State Sales Manager

**About Wellness Pet Company**

For more than 100 years, Wellness Pet has been a pioneer in the natural pet food movement by offering nutritional recipes with the highest quality ingredients for dogs and cats. Headquartered in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, Wellness Pet Company is a top global supplier of premium pet food and treats with brands including Wellness®, Old Mother Hubbard®, WHIMZEES®, Eagle Pack®, Holistic Select®, and Sojos®. Powered by its dedication to provide the very best natural food and treats for happier, healthier pets, Wellness Pet has become a leader in the high growth premium-focused category. The Company is uniquely positioned as the largest independent North America-based pet food manufacturer, producing proprietary and exclusive formulations at its three state-of-the-art facilities in Indiana, Minnesota, and the Netherlands, supported by a supply chain spanning over 1.2 million distribution points across the globe.

Our global Sales Team is made up of outstanding sales professionals. These sales professionals share in our love of animals, our passion for quality and our desire to make a real difference in the community we share with our pets. From supporting those organizations in their local communities doing good work to care for animals to building strong relationships with those educating consumers in retail environments, we are more than just a group of colleagues. If you want to be part of a dynamic company with strong values and a commitment to strive for excellence in all we do, then come and join the Wellness Pet team

**Position Summary**:
This field-based position is responsible for the Wellness Pet business in NSW. The main focus for this role is field business support for and growth of national accounts, regional/state chains, and distributor business serving independent owner-operated pet specialty outlets in the territory. The State Sales Manager position will also be responsible for store staff education, merchandising/planogram compliance, sales fundamentals at store level and will represent the Company on all facets of sales and marketing. This role will report to the National Sales Manager; below are the priorities to ensure our customer plans are executed with excellence:
**Position Description (Responsibilities)**:

- Growing the business within the territory using a variety of customer management techniques.
- Working to revenue targets and KPI’s as set by the business and state manager.
- Identify/target potential customers and assess opportunities for sales of Wellness Pet brands.
- Work efficiently within a determined route plan and sell cycle to maximize number of visits each month
- Develop with SSM and implement a profitable and geographically comprehensive call plan.
- Create a strategy to grow the territory by building long term customer relationships.
- Educate and drive active store staff recommendation of the Wellness Pet product portfolio in store.
- Increase space and ensure planogram compliance at store level.
- Leverage store relationship to negotiate over and above activities in store.
- Develop and implement gap fill activities and corrective actions if sales budget not met.
- Implement and execute business plans within agreed time frame and budget.
- With the key business driver matrix, opportunistically find/deploy solutions to customers’ needs
- Analyzing internal, category and competitive data to assess sales opportunities.

**To accomplish the above duties, the Account Manager will**:

- Manage an account base of pet specialty retailers within the Queensland territory to improve sales fundamentals
- Optimize store coverage including execution of promotion and sales plans; implement promotional sales including national promotions and new products
- Customer management at local and regional level for Queensland; assess sales mix opportunities
- Enable brand/category development via training, trial, promotion and planograms
- Build distribution in independent/regional pet stores; use agreed planograms and launch plans
- Report on market, competitor and customer activity within Queensland
- Conducting product seminars, attend trade shows, dog/cat shows and other events with sporadic weekend work
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) include (and are not limited to):

- Achieve sales and spend targets per customer plans
- Manage merchandising/planograms in accordance with Wellness Pet guidelines/brand plans
- Develop creative business solutions that drive growth in-store
- Leverage relationships with in-store personnel including education to drive recommendation levels
- Live the Wellness Pet values and culture and doing whatever it takes for the pets who depend on us
- Other duties as advised

**Position Requirements**
- We are looking for an individual who loves working in a team working together to grow the business. This role involves travel so the flexibility to be available to ensure that customer needs are met is critical. A passio