About this role
Job Title: Area Business Manager
Location: Lambatta, Niger
About the role
The Area Business Manager will coordinate sales, collections and distribution operations in the area they are assigned for the direct distribution of Sun King Solar products sold on Pay-As-You-Basis (also called and recognized as EasyBuy) through a network of agents called Energy Officers. The Area Business Manager is ultimately accountable for generating sales, ensuring collections are timely and accurate, and keeping the Direct Distribution growing rapidly in a sustainable manner.
What you would be expected to do
Hire and retain Energy Officers by hiring, training and maintaining a team of at least 40 Sun King Energy Officers in the area. Use multiple avenues for finding the right talent to sell Sun King EasyBuy products with the help of village influencers such as village heads, teachers, religious heads, doctors, farmers and others, as applicable. Create a reputation and goodwill for the mission of Sun King to provide clean, affordable and reliable source of energy in their areas.
Training of Energy Officers by providing training on sales, collections, product, technical, inventory and logistics related aspects. Ensure they are fully supervised in the best professional manner, demonstrating highest levels of integrity, ethics and professionalism while dealing with customers.
Provide role clarity to Energy Officers by giving complete clarity related to day-to-day tasks, sales and collections plans, routes and targets. Ensure Energy Officers have a sales route/area to sell in, know how to demonstrate and sell Sun King products, have the confidence to present and resolve basic customer queries on the spot, and have access to the Area Business Manager at all times in case of questions and concerns.
Daily field visits with a weekly touchpoint with every Energy Officer in the area, either through in-person meetings, making a sale to a customer in the area or a call. Resolve all possible issues faced by the Energy Officers and report them to the Regional Business Manager every week. Ensure that the first five sales of each Energy Officer are done along with the Area Business Manager in the area, by each Energy Officer to ensure that the core sales and collection process is fully understood.
Work with Energy Officers by conducting joint field work to provide sales and collection training on a weekly basis and drive EO engagement. This includes night activations, market activations, visiting local communities and gatherings such as SACCOs, Self Help groups, retail centers and markets to make group sales.
Exceed sales and collection targets by meeting or exceeding targets established on the 2nd of every month by the Regional Business Manager. Provide daily and weekly updates on sales, EO recruitments, customer issues and resolutions in alignment with the Regional Business Manager.
Drive robust field sales processes by reviewing collection progress with Energy Officers daily and providing adequate training to drive better collections. This includes customer and area profiling, ensuring regular and timely collection follow-ups, resolving customer issues to ensure they make payments and repossessing the systems as a last recourse in case of defaults.
Remain externally focused by monitoring companies selling similar products in the area and taking measures to protect and grow the business from pressures. Pre-inform management and take measures to ensure Sun King remains a paramount brand name in solar products for the area.
Resolve customer issues by providing world-class customer service related to product delivery, training on how to use and make payments, installation, and after-sales warranty issues. Work with Energy Officers to establish clear expectations and processes to resolve all customer issues within 24 hours.
Control marketing and other spend by providing adequate marketing materials and equipment (such as smartphones) to Energy Officers. Ensure maximum return on investment for all costs in areas of marketing, supply chain, store maintenance and smartphone issuance.
Review meetings with Energy Officers by conducting weekly table meetings and ensuring Regional Business Manager presence to resolve outstanding customer or Energy Officer issues. Coordinate, plan and organize meetings to maximize attendance and progress. Recognize outstanding performers to maintain motivation of Energy Officers.
Grow retail presence by ensuring the retail network in the area grows with the help of Cluster leaders hired under the Area Manager.
You might be a strong candidate if you have a degree in a business-related field or equivalent and at least 3 years of hands-on sales experience. You should have excellent computer knowledge with comprehensive knowledge of Excel and PowerPoint, extensive customer care experience, be innovative, able to think out of the box, skilled in planning, organizing, prioritizing, maximizing value and seeing the big picture, able to build relationships and work on internal and external relationships, listen well, coach others and be disciplined in learning practice, have operation excellence (keeps promises, stays informed and provides excellent customer satisfaction) and have knowledge of the territory.
What Sun King Offers
Professional growth in a dynamic, rapidly expanding, high-social-impact industry. An open-minded, collaborative culture made up of enthusiastic colleagues who are driven by the challenge of innovation toward profound impact on people and the planet. A truly multicultural experience: you will have the chance to work with and learn from people from different geographies, nationalities, and backgrounds. Structured, tailored learning and development programs that help you become a better leader, manager, and professional through the Sun Center for Leadership.
Application Closing Date
Not Specified.