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General Manager Needed for National Building Products Distributor

Schaffer Associates

General Manager Needed for National Building Products Distributor

[POSITION FILLED] Schaffer Associates is recruiting for a General Manager for a leading national building products distributor in Kansas City, MO. Reporting to the Regional Vice President, the General Manager will be responsible for P&L, top line sales, gross margin, and all direct costs of an assigned geographical sales and distribution district. Additionally, the position will encompass all aspects of sales and operations within the assigned district—namely sales, customer service, logistics/distribution management, inventory, and personnel.

For more information, contact Mike Briles at Mike@SchafferAssociates.com or (704) 535-9939.

 

ESSENTIAL DUTIES & TASKS 

  • Supporting and driving sales force effectiveness and key productivity initiatives.
  • Understanding the company’s vision, mission, and strategy; understanding business unit objectives and setting/accomplishing individual performance goals accordingly; modeling and enforcing company values.
  • Supporting larger branches (in terms of size and profitability) among the company’s facilities.
  • Aligning local market strategy with corporate strategy to maximize long-term profit/return on working capital; communicating strategy and plans to entire team.
  • Demonstrating a thorough understanding of the market and establishing the company’s visibility in the market; defining and executing key metrics for district’s success; identifying and driving key business development opportunities / new revenue streams.
  • Managing all aspects of logistics points in assigned district; ensuring that all customer commitments are met and best practices are implemented for safety, safety certification, material handling, inventory management, and delivery; overseeing all aspects of logistics performance/productivity for assigned logistics points; managing key metrics and driving out variances.
  • Managing and developing relationships with key customers in assigned district and determining strategy for value proposition and product penetration; managing all aspects of customer service and customer satisfaction.
  • Maximizing sales efforts by focusing sales employees’ time on largest most profitable opportunities; managing sales representatives to improve profitability, product penetration, and product mix with all customers; conducting joint sales calls with sales representatives to identify opportunities and maintain/build customer relationships (including sales representative coaching/mentoring); deploying resources to maximize results.
  • Managing inventory levels (including slow, inactive, liquidations/large buys, and damaged inventory flow) and aligning local product mix with local market dynamics and product strategy.
  • Leading a team, hiring employees, developing team objectives, coaching, and evaluating performance; ensuring that direct reports obtain applicable training and development opportunities to enhance performance, development, and contributions to the company; holding direct reports accountable for individual and team performance; addressing performance issues appropriately and in a timely fashion.
  • Traveling (at varying levels) on behalf of the company.

 

EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS

  • Bachelor’s Degree in Business, related field, or equivalent industry experience preferred; Master’s Degree is a plus.
  • 10+ years of experience in related field preferred; 8+ years of experience with Master’s Degree.

 

OTHER SKILLS & ABILITIES

  • Ability to lead a large team and/or multiple teams;
  • Ability to estimate staffing needs and assign work;
  • Ability to engage in highly complex decision-making, requiring an ability to recognize and solve a variety of complex and unprecedented problems;
  • Ability to address highly complex problems and reach solutions requiring detailed analysis and extensive investigation.
  • Ability to contribute to development of an operating plan and budget and/or responsible for managing a budget.
  • Ability to build consensus and be appropriately diplomatic, understanding others’ roles and perspectives, and able to sell projects and ideas externally and across the organization.
  • Ability to influence others by presenting a strong case and to build cross-functional relationships in an effort to create consensus and results.
  • Ability to maintain strong customer focus.
  • Strong leadership and teamwork abilities; ability to function well at different levels in a team environment.
  • Extensive product knowledge, consultative, and relationship selling skills.
  • Territory management and target marketing skills.
  • Strong skills in strategic planning, negotiation, understanding/analyzing financial statements, qualitative and quantitative analysis, forecasting, decision-making, innovation, change management, persuasiveness, and strong interpersonal abilities.
  • Proficiency using Microsoft Office Software and relevant sales systems technology.