Culinary Sales Specialist - Eastern Shore

Overview

To deliver quality service and cultivate community around the table. To deliver quality by taking a team-oriented approach to building relationships, resolving issues, and making it easy to be an IGF customer.

IGF’s Sales Department members work together to approach markets with the objectives of securing strong business relationships and dominating the independent food sector within select areas. Within this, the Culinary Sales Specialists are intellectually curious and understand that quality is the continuous improvement of every aspect of the business. They achieve continuous improvement by holding one another accountable to high performance standards and building rapport with IGF’s customers and vendors to cultivate in-depth knowledge of the products they sell and effective placement strategies.

Culinary Sales Specialist:
Job Description

• Work as a team to manage, expand, and compete for IGF’s share of the food distribution market
• Serve as subject matter experts on how to sell IGF’s products and work together to identify sales opportunities in the marketplace
• Meet and exceed individual and department targets and KPIs
• Develop, manage, and grow IGF’s customer base within designated markets
• Proactively pursue new business: cold-call and regularly follow up on inquiries, leads, and prospects
• Expand existing customer accounts and relationships to:
  • Increase overall sales volume
  • Sell a broad range (high percentage) of products IGF carries
  • Increase IGF’s market share
• Actively manage existing accounts
• Maintain an accurate portfolio of accounts, including customer contact information, targets, and updates
• Stay up to date on customers’ businesses and needs, visit customers in person to check in and introduce new products
• Develop and continuously improve industry and product knowledge

IGF Mission

To deliver quality service and cultivate community around the table.

Sales Department Mission

To deliver quality by taking a team‑oriented approach to building relationships, resolving issues, and making it easy to be an IGF customer.

Sales Department Objectives

IGF’s Sales Department members work together to approach markets with the objectives of securing strong business relationships and dominating the independent food sector within select areas.

Culinary Sales Specialist:
Job Description (continued)

• Work as a team to manage, expand, and compete for IGF’s share of the food distribution market
• Serve as subject matter experts on how to sell IGF’s products and work together to identify sales opportunities in the marketplace
• Meet and exceed individual and department targets and KPIs
• Develop, manage, and grow IGF’s customer base within designated markets
• Proactively pursue new business: cold-call and regularly follow up on inquiries, leads, and prospects
• Expand existing customer accounts and relationships to:
  • Increase overall sales volume
  • Sell a broad range (high percentage) of products IGF carries
  • Increase IGF’s market share
• Actively manage existing accounts
• Maintain an accurate portfolio of accounts, including customer contact information, targets, and updates
• Stay up to date on customers’ businesses and needs; visit customers in person to check in and introduce new products
• Develop and continuously improve industry and product knowledge

Qualifications (Required)

• A minimum of three years of hospitality or food industry experience
• A proven track record of success in the food sales and services industry
• Ability to deal with customers, vendors, and all channels of distribution to assess and analyze situations
• Demonstrated ability to effectively negotiate contracts and terms, and close deals
• Ability to build and maintain relationships across teams, departments, customers, vendors, and service providers
• Ability to work independently or as part of a team – changing gears when required, whether multitasking or adapting working hours; effectively manage time and prioritize multiple responsibilities
• Must be able to travel up to 75% to visit clients within the designated sales region, and 15% for out of market travel
• Proactive, quick-thinking, problem-solving approach to work
• Excellent communication, organization, and data-entry skills with keen…