Summary of Duties and Responsibilities: Maintain and manage relationship with key customer accounts across a defined geographic region. Planning, analysis, and sales forecasting as well as strong analytical skills. Professionally build programs, construct presentations, discover opportunity and capture business with existing and target Key Accounts.
Primary Duties:
· Relationship management
o Maintain and manage relationship with customers at all levels of the business.
§ Owner (where applicable)
§ Manager
§ Buyer
§ Accounts Payable
· Sales
o Generate sales through communication with customer
§ Regular orders from availability
§ Rebooking previous season sales
· Review past sales for additional sales opportunities (what didn’t they buy)
§ New program offerings
§ Promote Value Added offerings i.e. prepricing
· Forecasting
o Internal
§ Work with Retail Ready Sales Manager to meet monthly and future sales plans
o External
§ Work with Customer to meet future sales plans both internal and external
§ Managing booked orders for timing to achieve sales budget
· Communication & Travel
o Promote the use of the www.skagitgardens.com for order placement and review past orders, credit requests, rack pick up, etc.
o Manage booked order expectations for crop readiness and timing of shipments
o Travel to meet customers and become familiar with their retail space or workspace
o Schedule meetings, product knowledge and follow up
§ in person or remote meeting platform (video call, go to meeting, etc)
o Listen for missed opportunities for additional sales
o General understanding of UPC, SKU and Retail Pricing needs
o Communicate variance, special events and challenges to the Retail Ready Sales Manager
o Negotiate credits
o Gain Industry intelligence visiting competition and surveying product mix and pricing
o Handle all aspects of key account customer inquiries and calls
o Represent company at industry events, tradeshows, breeder events and field trials
Required / Preferred Qualifications:
· A degree in horticulture or plant science is preferred
· Experience in nursery, garden center or landscaping is preferred
· Willingness to travel is required
· Candidate should have strong people and problem-solving skills
· Experience in strategic planning and forecasting preferred
· Excellent communicator with internal and external customers
· High integrity and respect for confidentiality requirements
· Intermediate competency in all Microsoft Office® suites
Safety
· Ensure that all production and maintenance work areas are kept clean and safe.