Sales Director

Job Title: Sales Director

Location: Must be willing to relocate to Knoxville, TN

Travel: 20% (International and Domestic)

Compensation: $150,000-185,000 base

Summary:

• Reports directly to the VP Sales and Marketing to identify and capture new business for a high-volume automotive supplier of highly engineered products. Lead the company's sales effort to tier 1 and automotive OEMs customers in North America.
• Participate in formulating and implementing marketing and sales strategy.
• Works with all functions to conduct cost/pricing analysis for proposals for existing and new business targets.
• Collect information regarding customer current and future product requirements and as well as competitor products.
• Manage commercial status including contracts, agreements, and forecasts for existing programs.
• Significant daily communication with key customer contacts. This will include frequent travel to customer locations and support of customer visits.
• Minimal direct supervisory responsibility.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Solicit quote requests from customer for new business.

Prepare commercial proposals including cost and price analysis to win new business and/or for changes to existing awarded business; solicit participation of multiple functions (engineering, operations, purchasing, finance, quality) in the process.

Regular reports of new business activities.

Continuous maintenance of customer commercial documents, forecasts, status.

Prepare market analysis of customer needs/behavior, competitors, and trends.

Preparation of sales presentations and literature.

Maintains regular customer contact, including face to face visits to support sales activity.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

BS Degree in Marketing, Science or Engineering.

Experience:

• Eight (8) years of experience in engineering or sales working for supplier of high-volume products to automotive OEM customers OR Five (5) years of experience working directly at automotive OEM in purchasing or engineering.
• Ideal candidate will have experience in the automotive safety restraints industry.
• Strong English verbal and written communication/interpersonal skills. Additional language skills such as Chinese, Korean, Japanese, or German is desirable but not required.
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Excel and ability to use/learn other software and online applications.

*Any equivalent combination of relevant experience and training which provides the required knowledge, skills and abilities may be substituted.