Customer Account Specialist - Nashville, TN

OVERVIEW

The Region of Georgia, Middle Tennessee, and East Tennessee is seeking a determined and energetic Customer Account Specialist to join our team to cover Nashville and the surrounding areas of Middle TN.

As a Customer Account Specialist (CAS), you will drive incremental sales and volume growth and sustain existing business by owning relationships with food service operators. You will sell company product lines across our K-12, Colleges and universities, Healthcare, Commercial Restaurant, Lodging, and other Non-Commercial channels.

In this role, you will sell a broad portfolio of front-of-house and back-of-house products, including Frozen Baked Goods, Flour, Mixes, Cereal, Yogurt, Snacks, and I/W Frozen Meals. Through these selling efforts, you will develop mutually beneficial partnerships with foodservice operators across all customer channels and record all activity in Salesforce.

You will work closely with the Foodservice Account Executives (Distributor Managers) and communicate regularly with CAS peers while providing expertise to your foodservice customers regarding our products, competitors, and other industry knowledge. You will also leverage sales tools and analyze internal reporting to strategically plan daily activities to identify new business opportunities. You will support critical distributor and industry events (i.e., Food Shows, Distributor Sales Meetings, Targeted Blitzes, District Huddles, etc).

Strong candidates will demonstrate a strong work ethic, passion for selling, agile and adaptable, strategic mindset, and be a strong team player. We are looking for a candidate who can build strong relationships and, most importantly, close the sale.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

Sustain existing business and drive new, incremental sales volume.

• Identify and sell General Mills foodservice products to key operators across the territory to grow the volume of the Region.
• Execute strong relationship-building skills with the ability to connect and develop relationships with key distributor sales team members to drive growth and establish General Mills as a go-to partner.
• Collaborate with the Region's and other cross-region Account Executives to create pull-through demand for core gaps and innovation.
• Partner with distributor sales teams to educate and train on our products, empowering them to sell on your behalf to their customers.
• Leverage resources such as Salesforce, customer purchase data, Google, customer websites, and social media, etc., to properly inform yourself about customers' operations and prepare for sales calls accordingly.
• Leverage a broad portfolio of marketing and trade resources to overcome customer objections and close sales.
• Utilize analytics (i.e., Salesforce, Excel-based reporting...) combined with local expertise to identify new sales opportunities.
• Develop and execute a strategic call pattern that maximizes your sales call coverage (minimum of 16-20 operator sales calls per week to sell approximately 750 - 1,000 cases of incremental volume per month)
• Demonstrate product knowledge to operators through at-home and on-site sample preparation across all product platforms.
• Support critical distributor and industry events (i.e., Industry Expos, Distributor Food Shows, Distributor Sales Meetings, etc.)

Other Accountabilities

• Although a culinary background is not necessary, it is important to note that baking and preparing plate presentations is part of the job requirement.
• This role is not a "work from home" role as it is required to leave your home office to make field sales calls/attend distributor and industry events. There will be some overnight travel required for occasional team meetings and/or other pertinent business needs.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• High School Diploma
• Strong interpersonal, communication, and problem-solving skills
• Win as a team (team player)
• Self-motivated with the ability to maintain workload from a remote office
• Proficiency with Microsoft Applications (i.e., Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook)
• Valid driver's license with a good driving record

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 3+ years of foodservice industry experience
• Bachelor's Degree
• Working Knowledge of the industry & territory
• Scrappy, adaptable, and agile
• Analytical mindset: ability to draw Sales insights from data and reporting
• Strategic sales call planning experience

Additional Considerations

• International relocation or international remote working arrangements (outside of the US) will not be considered.
• Applicants for this position must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. General Mills will not sponsor applicants for this position for work visas.