Area Business Manager, Fort Portal

Department: EasyBuy Direct Sales

Employment Type: Fixed Term - Full Time

Location: Uganda

Reporting To: Regional Business Manager

Description

Job Location: Fort Portal

About the role:
The Area Business Manager at Sun King will coordinate sales, collections, and distribution operations in the area they are assigned for the direct distribution of Sun King Solar products sold on a Pay-As-You-Go basis (also called and recognized as the “EasyBuy” Business unit) through a network of agents called " Energy Officers.” 

What you would be expected to do

• Hire & retain Energy Officers: Hire, train and maintain a team of at least 40  Sun King Energy Officers in the area. Use multiple avenues for finding the right talent to sell Sun King EasyBuy products with the help of village influencers such as the village heads, teachers, religious heads, doctors, farmers and others, as applicable. Create a reputation and goodwill for the mission of Sun King to provide clean, affordable and reliable source of energy in their areas.
• Training of Energy Officers: Provide training to the Energy Officers on several aspects of the business such as sales, collections, product, technical, inventory and logistics related. Ensure that they are fully supervised in the best professional manner demonstrating highest levels of integrity, ethics and professionalism while dealing with customers.
• Provide role clarity to Energy Officers: Provide complete clarity to Energy Officers related to their day to day tasks, sales & collections plans, routes and targets. This includes, ensuring Energy Officers have sales route/area to sell in, they know on how to demonstrate and sell Sun King products, they have the confidence to be able to present and resolve basic customer queries on the spot and they have access to Area Business Manager at all times in case of questions and concerns.
• Daily field visits: Have a weekly touchpoint with every Energy Officer in your area – either through in-person meetings, making a sale to the customer in your area or having a call. Resolve all possible issues faced by the Energy Officers and report them to your Regional Business Manager, every week. Ensure that first 5 sales of each Energy Officer is done along with the Area Business Manager in the area, by each Energy Officer to ensure that the core sales and collection process is fully understood by each Energy Officer.
• Work with Energy Officers: Conduct joint field work with a group of Energy Officers to provide sales and collection training on a weekly basis and drive EO engagement. This includes doing night activations, market activations, visiting local communities and gatherings such as SACCOs, Self Help groups, retail centers and markets to make group sales.
• Exceed your sales & collections targets: Meet or exceed sales and collection targets established on 2nd of every month by your Regional Business Manager. Provide daily, weekly updates on sales, EO recruitments, Customer issues and resolutions, in alignment with your Regional Business Manager.
• Drive robust field sales processes: Review collection progress with your Energy Officers daily and provide adequate training to them on driving better collections in your areas. This includes, customer and area profiling, ensuring regular and timely collection follow-ups, resolving customer issues to ensure they make payments and ultimately repossessing the systems as a last recourse in case the customer defaults.
• Remain externally focused: Keep an eye on companies selling similar products within your area and ensure you take adequate measures to protect and grow our business from pressures. Pre-inform your management team and take measures to ensure Sun King remains a paramount brand name in Solar products for your area.
• Resolve customer issues: Provide world-class customer service to your customers as it relates to product delivery, training on how to use and make payments, installation, after sales warranty issues. Ensure that you work with your Energy Officers to establish clear expectations and processes to resolve all customer issues within 24 hours.
• Control Marketing & Other  spend: Provide adequate marketing materials & equipment (such as smartphones) necessary to all your Energy Officers. Ensure we get maximum return on investment for all the costs we incur in areas of marketing, supply chain, store maintenance and smartphone issuance.
• Review meetings with Energy Officers: Conduct weekly table meetings with Energy Officers and ensure that you have RBM present in those meetings to resolve any outstanding customers or EO issues. Coordinate, plan and organize the meeting to have maximum attendance and progress. Recognize outstanding performers from time to time and ensure the motivation of Energy Officers is maintained at an all-time high.
• Grow Retail presence: Ensure the retail network in your Area grows with the help of an Area Retail Coordinator, hired under you. Ensure all retail related activities are followed per process and the base of high-selling retailer grows exponentially within your area of operation.

You might be a strong candidate if you

• A degree in a Business-related field OR equivalent and at least 3 years of hands-on experience in Sales.
• Ability to source, hire, and retain sales personnel.
• Experience in using diverse recruitment channels, including community influencers.
• Proven experience in direct sales and field sales processes.
• Good knowledge of route planning and sales territory management
• Ability to set, monitor, and achieve sales and collection targets.
• Experience in tracking daily and weekly sales performance.
• Critical thinking skills to assess sales data and improve performance.
• Good customer service skills with the ability to resolve customer complaints efficiently.
• Proactive in implementing strategies to increase sales and collections.
• Knowledge of the solar energy industry is a plus.
• Ability to provide structured reports and updates on sales, recruitment, and customer issues.
• Good negotiation and persuasion skills.

What Sun King offers

• Professional growth in a dynamic, rapidly expanding, high-social-impact industry
• An open-minded, collaborative culture with enthusiastic colleagues driven by the challenge of innovation and making a profound impact on people and the planet.
•  A truly multicultural experience: you will have the chance to work with and learn from people from different geographies, nationalities, and backgrounds.
•  Structured, tailored learning and development programs that help you become a better leader, manager, and professional through the Sun King Center for Leadership.