B2B Sales Manager

Leadership and Responsibilities

Leads the Food Service and Industrial sales divisions (B2B) to maximize growth and market share by gaining distribution and increasing sales, while building the Marukan brand throughout all food service sales channels and ensuring the long-term strength of the company.

Food Service Sales

Direct selling to distributors and operator customers at all levels.

Sales Department Leadership

• Hiring, training, and development of brokers and contractors.
• Assists VP of Sales in creating the B2B sales strategy for the company.
• Summarizes sales and customer activity for the VP of Sales to report to head office in Japan.
• Forecast customer demand and communicates short and long-term production needs to VP of Sales and VP of Operations (production).
• Develop private brand sales with new and existing customers.

Supervisory Duties

• Travel to key markets once per year, more often for large markets, for business reviews with key customers and distributors, broker evaluations, distributor sales meetings and ride-alongs, culinary training and events, tradeshows, etc.
• Communicates with logistics to maximize sales and minimize shortages cost effectively.
• Develops and updates the pricing strategy and makes recommendations to VP of Sales for approval.
• Cooperates with Sales Operations team to create annual and monthly sales forecast and expense budgets.
• Able to attend and present progress in a weekly sales meeting.
• Able to establish departmental KPIs, measure and evaluate progress toward departmental goals.
• Reviews customer, product and broker P/Ls to ensure profitability and recommend changes when necessary.
• Maintains up to date records of food service distribution and pricing through foodservice channels for Marukan and competition.

Education and Certification

• Minimum Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Business, Sales, Marketing, or Management.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• A strong candidate will have more than 10 years of experience in foodservice sales management, including a combination of experience with Consumer-Packaged Goods manufacturers, foodservice distributors, foodservice brokers, and/or restaurants, commissaries or other commercial food sales entities.
• Ability to create, negotiate, and execute supply agreements for key, high-volume customers.
• Strong understanding of restaurant/foodservice industry and awareness of culinary trends in the U.S. and Canada. Familiarity with top 200 restaurant chains, regional key operators, local best in class independent restaurants, and buying groups.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, both verbal and written (in English) including customer sales reviews, public speaking, training of distributor or broker sales forces, broker reviews and training, motivating, team building, interviews, and conflict resolution. Must be able to report sales opportunities, progress, and challenges to executive management.
• Strong strategic, analytical, and budgeting skills needed for determining sales department policies and procedures, forecasting, P/L management and reporting, decision making, creating sales presentations, writing, and managing sales targets, promotional strategies, and budgets.
• Ability to travel up to 70% of the time per month, about 50% of the time per year.
• Should be an efficient traveler who can work productively from the road.
• Windows environment applications, including Microsoft Outlook, Excel, Powerpoint, and Word. Experience with MS Dynamics is strongly preferred.
• Ability to leverage technology for research and management efficiency (AI, internet, lead generation services, CRM, etc.)