Account Director – Strategic Partnerships

Account Director – Strategic Partnerships

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing/Business discipline.
• Minimum 8-10 years direct sales experience working with national/large revenue accounts.
• Proven results and consistency in achieving/exceeding sales targets.
• Experience in intangible, media and internet product sales.
• Ability to take initiative in a business unit and take action on problems or opportunities without being prompted.
• Willingness to commit time and effort to ensure success and results; ability to remain focused on the goal and not easily discouraged or distracted.
• Ability to provide proactive assistance and support through mentoring and coaching.
• Ability to develop technical competencies to stay abreast of new developments and to learn enough about related fields to apply knowledge effectively in the business.
• Ability to educate customers through structured training helping the customer to gain maximum benefit from product offerings.
• Capable of developing comprehensive product knowledge specific to customer needs to be a credible resource.
• Strong closing techniques; using logical, incremental steps; ability to close a sale through continuously describing benefits so that the client can’t say no.
• Ability to immediately engage customers with an enthusiastic and persuasive presentation style.
• Intermediate level computer skills in Microsoft Office and computer tools.

Responsibilities

• Responsible for setting strategies, executing those strategies and achieving revenue growth with new and existing commercial/partnerships with dealer groups.
• Develops sales proposals and presentations designed to meet individual client needs and maximize business potential; negotiates expectations, terms, conditions, and pricing.
• Overall financial management of account revenue and profitability for the assigned client group.
• Develops customer accounts by proactively gathering and reviewing information to identify high-level sales opportunities.
• Focuses on the achievement of customer satisfaction, revenue generation within existing assignments, and long-term account goals in line with AutoTrader’s vision.
• Understands customer’s wants so they can create need and sell on value instead of just product-based selling; demonstrates a continued personal concern for the customer in order to remind the customer of the value of AutoTrader.
• Responsible for the entire sales cycle and all client communications, conflict resolution, and compliance on client deliverables and revenue; ensures that client issues are dealt with in an efficient manner while maintaining excellent customer relations; responds to client’s needs with a sense of urgency.
• Responsible for being the single point of contact throughout the entire sales process; acts as the leader and planner and anticipates any potential risks or obstacles and prepares alternatives so the outcome is not jeopardized; oversees communication with all involved.
• Helps clients to gain maximum benefit from product offerings by committing to continuous education that provides information updates or product training; stays on top of information needed by customers in an effort to serve as a resource.
• Provides proactive assistance and support to both clients and peers; seeks opportunities to share expertise and experience in a mentoring role.
• Maintains strong knowledge of new and existing AutoTrader product offerings as well as new products in the market, industry trends and new developments; understands current competitive conditions within the marketplace; is recognized as an industry leader and subject matter expert.

Preferred Qualifications

No preferred qualifications provided.