Business Development Manager, Freight Forwarding

Business Development Manager, Freight Forwarding

Manchester 50,000 to 65,000 base, plus an uncapped quarterly bonus and long term incentive on branch EBIT Genuine route to branch leadership

You have built a book of business. You know exactly what it is worth to your employer, because you can see it in their numbers.

The question is whether they will ever let you run anything.

The organisation

A Manchester freight forwarding branch within an established, privately owned and profitable logistics group that has traded for well over a century. The group operates accredited warehousing, storage and United Kingdom distribution alongside the freight business. The branch has capable operational people, real customs expertise, competitive rates and strong carrier relationships. What it needs is opportunities coming through the door.

The proposition you will be selling

The group came from road freight and haulage, and it shows. A container can travel twelve thousand miles and lose money in the final fifty, and this business understands that better than most forwarders because that final leg is where it started. On time delivery is measured and reviewed every week, and where something runs late the cause is investigated and designed out rather than excused.

Behind the freight sits accredited warehousing and United Kingdom distribution within the same group, so you can sell a genuine end to end solution rather than a rate. For a business developer who is tired of competing on price alone, that is a materially better story to tell.

The role and its remit

This is an individual contributor role first, and it should be understood that way. You will find, approach and win new forwarding customers, and you will own what you bring. Activity and conversion are the measures, and there will be no ambiguity about that.

You will build and work a structured target list of importers and freight decision makers across the region. You will map decision makers within those businesses and work more than one route in, rather than relying on a single relationship. You will grow and retain the accounts you bring on, and you will keep your pipeline and activity properly recorded so that progress is visible.

As the branch grows, so does your remit. You will take on coaching and leadership responsibility as performance and branch size justify it, with a genuine route into leading the branch. That is not a vague promise attached to fill a vacancy. It is the reason this role exists at this level, and it is being advertised alongside a more senior version of the same appointment precisely so that the right person can come in at either level.

The person we are looking for

You are a business developer working in freight forwarding today with a recent and demonstrable record of winning new business. You have a book of business or a strong network you could work from day one, and you know the importers and freight decision makers across the North West. You understand ocean and road freight, with a working knowledge of customs sufficient to hold a credible conversation with an importer.

You have a structured approach to prospecting that you can describe, rather than a list of people you happen to know, and you can talk through how you have found and converted business that was not simply handed to you. Above all you are hungry, and you have the resilience to build from a low base. The pipeline will not be full on your first day and the early months will require persistence.

Track record

Be ready to talk in detail about what you have won recently: how you found it, how long it took, what obstacles you worked around, and what those accounts are worth now. We are more interested in the method and the consistency than in a single large win. Evidence that you have grown accounts as well as opened them matters too, because that is where forwarding margin is protected.

Personality and fit

This is a business that decides quickly and expects people to get on with things. The owner is accessible and involved, and the culture is built on service, straight dealing and doing what was promised. You will operate with limited day to day supervision and will need…