Sales Specialist

Job Description :

Market Coverage:

This role supports the Distributor Manager (DM, Greater LA) in the territories of Allied Distributing and High Desert Distributing, the northern business units of Reyes Beer Division West – SoCal division. Between the two business units there are six warehouses covering north Los Angeles County, Ventura County, Santa Barbara County, San Luis Obispo County and Kern County, with addition central business functions based out of Orange County that coordinate sales, marketing, and operations. Between them these houses sold close to 500,000 cases in fiscal year 2024 with about 70% of the business falling under the Smirnoff FMB family of brands.

Job Posting:

The role will be based in north LA/Ventura County, but will have critical interactions across the branches of Allied & High Desert, as advised by the DM. The Sales Specialist will own critical relationships with our wholesale partners at the Rep and Supervisor levels across the on (bars, restaurants) and off (grocery, liquor and convenience) premise with the objective of driving efficient presence and performance at retail.

Management Responsibilities:

This role is a critical catalyst of performance and growth across key markets in Southern California. The Sales Specialist will drive the creation & improvement of relationships with sales teams and managers at Allied and High Desert branches to deeply understand market conditions at retail and to improve the performance of DBC brands with retail customers, primarily at account (store/bar) level. While the role does not have direct P&L accountability, the Specialist will have an excellent understanding of the P&L and will be experienced at selling, influencing, and implementing with both distributor and retail partners to hit DBC performance targets on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis.

The key aspects of the role include:

• Maintaining & growing share of mind with distributors & retailers through face-to-face contact and relationship building
• Presenting to distributors & retailers
• Observing the market, on & off premise, for trends, competitor activity and execution of distribution, retail & promotional programs
• Supporting the Distributor Manager to deliver the AOP and business objectives.

Travel:

The Sales Specialist is expected to be in the trade 4 days a week with most travel being with in a 1–2-hour drive with sporadic overnight stays for team meetings, incentive trips, or distributor meetings in the far north part of the territory.

Breakdown of activities:

This role is split roughly 90-10 between external and internal facing activities.

External

• Day to day relationship management at the supervisor and rep level
• Assisting with quarterly performance meetings to whole seller management.
• Working with wholesaler teams to build display and shelf presence
• Driving quality programs
• Growing & maintaining distribution
• Assisting with launching new products to whole seller teams
• Implementing retail promotional programs
• Advising wholesalers & retailers about consumer marketing programs
• Helping implement local brand marketing, including sampling, sponsorships and product quality initiatives
• Communicating product, logistics & marketing programs to distributors & retailers
• Owning direct relationship at about 100 top volume retail customers comprised of both on and off premise accounts with the goal of out executing vs rest of market.

The above will be achieved through telephone & email communication, face-to-face presentations, working with distributor staff and time in market meeting retail customers & selling in key programs and products.

Internal

• Frequent contact with team peers to report on market intelligence, progress against results and proposals for market execution
• Market reporting
• Budget management
• Market visits of key partners

The above will be achieved through telephone & email communication and sporadic off-site meetings (1-2 per half).

Team Structure:

This role reports into the Distributor Manager, Greater LA. The role has close links with our chains team, working closely with the Key Account Manager SoCal.

Qualifications & Experience

• Undergrad degree highly desirable.
• Ideally, 2+ years of market development and selling experience, probably in a CPG environment.
• Alcohol, especially beer, experience preferred.

The successful candidate will be a hardworking and bold sales professional with aspirations to develop a successful career of growth at Diageo. They will have an established base of professional experience that will enable them easily to build constructive relationships internally & externally in the beer industry with a clear vision of growing brand performance in the market. A DBC Sales Specialist will be equally comfortable selling/communicating/influencing in the retail environment, addressing small or medium sized audiences at wholesaler warehouses or working with data and insights to build compelling sales stories.

The best candidates will understand the CPG business environment from a P&L perspective, and will have a deep understanding of how they can drive performance across the P&L through strategic relationship management and specific retail execution activities. They will also be able to handle budgets and understand how to use their budgets choicefully to get results compliantly. Location: The territory covered by this role is north Los Angeles County, Ventura County, Santa Barbara County, San Luis Obispo County and Kern County. The preferred location would be north LA or Ventura County, though other locations in territory will be considered.

Worker Type :

Regular

Primary Location:

Off Site California

Additional Locations :

Job Posting Start Date :

Salary Range:

Minimum Salary:

$62100

Maximum Salary:

$103500

At Diageo certain roles are eligible for additional rewards, including annual incentive payment and stock awards. US-based employees are eligible for healthcare benefits, retirement benefits , short-term and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, wellness benefits and industry leading parental leave, among others.(Benefits/perkslisted may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Diageo and the country where you work.) The salary range displayed is the salary range for the role's primary location.

With over 200 brands sold in more than 180 countries, we're the world's leading premium drinks company. Every day, over 30,000 talented people come together at Diageo to create the magic behind our much-loved brands. From iconic names to innovative newcomers – the brands we're building are rooted in culture and local communities. Our ambition is to be one of the best performing, most trusted and most respected consumer products companies in the world.

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