Business Development Manager - London Essence Co. - Premium on Trade

Location: Field based covering -  M3/M4 Corridor area (Cardiff, Bristol, Bath, Reading, Brighton and Bournemouth) 

 
The world of hospitality is constantly evolving, at London Essence we understand these challenges as shown in our category leading growth in sales volume, distribution and return on sales growth. 

We are delivering more through driving efficiency, offering more to meet our consumers needs & preferences and doing more prioritising sustainability and our conscious consumers demands. 

As well as our range of quality bottled mixers for hospitality, we have our innovative Freshly Infused font, this is our groundbreaking innovation London Essence Freshly Infused. Not only does it offer a new mixing dimension to venues, but also offers a path to enhance serving efficiency, boost margins and promote sustainability. 

We’ve got some ambitious plans here at the London Essence Company. We are the fastest growing mixer brand in both the on and off trade and have plans to become the second largest premium mixer brand in GB over the next 18 months. 

As a Business Development Manager you’ll focus exclusively on the London Essence portfolio, working within a dedicated team who will drive the development of this category as a key growth area for the business. Our target customer will be at the premium end of the on-trade market; including premium hotels, bars, clubs, leisure, venues, events and restaurants.

Your main focus will be identifying and winning new contracted business, developing these opportunities into key accounts and managing the overall commercial delivery of your defined territory. Your remit will be to own will focus across all aspects of identifying customer targets, generating sales and on-going account management along with future business planning. Together with our marketing teams you will play a key role in developing our brands of the future, and establishing the benchmark for launches across the rest of the world.

Key Responsibilities:

1. To become the face of London Essence in the premium on-trade sector, capable of communicating to a broad range of stakeholders (including wholesale partners and spirit brand partners)
2. To lead commercial negotiations and pricing, across a breadth of new customers.
3. To build and then lead a broad trade and customer contact strategy to enable you to identify and capitalise on further business opportunities.
4. To ensure that appropriate time is spent in outlet to Build customer and sector knowledge, understanding & insight and Evaluate execution, compliance & competitor activity.
5. To be responsible for working with broader supply chain and relevant Indirect RTM account teams to ensure accurate forecasting of customer volumes to assist total business planning accuracy.To be fully accountable for P&L within your area of responsibility, building and agreeing an investment plan for your region to drive the AOP objectives
6. To be fully accountable for the creation of terms and financial administration of customer contracts.  To work collaboratively with Finance in ensuring appropriate level of internal sign off.
7. To ensure detailed management of local promotional budgets and clear engagement with the national wholesale teams on incremental investment plans.
8. To manage business processes using recognised customer relationship management (CRM) tools e.g. Siebel, SAP, Caterlyst

Knowledge, Skills & Experience Required:

1. The right attitude is essential. You need to be tenacious, determined to succeed, fun, creative and approach life with a ‘can do’ attitude to be successful and fit into our team culture.
2. Account management or business development experience within the premium FMCG sector, an on-trade or OOH channel is preferred.
3. Compelling communicator with the ability to lead from the front and galvanise and influence a broad range of stakeholders
4. Excellent interpersonal skills and written and oral communication skills to enable the development of highly effective internal and external partnerships.
5. London Essence is a small, hands on team, so it’s important that you can operate as a strong team player, align with our shared purpose and be prepared to role your selves up and get stuck in.

We believe we are stronger together and that’s why we’re committed to providing equal opportunities to all applicants and employees. We know that by building a truly inclusive environment where everyone feels celebrated, safe and respected - diversity and wellbeing will naturally thrive