Sales & Marketing Representative - Chicago

Equal Opportunity Employer – Veterans/Disabled

About the Role

The Sales and Marketing Representative (“SMR”) establishes and develops new customers while maintaining and enhancing existing customer relationships and revenue. This role requires strong business acumen to engage customers, build relationships, and identify growth opportunities within assigned accounts. The SMR acts as the voice of the customer internally and is responsible for delivering budgeted sales.

Responsibilities

• Establish and develop new relationships through cold calling, lead follow-up, and sample follow-up in a defined geographic market or industry.
• Maintain and enhance existing customer relationships to increase business volume and product diversity.
• Understand government regulations, customer terms, and conditions, ensuring PEI-Genesis processes align with customer requirements.
• Monitor and maintain customer price, delivery, quality, and special handling requirements through consistent dialogue.
• Coordinate large customer bids, quotes, orders, or opportunities with internal teams (Branch Manager, Product Management, Territory Development).
• Market and utilize PEI resources, including supplier representatives, to expand product knowledge and solutions.
• Participate in the annual budgeting process, providing sales, gross profit (GP), and GP percent budgets.
• Use NetSuite CRM to assess account performance, track progress toward sales goals, and develop action plans with the Branch Manager.
• Meet periodically with the Branch Manager to strategize and execute action plans for budgeted, prospective, and underperforming customers.
• Review quote follow-ups for trends and take action to improve outcomes for budgeted, prospective, and underperforming customers.
• Identify additional sales opportunities and trends within assigned accounts.
• Monitor and act on reports (Daily Bookings, Intraday Performance, Static Resale, Quote Push, Manual Hold, Credit Hold, Transit Shelf, Lost Business, Bonds) and report summaries to the Branch Manager.
• Develop and execute strategic objectives to drive sales performance and organic growth for Top 10 customers and assigned accounts.
• Participate in monthly/quarterly business meetings to review Top 10 customer performance.
• Collaborate with internal and external resources to generate profitable results.
• Stay informed of competitor activities, industry trends, and emerging markets to defend and grow PEI’s market share.
• Escalate critical sales and customer situations to appropriate managers or decision-makers.
• Review customer backorder reports to address and escalate delinquent or potentially delinquent orders, including timely customer communication.
• Provide field sales coverage for locally assigned strategic customers without an assigned outside sales representative.
• Maintain personal relationships with key accounts to establish PEI as a trusted advisor.

Requirements

• Degree from a four-year college or university preferred; or minimum of three years of sales experience; or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Successful completion of the PEI-Genesis sales training program.
• Intermediate skill level in Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, Outlook).
• Experience with an ERP system (e.g., ASW400) and a CRM system, preferably NetSuite.