Sales Manager

Job Purpose

The Sales Manager will be responsible for retention and growth of key accounts as well as the generation of revenue from new businesses for a greenfield education exhibition and conference. This role will close high-value deals with school groups, education suppliers, EdTech companies, training providers and industry associations at senior management or director level. This role has no direct management responsibility at the outset but will involve mentoring of early career team members, and will carry a widening scope of commercial and operational ownership as the show is built out.

Key Accountabilities

• Managing a portfolio of key accounts with five and six figure contract value effectively
• Cultivate strong relationships with multiple senior stakeholders across the education ecosystem with a consultative approach
• Achieving and exceeding agreed show and personal revenue and profit targets
• Undertaking research to understand the market objectives, aims and ambitions of your client base, including schools, education suppliers, EdTech providers and associations
• To work closely with and within each business to identify its aims, objectives and requirements
• Tailor opportunities available, creating strong partnership propositions across exhibition, sponsorship and conference formats
• To identify new sales opportunities and develop them into long-term relationships
• Coordinate with the content, marketing and operations teams on show-wide planning, timelines and cross-functional deliverables
• Contribute to floor plan and exhibition space planning in coordination with the Event Director, balancing commercial priorities with visitor and exhibitor experience
• Support stakeholder engagement and liaison activity relevant to exhibitor, sponsor and partner relationships, including coordination with government and association contacts as required
• Attend events and liaising with exhibitor and sponsor clients onsite to ensure that their contract is fulfilled and all their concerns and needs are addressed.
• Keep up to date via a wide range of material including various industry publications relevant to the topic areas and audiences of assigned conferences for developments and trends in the industry.
• Provide market intelligence, competitor analysis and client feedback to inform overall show strategy and positioning
• Open to taking on leadership and support of leadership roles on occasion
• Open to mentoring others, including day-to-day guidance and coaching Sales Executives

Job Context

We are looking for an experienced and influential individual with excellent working relationships within the exhibition and events sector, with proven business development skills, ideally with exposure to the education ecosystem or related B2B markets. We expect the new team member to be a proactive hunter, an ambitious individual to help build a greenfield show from the ground up, with attractive rewards for meeting and exceeding targets. Given the early-stage nature of this launch, the role carries broader exposure to commercial planning, partner relationships and operational delivery than a typical sales role, and there is robust opportunity to grow into a broader leadership role over time, were this your next career objective.

Qualifications, Experience, & Skills

Key requirements for the role

• Extensive experience (4 years) in B2B sales.
• Strong knowledge of and familiarity with the dynamics throughout the events sector preferred but not essential
• Experience within the education ecosystem or sector (schools, EdTech, education suppliers, or training providers) is highly preferable but not essential.
• A solid understanding of the event market from both commercial and technical perspectives
• Previous senior responsibility for ambitious sales targets, demonstrating ability to consistently meet and exceed these targets
• Previous experience having trained salespeople and having developed a methodology/material that are instrumental in this process
• Ability and proven experience of working with a wide range of cultures

Personal Attributes

• Customer Focused – put the customer at the heart of everything we do, rapport building, post-sale relationship management, account management
• Harding working - Strong work ethic representing our industry leading brands
• Studious - Desire to learn and embrace best practice within your discipline
• Respectful – demonstrate consistency and reliability in all areas
• Collaborative – display open communication and innovation
• Proactive – take initiative on opportunities and test your ideas
• Efficient – display excellent time management and prioritisation
• Effective – focusing on the right things at the right time to deliver the best results
• Entrepreneurial - agile, adaptable, innovative, proactive
• Professional – accountable, responsible, reliable, consistent, attention to detail, trustworthy
• Disciplined – time management, drive, focus, organised, work ethic, efficiency
• Positive – resilient, adaptable, flexible, energy, passion

Technical abilities

• Sales ability – questioning skills, proposal writing, objection handling, urgency, presentation skills, closing, building value, negotiating
• Pipeline management/forecasting
• Sales planning – lead sourcing, researching, market mapping, positioning
• Business Insight – market/industry, product, customer
• IT Skills – MS Office, CRM systems