Jobs at Apollo Agriculture

About The Role

Apollo is seeking a Field Sales Manager based in, or willing to relocate to the rural area of their assigned wards, to own the management and support of field agents. This role will be responsible for sales performance management, and training and development of agents in the assigned wards, with the aim of ensuring agents hit their individual targets, therefore supporting the company to hit our overall commercial goals. This role will work closely with the agent team both in classroom settings and in active field settings to identify any agent challenges, spot opportunities for growth and ensure the agents consistently excel in their roles.

Responsibilities

• Sales ownership. Own the achievement of our target number of farmers we need in the assigned wards and drive growth with this as the main metric
• Agent performance management. Evaluating agent cohort output to determine agent performance health, ensuring targets are met around metrics like number of active agents, agent productivity etc. Identifying different sales performance levels in the team and implementing different measures to support them to succeed e.g. rewarding and recognizing high performance, providing one-on-one coaching etc.,
• Sales activations. Identify and execute high impact sales activations that will drive sales performance e.g. van roadshows, market activations, farmer group activations etc
• Sales budget. Own and manage the sales budget for the assigned wards to ensure adherence to budgets, cost effectiveness and optimized utilization.
• Agent Training. Training new agents, and providing continuous training to the team through bi-weekly meetings. This will also include providing and managing tools of trade such as company-issued phones, marketing collateral etc. Ensure strong communication to and from agents.
• Insights collection and dissemination. Share bi-weekly reports to identify key insights from time spent with customers and agents to share and implement with the wider team e.g. best practices leveraged by high performing agents, feedback from customers on their Apollo experience etc.

Requirements

• Have 2+ years experience in sales and marketing in the rural environment, ideally with a focus on supporting and facilitating sales teams to succeed
• Excellent communicator with well developed interpersonal skills to relate with, guide and motivate field agents, and deliver continuous training throughout the duration of seasons
• Have an understanding of field agent sales performance metrics and how to influence their outcome by working directly with agents to encourage or correct Sales approaches
• Have the drive to understand and build relationships with customers in your region, collecting insights and feedback that will drive sales strategy and agent training
• Highly organized with strong execution, prioritization and collaboration skills
• Have a working knowledge of platforms needed to deliver on responsibilities - Google Drive, Google Sheets/Excel, Google Slides/PowerPoint etc.,
• A diploma or graduate in business related disciplines would be ideal, but not required

go to method of application »

About The Role
Apollo is seeking Regional Sales Managers. This role will be responsible for ensuring commercial targets are met in our regions of operation, by building and managing a high performing sales and sales support team. The successful candidate will be comfortable leveraging analytics and quantitative insights to inform strategy, manage team performance and build strong processes and systems to support scale. The Regional Sales Manager will be Apollo’s expert on farmers and agents in their region and will thus need to be a resident of those areas, with occasional travel to Nairobi.

Responsibilities

• Commercial leadership. Develop and own sales strategy for the assigned area,with the guidance of the Head of Sales, being responsible for the achievement of targets and KPIs. Foster a deep understanding of our customers, to support formulating region-specific sales strategies to ensure achievement of targets.
• Agent network management. Work with the Agent Recruitment team to attract and evaluate strong candidates. Ensure high quality training and continuous development to the agent network, with the aim of maintaining strong sales performance.
• Team resourcing. Recruit, train and provide performance management for the Field Sales team supporting agent activities. Build, manage and motivate a regional team that supports Apollo’s growth goals, maintaining excellent performance at every level.
• Sales budget. Own and manage the sales budget for the assigned wards to ensure adherence to budgets, cost effectiveness and optimized utilisation.
• System and process optimization. Combine quantitative and qualitative insights to design processes and systems that will support scale across recruitment, training and performance management of our agent network. Implement and maintain these systems and process to a high standard of quality across every step, to support delivery on sales targets and agent productivity
• Insights generation. Develop a deep understanding of farmers in your region, to be able to continuously generate insights, identify gaps and opportunities, recommend product changes, and inform regional strategy.

Requirements:

• A seasoned sales professional with at least 6 years of sales experience in a fast-paced environment, preferably with a Field Sales context e.g. FMCG, peri-urban or rural settings, financial inclusion initiatives etc
• A strong leader with at least 3 years of team management experience in an environment that requires strategic and analytical thinking
• Conversant with sales analytics, including intermediate Excel skills, familiarity with sales dashboards etc.
• Deeply familiar with your preferred region of operation, able to leverage your knowledge to craft both sales strategy, and recruitment of strong local talent to the regional team
• A graduate in business related disciplines would be ideal, but not required