Sara Lee

About Sara Lee Frozen Bakery

Sara Lee desserts have always stood for incredible flavor and superior value in the frozen food aisle and away from home markets. The Sara Lee Frozen Bakery collection of top brands includes Sara Lee®, Chef Pierre®, Van’s®, Bistro Collection®, Superior on Main® and Cyrus O’Leary’s®.

Sara Lee Frozen Bakery is proud to take these iconic brands into a new era and to continue the evolution that transformed one small Chicago bakery into an American institution. Using carefully sourced ingredients and time-honored recipes, the company is committed to making life’s moments a little sweeter, putting its customers first and discovering new ways to make everyone’s favorite foods even better.

Working for Sara Lee

Our vision is to be the world’s most beloved bakery by creating irresistible foods, growing with our customers, and delivering value for all. We will achieve success through collaboration and innovation in an environment where employees feel empowered to execute with speed. We believe that each of us has unique points of difference and experience to offer. We believe that there is always a better way, and we will never be satisfied with status quo. If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, continually seek process improvements and a strong sense of customer service, then this is the right type of environment for you.

Summary

The National Account Manager - Foodservice is accountable for managing the pre-established national account customers, maintaining and growing existing business as well as generating new accounts. As a highly successful sales driver and leader, they will build strong partnerships and personally manage key accounts for long-term growth. The National Account Manager - Foodservice interacts with Business Management category teams with financial and volume responsibility to maintain and grow the Sara Lee Frozen Bakery base business within the assigned customers. The National Account Manager - Foodservice controls all elements of the sales process within assigned customers from prospecting, sales presentations, forecasting, customer business reviews to evaluations. The position also works with customers to develop new concepts and ideas for driving incremental volume within the account. Interaction with all levels of National Account customer organization including but not limited to executive, purchasing, R&D, logistics and financial personnel is expected.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Effectively deliver targeted sales and profit increases in assigned markets & clients.
• Identify, exploit, and forecast new business opportunities consistently filling your sales pipeline.
• Utilize CRM to optimize account management and communication.
• Create and deliver compelling programs and presentations that differentiate from the competition.
• Provide weekly, monthly, and quarterly progress reports for clients and markets.
• Manages and develops assigned customer business as well as new customer opportunities
• Actively engages with assigned customers to drive incremental sales
• Collaborate with customers and perform business reviews as needed.
• Engage with Research and Development to drive menu ideation and new product/project initiatives.
• Acts as a technical representative to the customer, providing training and creating sales presentations, providing solutions to business issues facing the customer.
• Leads the coordination of multiple resources to successfully close sales on new accounts.
• Develops account sales plan and sets strategy for assigned accounts.
• Responsible for forecasting the sales volume within assigned accounts.
• Fiscal accountability to work within an assigned budget.

The position responsibilities outlined above are not to be construed as all encompassing. Other duties and responsibilities may be required and/or assigned as necessary.

Knowledge and Skill Requirements

• BA/BS degree required
• 5 + years progressive National or Regional Account Foodservice sales experience
• Demonstrated sales planning, forecasting and sales execution experience.
• Demonstrated strong sales analytical, organizational, and planning abilities, which include sales, trade and marketing concepts and methods in the sales environment.
• Proven ability to build and maintain strong, effective relationships with customers and functional groups.
• Strong aptitude to effectively interpret and use multiple information sources to develop customer-specific tactical plans and options.
• Experience in trade spending management.
• Excellent verbal and written communication, presentation, decision-making and negotiation skills
• Strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
• The ability to work through complex, unstructured problems.

Sara Lee Frozen Bakery provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.