Account Manager for the Big 4 – Research Consultancy
London – £35,000 – £40,000 basic
Company
An industry-leading provider of research, data, and strategic advice about the global professional services industry, is seeking an Account Manager to join the sales and marketing team. The team is made up of around 40 bright and hard-working individuals, many of whom started their careers in large consulting firms before joining to continue doing challenging analytical and strategic work, for consulting firms themselves, in a more diverse and flexible environment.
Role
Working alongside the rest of the sales and marketing team and the product managers, your main responsibility is to manage a portfolio of accounts selling the full suite of products and services. You need to light up a room. Even if that room is full of supply-chain consultants in grey suits, you will need to be confident enough to strike up conversations with potential and existing customers and committed enough to build long-lasting relationships with them. You need to have a friendly but professional manner and thrive off the thrill of the chase. Internally, you need to be a flexible team player, always mindful of the interdependencies between parts of our business and the need to cooperate with colleagues to achieve our shared goals. You need to be commercially minded, able to spot opportunities-be it in an email, over the phone, or in a face-to-face meeting. You’ll know when to take things forward and convert an opportunity into a sale.
Responsibilities will include
- Manage a portfolio of key accounts, some may be ones where we already have a strong relationship, others may be less well developed, needing to be developed and others that may not yet be established
- Develop and execute a strategy for your accounts, with support from your line manager where needed
- Engage with clients and key stakeholders within your accounts to talk about products and services, drawing on relevant content where applicable, which means you’ll need to familiarise yourself with our research
- Promote the distribution of our research within your accounts
- Set up and attend relevant meetings as the only business development person
- Be up to date with the activity on your accounts with regards to their news and challenges, and have appropriate conversations
- Draft agreements, proposals, and any other sales-related paperwork
- Attend events where relevant
- Input into sales meetings
- Update systems as needed, e.g. SalesForce, Slack
- Report on sales achievements and monitor progress
Your experience
- Two or three years working in a business development or sales role, preferably in a B2B environment. You have experience managing accounts and/or breaking into new ones
- Experience reporting on account progress and drawing on the relevant data
- Experience using a CRM system is a requirement, experience using SalesForce is a plus
- Ability to write well structured, professional, and commercially minded communications
- Ability to appropriately adapt your communication to your audience
