Join our team today!
The ag industry can be deeply frustrating for anyone not looking for business-as-usual. Midwestern BioAg is looking to disrupt the industry. Building on our 40 years of prioritizing soil health as the path to better farming, we are recruiting entrepreneurial team members who want to drive the sustainable future of agriculture. This is the place for people looking to own their success and wear many hats while doing so.
The Sales Manager is responsible for driving location gross profit through a combination of sales to farmers and wholesale accounts. Both the Sales Manager and the Sales Consultants that they manage will operate with a “Territory Manager” mindset. Midwestern BioAg is a “premium” provider, avoiding cheap crop inputs that damage the soil and require higher volumes to offset reduced nutrient efficiency. The Sales Manager will develop and implement strategies for when and how to prioritize the higher margin, lower volume sales to retail farm accounts vs serving them through lower margin, higher volume opportunities to sell through other retailers.
Expectations and Essential Duties:
- Increase gross profit by increasing wallet share with existing customers (but not selling products unnecessarily) and developing customer prospects
- Learn the Midwestern BioAg agronomic system to make recommendations to customers by presenting solutions, products, services, and/or practices to maximize long-term customer profitability
- Maintains and grow his/her own book of business, successfully prospecting, closing, and building long-term partnerships for customer retention and sales growth
- Mentor location sales staff. Meets with key customers, assisting sales consultants with prioritizing customer accounts and negotiating and closing deals
- Identify and develop wholesale accounts to manage personally or through consultants
- Build momentum within local communities to leverage customer success with nearby customer prospects
- Prepares sales forecasting/budgeting and sets performance goals accordingly. Tracks and manages to forecast and pivots as needed
- Collaborate with location Operations Manager to execute sales with high customer satisfaction
- Monitors and evaluates the activities and products of the local competition to adjust MBA positioning as needed
- Reviews sales activities in company’s CRM program to ensure adequate time allocation
Education and Experience
- Bachelor’s Degree (preferred) and/or equivalent work experience in agriculture, agronomy, animal science, horticulture or related field
- 10 years’ experience in a sales related position in an agronomy, or animal nutrition related position preferred
- Track record of targeting and achieving sales growth goals
- Valid driver’s license and ability to operate a motor vehicle
- Experience supervising outside sales personnel and managing a remote workforce
- Experience utilizing a CRM program
- Experience in sales data analytics
- Experience working with biological soil inputs and practices
Competencies
- Customer Focus: Builds effective relationships (internal and external), identifies and understands customer expectations and perspectives, offers practical recommendations
- Collaboration: forms internal and external partnerships to reach goals
- Personal Accountability: Accepts responsibility for own actions, including failure. Embraces experiences as learning opportunities
- Proactive Approach & Initiative: Anticipates needs and plans for success by developing a path to a desired outcome including next steps, feedback points, and time estimates
- Priority Setting: Determines the interrelationships and relative importance of tasks and takes action accordingly
- Adaptability: Flexible style; respects the need for to change and continual improvement; able to fit the circumstances
- Innovation: Contribute to company success by generating and embracing new ideas, and approaches to enhance the organization’s systems, products, or effectiveness. Respects an entrepreneurial spirit
- Humor: Uses appropriate humor to maintain a positive environment
Working Conditions and Physical Requirements
The working conditions and physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
- Travel is required to customer visits as well as MBA locations, meetings, and tradeshows, with occasional overnights as business needs dictate. Anticipated travel of 50 -75%.
- Frequently required to stand; walk; use hands to finger, handle or feel; and talk or hear. Sitting for long periods of time.
- Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and ability to adjust focus.
- Noise level in the work environment is usually quiet to moderate and is typical of an office setting.
- Frequently lifts and/or moves up to 10 pounds and occasionally lifts and/or moves up to 25 pounds.
- Frequent use of computer equipment including long hours of viewing computer screens, keyboarding and mousing.
- Occasional exposure to outside weather conditions, especially during busy field seasons.
