Market Specialist at Baldor Specialty Foods – Beer & Wine 685 views0 applications

Position Summary:

Market Specialists are product category captains that work hand-in-hand with internal and external teams. Market Specialists work cross functionally throughout the organization. This includes working with our buyers, operations personnel, and vendors to come up operational, buying, and merchandising plans. The Beer and Wine specialist will lead the effort in launching this new category at Baldor. After creating a go-to-market plan, the specialist will then work with our internal teams to deliver a best-in-class suite of beer and wine products with best-in-class service. Additionally, the Market Specialist will be responsible for creating, maintaining, coordinating, and communicating their merchandising calendars. Aspects of the calendar include monthly partner and item highlights, sales team demonstrations, new item launches, point of sale needs, social media suggestions, events, and much more. This role is both strategic and hands on sales, operations, and customer experience driven.

This role will require working cross functionally on projects to continuously improve company performance. This role requires a pro-active, flexible professional who learns new roles quickly and has experience troubleshooting and improving processes. We are looking for a self-starter with the ability to be flexible in an often ambiguous environment.

Essential Functions:

• Establish and maintain all Beer and Wine standards regarding product mix, quality, merchandising, customer service, skill building, etc.
• Create, maintain, coordinate, and communicate the Marketing/Merchandising calendar throughout the organization
• Maintain company category hierarchy and perform category management tasks to optimize product lines and reduce redundancies in categories
• Present quarterly category reviews that dive into category performance metrics which will enable a strong level of SKU rationalization throughout the organization
• Make category improvement suggestions including possible new items, brands, or suppliers while suggesting possible areas of SKU reduction
• Maintain and improve category naming conventions, pack size consistency, alternative items, source specificity transparency, and all information fields that will improve the customer experience
• Partner with Business Intelligence team to perform competitive pricing analysis and ensure pricing is on par with Baldor standards. Assist in maintaining category pricing strategy and execution to ensure targets are met
• Develop training materials and work with internal sales and customer experience teams to improve product knowledge including maintenance of point of sale information
• Lead designated sales and purchasing meetings while educating internal teams of relevant material
• Liaison with customer experience team and interface directly with customers at certain designated times
• Provide buyers with relevant forecasts for items that could be impacted by marketing activities or new business
• Assist in evaluating and on-boarding vendors and products

•  Research, improve, and communicate daily back order/shorts in the category by working cross functionally with procurement and operations teams
•  Serve as a support entity or analyst to appropriate members on the procurement team
• Provide expertise and sales support during customer visits
• Facilitate demos and customer trainings
• Work in conjunction with marketing department on various social media projects and events
• Develop internal processes to continuously improve Beer and Wine segment efficiencies
• Maintain warehouse slotting and picking process

Requirements:

1.  Passion and knowledge of beer, wine, and food!  
2.  Strong selling and up-selling skills, self-starter go-getter attitude, and eagerness to build a book of business
3.  Unrivaled communication, negotiation, and presentation skills
4.  Never-ending “get-it-done” mindset
5. 3+ years experience in alcohol sales distribution

Baldor Specialty Foods is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and does not discriminate on the basis of Sex, Race, Religion, Age (40 and over), Handicap or National Origin. We consider applicants for all positions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, creed, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship status or any other legally protected status.