Market Development Contractor - Chicago

What you'll do New Business Development & Sales Hunting

• Aggressively prospect for new retail, on-premise, and other qualified accounts throughout the assigned territory.
• Spend the majority of field time identifying and pursuing new business rather than simply servicing existing accounts.
• Build a consistent prospecting routine using in-person cold calls, territory canvassing, phone and email outreach, referrals, networking, distributor relationships, and market research.
• Identify owners, buyers, managers, and other decision-makers and create opportunities to present our brands.
• Conduct compelling sales presentations, communicate product value and differentiation, overcome objections, negotiate opportunities, and ask for the sale.
• Open new accounts and secure initial orders, new placements, and expanded distribution.
• Build and maintain a healthy, qualified pipeline with clear next steps and disciplined follow-up.
• Develop a territory route and prospecting strategy that maximizes productive selling time and new-account coverage.
• Take ownership of individual sales goals and proactively create the activity necessary to meet or exceed them.
• Build credible relationships with account owners, buyers, managers, and key decision-makers.
• Maintain existing accounts while continually looking for incremental sales opportunities.
• Develop account-specific growth plans based on customer needs, sales performance, and account potential.
• Identify opportunities to increase SKU count, order frequency, average order size, displays, shelf or cooler placement, distribution, and promotional activity.
• Regularly visit accounts to identify opportunities, solve issues, strengthen relationships, and drive incremental sales.
• Monitor account performance and use available sales data and market insights to identify areas for growth.

• Pre-plan account visits with clear objectives, selling opportunities, and desired outcomes.
• Work closely with distributor partners and sales representatives to identify new doors, improve selling, expand distribution, and execute against opportunities.
• Ensure products are properly represented, priced, positioned, and available within active accounts.
• Represent the brand professionally during account visits, distributor work-withs, retail events, tastings, and other approved market activities.
• Educate buyers, retailers, staff, and consumers on product benefits, positioning, and points of differentiation.
• Complete merchandising, sampling, promotional, or other field-support duties when they directly support sales and account development.
• Maintain a strong understanding of the assigned market, including priority accounts, competitive brands, pricing, promotions, emerging trends, and whitespace opportunities.
• Identify new channels, neighborhoods, account types, and market opportunities that can contribute to sales growth .
• Maintain accurate and timely CRM records for prospects, account visits, opportunities, follow-ups, account plans, and results.
• Track prospects through the sales process and consistently follow up on open opportunities and customer commitments.
• Report new accounts opened, pipeline status, sales progress, market feedback, competitive intelligence, and challenges to the Regional Sales Manager.
• Track performance against agreed-upon activity and sales goals and adjust territory strategy as needed.
• Participate in sales meetings, training, distributor meetings, events, and other business activities as appropriate.
• Perform other duties as assigned in support of sales growth, market development, and company objectives.

• Minimum 1 year of professional field sales experience preferred, ideally in beverage, energy, alcohol, CPG, or a related industry.
• Demonstrated ability or strong aptitude for prospecting, cold calling, opening new accounts, growing existing accounts, and closing sales.
• A true hunter mentality: competitive, persistent, self-motivated, resilient, and comfortable hearing “no” while continuing to pursue the next opportunity.
• Strong communication, relationship-building, negotiation, presentation, and closing skills.
• Entrepreneurial and self-directed, with the ability to work independently in the field with limited supervision.
• Highly organized and capable of managing a large prospect pipeline, follow-ups, and multiple account opportunities simultaneously.
• Comfortable using CRM systems and sales data to manage activity, prioritize opportunities, and measure results.
• Ability to identify…