The successful candidate will be responsible for cultivating relationships with new local/regional advertisers to meet and exceed sales goals. They will actively generate new leads and conduct research to identify and qualify the best advertising prospects. They will provide excellent customer service to advertisers and establish and build effective relationships on the client and agency side.
In addition, they will schedule appointments, determine prospect’s needs and challenges, make initial presentations, determine the best solutions, prepare proposals and contracts, and close sales. They will plan and organize their personal sales strategy by maximizing the return on time investment for the territory/segment.
The candidate will maintain pipeline reports for ongoing updates on sales status and supply management with oral and written reports on customer needs, problems, interests, competitive activities, and potential for new services. They will maintain an activity level and closing ratio adequate to meet or exceed sales goals. Furthermore, they will expand sales by cross-selling new products that fit the client's needs.
The candidate will deliver good customer service by responding swiftly to queries and concerns from clients. They will network within the industry and professional organizations, trade shows, and other events. Finally, the candidate will update job knowledge by participating in training and educational opportunities.
Required Skills/Qualifications
The successful candidate should have a degree in sales and marketing or a business-related field. They should have at least 2+ years of experience in print and online advertising sales. Media sales experience will be an added advantage for media sales agents. The candidate should have a solid background in print and online advertising sales with a demonstrated track record of exceeding sales goals.
They should possess good knowledge of the media landscape in Kenya and a strong work ethic and customer service-oriented approach to doing business. The ideal candidate should be a strong closer/negotiator who can assess new accounts and reach decision-makers at all levels.
The candidate should have the ability to overcome economic, market, and competitive factors affecting print and online advertising sales goals. They should also have excellent sales presentation and writing creative sales proposals.
Moreover, the ideal candidate should possess strong skills in excellent interpersonal communication, planning and organizational skills, persistence and persuasive ability, confident and outgoing, sales closing ability, self-motivated with a disciplined approach to work, commitment to ongoing learning on the market trends and territory management and meeting sales goals. They should have a customer and business-focused attitude, ability to multitask and get things done to completion, be well-groomed and articulate, and have excellent computer skills – MS Office, etc.
Finally, the candidate must be able to work under minimal supervision and be well-versed in current trends in social media marketing.