Specialist, Premium Protein

About the role

This is a professional sales position responsible for growing new business within the meat & seafood categories, with the expectation of achieving assigned business goals while enhancing the customer experience. The role requires maintaining industry and category‑specific certification status and direct selling of categories to customers. Specialists will prioritize time, targets, and team‑selling efforts based on market insights and data analytics, and will be evaluated against Sysco’s Leadership Framework (Core Qualities, Shaping the Future, and Delivering Business Results).

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute targeted meat & seafood sales strategies to achieve region and individual annual business goals, delivering profitable sales growth and penetration across categories, specialty segments, and Sysco brand.
• Identify the needs of customers and prospects to assemble a product mix that delivers solutions and helps achieve business objectives.
• Utilize data analytics to prioritize meat & seafood opportunities.
• Actively seek, qualify, and support top prospect conversion to Sysco.
• Stay informed of market conditions, product innovations, and competitors' products, prices, and sales; share information with customers as part of value‑added services.
• Track activities and results, collaborate on opportunities, and champion the team‑selling process through use of Salesforce (Sysco’s CRM tool).
• Leverage sampling in a solutions‑oriented manner to close sales.
• Provide feedback to specialty companies and merchandising on product quality, integrity, mix, customer satisfaction, perceived value, and competition.
• Develop and maintain relationships with customers, chefs, and sales team members.
• Support execution of prioritized sales strategies through direct selling and engagement of customers and prospects at Sysco events (e.g., food shows, industry events).

Qualifications

• Minimum: High School Diploma or GED and 3+ years of sales experience within a retail, broker, wholesale, or distribution environment with deep technical expertise of meat & seafood categories.
• Preferred: Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent educational level.

Knowledge & Skills

• Proficiency in “center of the plate” (meat & seafood) knowledge and trends; internal and external certification may be required.
• Analytical problem‑solving skills, including familiarity with analyzing reports and deriving insights from data.
• Ability to express information in terms of profit and loss, food cost, and expense ratio.
• Strong financial acumen and ability to properly plan and execute business plans.
• Flexibility; readily accepts change and open to new ideas.
• Track record of success in consultative selling, networking, and negotiations.
• Proficient communication and interpersonal skills; ability to work with and influence a variety of key stakeholders.
• Experience building trust with prospective customers and securing new business.
• Strong business and restaurant operations acumen to manage sophisticated customers.
• Ability to learn and use proprietary CRM tools for planning and forecasting sales growth.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook).
• Proactive and self‑directed, with the ability to structure a weekly schedule for success.
• Demonstrated ability to meet deadlines and produce high‑quality results (accuracy, thoroughness).
• Excellent organizational and project management skills, including the ability to execute multiple initiatives simultaneously.
• Understanding of marketing principles, product lines, ordering procedures, and Sysco’s credit terms.