Regional Sales Manager- Chicago

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Job Description Location: Chicago Unilever Food Solutions (UFS) is the $2.5bn+ foodservice division of Unilever. It leads the dynamic Food Service market across its categories and has ambitious growth objectives, marketing a range of professional food and beverage products and services to operators across 22 Multi Country Organizations (MCOs) in 72 countries. UFS is accelerating its digital transformation to fuel growth through data driven and technology enabled Go-to-Market (GtM) capabilities. Our ambition is to reach to 2.5 million operators by 2030 via an online & off-line contact strategy. The focus of UFS marketing and sales is to engage with chefs & customers through an integrated communication system via visits by sales representatives and digital touchpoints like the UFS.com website / webshop, segmented & personalized campaigns and UFS apps. The new roles of marketing teams are more integrated in the digital ecosystem and are vital for a great operator & customer experience. Who You Are and What You'll Do As a Regional Sales Manager, you will be responsible to lead the execution of Unilever Food Solutions Customer engagement strategy offline & online with Operators and Trade Partner customers to deliver business growth targets i.e. Turnover, Reach & Penetration. You will - Lead, coach and develop a Customer Development team - Accountable for leading your team to deliver business target for the assigned Region for Independent Operators, Chains, and Trade Partners - Full execution of UFS Annual Operating Plan and quarterly initiatives - Lead and train team to expand reach to Regional Restaurant Chains (50 units) - Manage Small Regional Chain accounts and develop sales opportunities at each customer - Cultivate relationships with key tier 2 and 3 distributors to better promote Unilever Food Solution's products - Instill team commitment to lead management as a primary driver of business growth - Develop business across all field channels within commercial and non-commercial segments - Lead and train team to partner with restaurant executives and chefs to develop and grow their business - Lead and train team to partner with Distributor Partners to accelerate their market growth through training & collaborating with their Sales teams and executing marketing programs. - Winning customers across all channels with the appropriate level of trade and resources. Trade Distributor Customer - Lead the implementation of the Contact Matrix for Key Trade customers with a Squad approach (where possible) for more effective customer management - Develop and execute Joint Business Planning (JBPs) with Selected Trade partners including Trade Term agreement, Sell out activities and DSRs & Trade team engagement & KPIs (Sell-out, Reach, Penetration, eCom, Digital Reach etc). - Engage trade customers to gain alignment for Secondary Sales Data (SSD) partnerships with proof of value addition i.e. Traffic generation towards Trade Webshop via UFS campaigns. Independent Operators & Chains: - Coach and develop team to Build & Nurture relationships with Key Chain Customers & Independent Operators & Implement Contact Matrix with a triangle model approach - Drive Independent Operator & Chain customers engagement as per defined contact strategy i.e. 80% virtual, 20% F2F via Customer Relationship Management. Use data driven recommendations for reach & Penetration - Conduct Virtual Sampling, Ideation, Cooking Demo using culinary knowledge to secure new opportunities or increase volume usage by new menu applications or into existing dishes - Implement and execute Customer Business Plan with selected key Chains customers Digital, Data & eCom - Accountable for Implementation and execution of all UFS digital tools within Territory/Area - Continuously enrich UFS customer data for more personalized campaigning - Follow up on Leads (based on Marketo Leads scoring & Targeting Model) for 100 engagement & KPI delivery - Drive customer digital engagement for UFS Digital platforms & Campaigns (UFS.Com, UFS Academy, Social Media engagement, UFS webinars) - Drive digital buying behavior via ecommerce platforms (Webshop/trade Partner Webshop/pure players) - Lead category approach for Trade web shop for UFS business growth via joint campaigning with DT marketing & trade teams Key Skills - Strategic Selling skills - Impactful Virtual Customer Engagement - Full understanding of all Customers & UFS Product solutions - Business Insights to Activation Solution Selling - Familiarity of UFS CD Cycle - Customer Business Planning & Win & Retail - Chefman-ship - Commercial Skills - Negotiation Skills - Digital & IT skills Including eCom, Salesforce, Marketo - Data & Analytical Skills - Ability to use data driven insights for execution What You'll Need to Succeed - 6+ years of working experience in the foodservice industry with proven track record in sales, preferably in the Foodservice Industry - Understanding / experience of use of Digital & Social media