management skills, understanding the impacts to decisions on total company costs; weighing decisions against customer gains.
Embraces change management and process improvement.
Results-oriented, assertive, and tenacious, yet diplomatic to get things done on time.
This position requires multi-tasking and an individual who enjoys working with a sense of urgency and is capable of creative problem solving and effective problem resolution to overcome challenges and hurdles in the supply chain.
Strong technical expertise of components and construction of flexible packaging materials preferred.
Knowledge of end-user equipment and end-user applications in food & consumer packaging preferred.
Project a professional image and positive attitude while assertively getting the results needed to support a speed-to-market organization.
Experience with business operating systems and knowledge of Windows computing programs a must with a degree of proficiency in PowerPoint, Excel, Word, Outlook.

Nice To Haves

Experience in Flexible Packaging sales is a strong plus.
Past Salesforce CRM experience desirable.
Strong technical expertise of components and construction of flexible packaging materials preferred.
Knowledge of end-user equipment and end-user applications in food & consumer packaging preferred.

Responsibilities

Create, develop, and implement annual Key Account Sales Plans, including volume objectives, strategic actions needed to achieve goals, risks and opportunities, etc. which are consistent with PPT corporate direction and values.
Service and grow existing customer accounts to ensure high customer satisfaction, positive long-term relationships, and repeat business.
Orchestrate and lead key business negotiations.
Focus on Value Selling to gain understand, drive and facilitate the quotation process for achievement of margin expectations.
Focus on Value Selling; leveraging attribute pricing to drive up contribution margins across their customer portfolio.
Leverage Salesforce CRM to drive forward looking visibility in support of cross functional partners (timing, size and ongoing updates surrounding opportunities pipeline).
Identify and communicate internally emerging market and customer trends and opportunities.
Maintain close communications with Marketing and Product Development to recommend and promote new applications and technologies of PPT products to assigned customers and prospects.
Participate in trade shows as requested.
Develop a proactive engagement approach to customer account personnel.
Develop professional business relationships with a broad, cross-functional array of contacts within assigned accounts.
Conduct Quarterly Business Reviews and where applicable monthly forecasting communication.
Utilize customer scorecards and metrics to effectively manage customer expectations and develop plans to drive resources that bring growth and profitability.
Understand and communicate internally the “outside-in-view” of customer service level.
Be proactive and be the source of “problem solving” skills to customer needs.
Advise as needed the cross-functional internal teams (including Pre-Media, Engineering, Product Development, Materials, Scheduling, Quality, Production, and Shipping) to support mission of best in class customer experience.
Provide sales forecasting information to the demand planning team through ongoing shipment, inventory, and POS analysis.
Actively participate in demand consensus process with outcome to own the consensus forecast.
Participate in Supply Chain/Operations activities acting as “voice of the customer.”
Provide insight for allocations of resources in S&OP process.
Actively review and manage inventory investments and/or aged inventory as required with customer and financial insight in mind.
Provide insight to inventory rules/policies.
Utilize reporting of key performance indicators related to On-time delivery, VMI inventory programs, Quality, Sales growth/profit, etc. to monitor performance of assigned accounts and to course-correct as needed.
Provide mentorship to Account Managers by educating on best practice sales and service approach used with National Accounts.
Utilize Account Managers to provide value add tasks that support growth initiatives for National Accounts; Account Managers are accountable for order entry and management, order tracking, inventory reporting, onboarding support, coordination of client requests, Return Authorization, customer visit support.