Account Management Lead

Job Purpose: Lead and manage a team of Account Managers/Junior Account Managers, delivering against the strategy to meet First Mile’s ambitious growth and retention plans for its B2B customer portfolio. Build, expand and maintain key customer relationships, leveraging commercial value with strategically important large customers. Ensure customers are amazed by exceptional account management, delivering against their sustainability goals, presenting and delivering innovative projects and can clearly recognize the value of their First Mile partnership.

Key Accountabilities

Motivate, manage and develop team: Provide effective leadership and management to the team, providing coaching and development to improve skills and end results as well as moving the team up the development ladder.

Retention & Growth: Responsibility for portfolio planning and risk management, ensuring First Mile achieves industry leading customer retention. Build creative value led propositions to ensure growth opportunities are maximised and sales targets are met or exceeded, with strong margins. 

Strategy & Ownership: Contribute to the longer-term business strategy and service solution, using customer and market insight to help shape and optimise future services, pricing and products. 

Duties and Responsibilities

Motivate, manage and develop team:

• Manage, motivate and direct their team, to ensure delivery of sales targets; recruiting and training new team members as required
• Hold regular 121s and team meetings, ensuring team is aligned on strategy and goals
• Work with the Head of Sales and HR to develop team, drive results and address staff training and coaching needs
• Co-ordinate delivery of customer service projects or initiatives
• Evaluate and performance manage staff

Retention & Growth:

• Ensure sales targets are met whilst hitting margin targets in line with the current business.
• Ensure team’s pipelines are up to date and tracking towards hitting targets
• Implement clear strategic key account planning to achieve business objectives, high customer retention and maximise growth opportunities
• Meet customers where required, providing senior level input to sales approach, proposals, and presentations; help close big deals or retain existing work.
• Be the voice of the customer within First Mile - effectively communicates and interact with other departments to ensure smooth delivery of service to customers.
• When needed, present and positively represent the brand at business pitches

Strategy & Ownership:

• Provide the Head of Account Management and CCO with analysis and insights to support the setting of annual sales budget for your team; provide forecasting and insight
• Help to identify new service or product opportunities as required.
• Keep ahead of industry developments, track market competitor price and product movements
• Manage and resolve complex and escalated customer issues.

Requirements

Behavioural Attributes

Convincing with outstanding communication skills – able to inform, help and advise our customers clearly and liaise effectively with other team members including the business development and supply chain managers

Expert listening skills, to understand exactly what both customers and the team require.

Motivational, ability to manage and lead a team of account managers to achieve key goals

Creative thinking, able to innovate and improve our proposition

Able to adapt effectively to changing priorities and environments

General Skills

• Strong commercial acumen, a logical thinker, ability to build solutions
• Proven account management experience, preferably in a B2B environment
• Can translate strategies into tactical plans and implement
• Problem analysis and problem-solving.
• Ability to think strategically and to lead
• Advanced troubleshooting and multi-tasking skills
• Proven success under pressure, able to work to short deadlines
• Excellent negotiator
• Identifies business improvements and provides solutions

Knowledge & Technical Skills

• Extensive knowledge of the principles of business customer management
• Strong business language communications skills, via telephone and email.
• Ability to project manage and develop business initiatives.
• Use of Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint; experience of Sales Force beneficial
• Strong management experience, leading teams within a customer focussed field
• Track record growing current business accounts and identifying new business opportunities
• Experience implementing new customer strategies and projects

Benefits

We offer a range of benefits to our employees and will encourage you to follow your passions as well as the opportunity to learn and try new things within a structured framework designed to help you excel. On top of all this, we’ve added some extras which include:

• Sales bonus scheme - up to 50% of your basic salary

• Enhanced maternity/paternity scheme
• Regular company parties and events
• Employee recognition at our monthly town hall event
• 25 days holiday (plus bank holidays) as well as an extra day for each complete year of service.
• A £60 a month allowance to spend on you. If you want a gym membership, loads of cookies, to pamper yourself, or to pay for a flight it is totally up to you!
• Lots of drinks, food, socials, and events throughout the year.
• But most importantly, a fun, positive, collaborative workplace in which you can learn, working for a rapidly growing, multi-award-winning business in a sector that has never been more important.