Senior Sales Manager, Retail

Description

Job Overview

The Senior Sales Manager, Retail is a senior commercial leader responsible for profitable growth, customer development, and sales execution across multiple geographies, key accounts, regional and independent retailers. Reporting to the Director of Retail & Wholesale Sales & Business Development, this role leads inside and outside sales team members while maintaining direct ownership of strategic customers, market development, pricing, merchandising, and new business opportunities.

Key Responsibilities

Lead, coach, develop, and hold accountable inside and outside sales professionals across multiple markets and territories.
Own performance against revenue, gross margin, case growth, retention, new business, and account penetration targets.
Develop market and territory strategies, identify white-space opportunities, and recommend sales coverage and resource priorities.
Maintain direct involvement with strategic retail accounts, building relationships with owners, buyers, category managers, store leadership, and senior executives.
Create customer growth plans focused on additional locations, categories, SKUs, promotional activity, and share of wallet.
Drive growth across independent retailers, regional chains, specialty markets, and other priority retail channels.
Lead pricing and margin execution, identifying margin leakage, excessive credits, unfavorable terms, and cost-to-serve opportunities.
Partner with merchandising, procurement, and marketing to translate Baldor's assortment into customer-specific seasonal, promotional, and category-growth programs.
Maintain a disciplined new-business pipeline and personally participate in high-value prospecting, presentations, RFPs, and strategic opportunities.
Establish a consistent operating cadence including sales reviews, pipeline reviews, account planning, field coaching, and performance management.
Partner cross-functionally with Operations, Procurement, Merchandising, Finance, Marketing, and Sales Operations to improve customer execution and profitability.
Serve as a senior escalation point for customer and team issues, driving timely resolution and clear accountability.

Leadership Expectations

Operate as a business owner with accountability for both growth and profitability.
Balance strategic thinking with hands-on field and customer execution.
Use data and commercial judgment to make timely decisions and identify opportunities.
Build a high-performance culture through clear expectations, coaching, communication, and accountability.
Develop future sales leaders and strengthen bench depth across the Retail organization.
Act as a trusted extension of the Director, independently leading day-to-day sales execution while escalating appropriately.

Key Performance Indicators

Revenue and year-over-year growth • Gross margin • Case growth • Same-customer growth
New-business revenue and pipeline conversion • Customer retention • Key-account expansion
Category and SKU penetration • Pricing discipline • Credits and account profitability
Territory performance • Sales-team productivity • Talent development and retention

Job Requirements

8+ years of progressive sales, business development, account management, or commercial leadership experience; food distribution, produce, grocery, retail, CPG, or perishable categories preferred.
3+ years of direct people-management experience with demonstrated success leading inside and/or outside sales teams.
Experience managing multiple territories, geographies, and complex key accounts.
Proven ability to deliver revenue, margin, customer-retention, and new-business objectives.
Strong understanding of pricing, profitability, customer economics, negotiation, and account planning.
Strong executive communication, presentation, coaching, and cross-functional leadership skills.