The role is responsible for overseeing the overall sales and distribution strategy for the company from planning, execution and periodic review and delivery of the sales budget. The job holder is responsible for coordinating all the distribution channels including, brokers, agents, branches, banks and direct clients to ensure alignment with corporate strategy and growing the business profitably.
Key responsibilities
1. Oversee the development, implementation and periodic review of the company sales strategic plan.
2. Guide the sales team to ensure the company grows and defends its market share.
3. Overall responsibility for directing, guiding, managing and supporting the sales team to ensure the team achieves agreed sales targets.
4. Overall responsibility for determining manpower requirements, recruitment, training, performance evaluations and career development for the sales team to ensure the company attracts, motivates and retains high performing sales staff.
5. Oversee monitoring of customer preferences to determine the focus of sales efforts and segmentation of the market to offer tailor-made products and services.
6. Liaise with operations team to manage the quality of business, retention of existing business, collection of premiums from brokers/agents, productivity and overall sales performance of each distribution channel.
7. Oversee gathering of market intelligence statistics to facilitate the development of strategies to give the company a competitive advantage in it product offering.
8. Ensure good relationship with brokers, agents and corporate clients through excellent customer service, handling customer complaints and organizing meetings with current and prospective customers.
9. Participate in new product design and launch to ensure client needs are addressed.
10. Manage sales costs to ensure profitability.
11. Perform any other duties as may be assigned from time to time
Key Performance Measures
• The success rate in engineering and fire
• Number of intermediaries with profit based incentive schemes
• Percentage growth in revenue from selected top intermediaries
• Number of new productive intermediaries
• Retention ratio per channel
• Employee net promoter score
• Percentage of key talent retention
• Percentage of intermediaries trained on product lines and cross-selling techniques.
• Percentage completion of client segmentation
Working Relationships
Internal Relationships:
The Country Sales Manager will be accountable:
• Accountable to the Chief Executive Officer
• Responsible for the following.
o Sales Manager-Broking
o Sales Manager-Agents
o Sales Manager-Bancassurance
o Sales Manager-Direct & DSR
o Branch Managers
• Required to liaise and work closely with the other staff members across the business.
External Relationships:
• Britam customers
• Insurance sector players
Knowledge, experience, and qualifications required
1. Bachelor degree (marketing option preferred). MBA is an added advantage.
2. Professional qualification in Insurance (ACII or equivalent qualification).
3. 7 years successful sales management experience 3 of which must be in a management position (financial sector preferred).
4. Proven experience as a Sales Manager within a Financial Services Industry (Banking and Finance/ Insurance).
5. Extensive experience in ensuring sales targets are met through managing the entire sales process from prospecting to closure.
6. A demonstrated track record in sales to enhance the overall top-line performance of a company.
Essential Competencies
1. Deciding and Initiating Action: Ensures, key organisational objectives are met, takes responsibility for decisions, actions, projects and people while focussing on achievement of strategic results; takes initiative and works under own direction; initiates and generates activity; makes quick, clear decisions with limited information available which may include tough choices or considered risks; decisions and actions take into account possible impact on all parts of the business.
2. Leading and Supervising: Provides the business with a clear direction based on the overall strategic intent of the organization; motivates and empowers others with a clear sense of purpose; creates a positive organizational climate that fosters learning and development; acknowledge high potential talent; sets and articulates the vision and values through own personal behaviour.
3. Relating and Networking: Easily establishes, as well as assists others in building good relationships with customers and staff across all departments, inside and outside of the organisation; relates well to people at all levels; facilitates the resolutions of conflict and manages disagreements with tact and diplomacy.
4. Persuading and Influencing: Gains clear agreement and commitment from others by persuading, convincing and negotiating to the benefit of the organisation, promote the organisational strategy during conversations; makes effective use of political processes to influence and persuade others; promotes ideas on behalf of oneself, the department or the organisation; makes a strong personal impact on others; takes care to manage the organisation’s impression and brand on others.
5. Formulating Strategies and Concepts: Works strategically to realise organisational goals; sets and develops organisational strategies; identifies, develops positive and compelling visions of the organisation’s future potential; takes account of a wide range of issues across, and related to, the organisation; encourage others to take a strategic and long term view in terms of the organisation’s future; communicates the organisational strategy, vision and objectives effectively across all levels of the organisation.