Sales Director, Mandarin bilingual (food)

Cesna Recruitment•New York, NY

About The Position

The Sales Director is the business leader for the company’s Asian sales segment, responsible for maintaining market leadership and profitably growing the business. The role brings a strong market orientation and solution-selling approach, champions the company’s capabilities with key customers, and leads the Asian sales team in meeting sales targets and development goals. The Director develops sales and go-to-market strategies for existing and new products and channels; monitors market trends, competitive intelligence, and pricing; builds customer relationships and sales pipelines; and proposes and implements the annual sales operating plan and budget. The role collaborates with the VP of Sales, VP of NBD, and Director of Marketing on sales strategy, end-user strategy, pricing, positioning, and new products. It also recruits and develops the sales team, reports on performance, and assesses sales capabilities and product-line opportunities. The position reports to the President & CEO. Direct reports include the Asian Sales Supervisor, Regional Sales Managers, and External Sales Team; the Inside Sales Team is an indirect reporting group. Performance is measured by volume, revenue, margin, new-business pipeline, customer product distribution, and channel development.

Requirements

10+ years of sales and/or marketing experience within the Asian sales industry; relevant brand-management experience may be applicable.
Strong understanding of markets and distribution channels, including the key drivers affecting sales in relevant channels.
Negotiation skills and proven experience developing sales proposals and closing deals.
Proven ability in solution selling and building sales relationships.
Strong commercial sense and skills.
Creative thinking and problem-solving skills.
Good verbal and written communication skills.
Experience with planning, including business plans and sales forecasts, and with budget management.
Experience developing and managing a sales team.
Proficiency with Microsoft Office, including Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Bilingual proficiency in Mandarin, Cantonese, or Fukinese.

Nice To Haves

BA/BS degree preferred.

Responsibilities

Lead the Asian sales team to deliver annual and monthly sales targets and development goals.
Develop sales and go-to-market strategies for existing products, new products, and new channels.
Identify market and industry trends, market shifts, and customer consolidation; propose plans to capitalize on market conditions.
Develop competitive market intelligence and pricing systems, and assess the post-COVID market environment and its implications for Asian sales.
Build relationships with existing and prospective key customers, participate in quarterly and annual customer business reviews, and evaluate opportunities for mutual growth.
Maintain customer sales-development plans and the sales pipeline.
Propose and implement the annual operating sales plan and budget, covering volume and revenue goals, customer plans, pipeline, channel development, new products, promotions, territories, tactical plans, and staffing.
Contribute to long-term sales strategy development and planning.
Collaborate with the VP of Sales on overall sales strategies, the annual operating plan, processes, systems, and training.
Collaborate with the VP of NBD and Director of Marketing on end-user strategies, pricing and positioning, and new products.
Recruit and develop a strong sales team; assess team capabilities, develop current employees, plan staffing and account or territory structures, and improve product knowledge.
Develop sales broker relationships if applicable in the future.
Report monthly and quarterly on sales performance and Asian sales development.
Within the first 30 days, agree on sales-group priorities and deliverables for the following 90 days, and monitor and propose monthly changes on a rolling 90-day basis.
Visit the top 10 customers on sales calls and spend at least one to two days working with each outside sales representative and manager.
Establish sales goals for territory sales managers, representatives, and inside sales representatives.
Conduct top-10-customer business reviews, including SWOT analyses, customer profiles and goals, and sales-development goals.
Assess internal and external sales-team capabilities and identify improvement and training needs.
Assess the Asian sales product line, including strengths, gaps, opportunities, and SKUs to rationalize.