Business Development Executive

Business Development Executive

Location: Swindon

Salary: GBP22,000 + 10,000 OTB/ annum

Hours: 37.5/week Monday to Friday

Role purpose:

The Business Development Executive (BDE) will work within the sales team to position the benefits of the company professional development solutions focused on our apprenticeship offering, with a key focus on training providers and business employers.

Activity spans two key areas:

1. Existing client accounts

Generate sales from a defined list of the company approved provider accounts, including helping newly acquired accounts establish themselves as active apprenticeship providers, annual license renewals, upselling and cross-selling of company products. The growth of the existing customer base forms a key part of the objectives for channel.

(b) New business

Developing new business opportunities, responding to leads and generating revenue through onboarding new approved providers and selling company products.

Key responsibilities:

* Prove proactive in approach to identifying new business opportunities, production of leads and establishing new relationships by researching, adding and developing new clients;

* Qualify sales leads in line with target customer criteria, principally by telephone, email and social media;

* Confidently prospect via telephone and social media;

* Collate accurate information on prospective clients on to the CRM system to enable future follow up;

* Plan own activity to ensure all opportunities are explored and followed up;

* Follow up specific marketing campaigns, and any inbound leads identified, in a timely manner

* Establish prospective customers' products needs and explore how these can be met;

* Use persuasion skills to engage prospects' further interest and establish the need for developing a product solution and proposal, including the benefit of a wider proposition than maybe initially obvious;

* Identify past prospects for follow up calls and meetings. Re-establish contact to sustain interest in company products/services

* Develop existing relationships with clients within an allocated list of approved providers;

* Plan own calls to ensure all approved providers are contacted in line with the frequency shown in the contact plan agreed with the Director;

* Plan business development activities and customer contacts to meet agreed targets for revenue, lead generation and new business meetings

* Work with the Key Account Managers (KAMs) to support them in achieving their goals of cross selling a wider portfolio of products and services into the accounts

* Log all calls, meetings, contacts and e-mail activity into the CRM system;

* Actively manage the client database to ensure information is accurate and kept up to date to enable accurate reporting, forecasting and targeted marketing activity to build on and generate new business

* Completing contract templates to form the basis of the contract for new accredited providers

* Send out company literature to potential clients as necessary

* Adhere to Data Protection regulation

* Meet KPI targets

Education and qualifications

5x GCSEs or equivalent, including English and Maths, at grade C or above

Experience

• Proven experience of selling business-to-business products/services/solutions to the apprenticeship, education or training sector;

• Proven experience in developing business, generating revenue and securing appointments for field sales colleagues;

• Demonstrable experience of successfully establishing contacts and developing relationships at management and director level in education/training or corporate organisations

Competencies and skills

* Excellent listening, written and oral communication skills. A professional telephone manner with a consultative approach;

• Articulate and confident: able to communicate effectively with customers by phone, e-mail and social media to influence them to buy;

• Ability to research sectors to develop business opportunities that lead to revenue opportunities;

• Effective at identifying prospective clients' requirements and able to match these to company products;

• Ability to quickly build trust and rapport with customers and enhance company's reputation in the market place;

• Able to organise, plan and prioritise own workload in order to meet deadlines;

• Influencing, negotiation and persuasion skills;

• Able to learn new products, services and solutions;

• Enthusiastic, self-motivated, determined and target driven;

• Persistent and committed to achieving and exceeding sales performance targets;

• Ability to work independently and as part of a team;

• Ability to identify improvements within the department

Knowledge

• Knowledge of apprenticeship, IT and training market would be advantageous

• Knowledge of data protection legislation, specifically GDPR would be advantageous

• Knowledge of social media networking platforms

The C&D Group are acting as an employment agency in regard to this role