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One of the coolest ecommerce jobs around!
HARRY’S COMMENTS: We are working with Kichler in their search for a Director of Ecommerce based in Independence, Ohio — just south of Cleveland, which you have have heard rocks:
As one of the lighting industry’s most recognized consumer and professional brands, Kichler Lighting designs, engineers, and develops residential decorative lighting, ceiling fans, and professional grade landscape lighting for sale though lighting showrooms, home centers, electrical distributors, landscape wholesalers and ecommerce.
Since 1938, Kichler has offered much more than just distinctively beautiful home residential lighting products. The firm backs style with award-winning craftsmanship, unparalleled quality and superior service.
Kichler has enjoyed impressive growth in new product categories, diversifying into emerging channels and focusing on innovation in LED lighting for multi-family, assisted living, light commercial and hospitality applications.
There’s only one Kichler Lighting.
Kichler is the leader in the majority of its product categories, and it continues to be the most heavily searched lighting brand online. This strong brand awareness gives Kichler’s ecommerce business a “waterfall effect” in that when consumers and professionals alike search for Kichler products, it’s super easy to see where they’re sold — both online and off.
Online, Kichler’s products get excellent coverage through strong affiliations with e-retail platforms like Wayfair, Build, Overstock, LampsPlus, Lumens, and Lowes.com. The company does not have a direct (1P) relationship with Amazon, but its products can be purchased on the Amazon platform thru its distributor partnerships utilizing Amazon FBA or Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP), as well as through multiple authorized 3P re-sellers.
About the Role
Kichler’s management sees enormous potential in ecommerce, and it seeks a business oriented leader to manage this opportunity. As Kichler’s Director of Ecommerce, you’ll build relationships with strategically important ecommerce customers, and you’ll be responsible for realizing target account objectives that support balanced growth.
You’ll market the entire range of Kichler products and services while leading the customer account planning cycle and ensuring assigned customers’ needs and expectations are met by the company. That’ll require you to drive alignment within the Kichler organization while being the go-to-guy / gal for this aggressively growing channel of business.
Ideally, you’ll have deep experience in sales /marketing strategy and execution with third-party pure play e-tailers. And you’ll be expected to understand how to sell to Amazon the CUSTOMER (in the event that comes to pass) and, at a minimum, on the Amazon the PLATFORM – which is already happening.
In a perfect world, you will …
- Have worked for a branded company,
- Be financially literate / fiscally responsible,
- Be a good negotiator who understands how to navigate a complex opportunity, and
- Know how to manage a highly dynamic market opportunity while developing and leading a balanced-yet-profitable ecommerce business.
Given that you’ll be conducting joint business planning meetings with key online retailers, you find yourself on the road roughly 35-40% of the time. Initially you will be an individual contributor. But if you’re successful, within 24 months you are likely to be leading a small team.
This is an EXTREMELY high profile job.
As usual, I spent a ton of time on the phone with this client teasing out exactly what you’ll need to KNOW and DO to hit the ground running in this role. Some of the things we can share with highly qualified candidates include …
- The “real” background requirements for this position, along with the top five things all resumes MUST have to be considered for the role.
- The top five problems that exist due to this position being open. These are the little fires you will be expected to put out during your first month on the job. Every job has these!
- What your average day / week will look like in this role. There’s what you read in the standard job posting … then there’s reality. We’ve got the reality.
- The top KPI’s that will determine your success in this role. In a nutshell: How you keep score.
- The major projects you’ll need to complete by Day 100 to be considered a home-run in this position. We’ve got the lowdown on how you can plug-and-play and drive REAL value in this job.
We have a massive amount of proprietary intel to share with qualified candidates. Our industry research for this assignment exceeds 100 pages! Be sure to TEXT me, Harry Joiner, for this info at (404) 281-2025.
Or simply use the email link when you apply for the role below.
View Harry Joiner’s profile
Essential Functions/Responsibilities
- Proactively leads a joint company-strategic account planning process that develops mutual performance objectives, financial targets, and critical milestones for a one and three-year period.
- Ensures action and responsiveness to the customer by taking responsibility for the exposure the customer has with Kichler.
- Mobilizing the organization to respond to customer problems and opportunities
- Proactively assesses, clarifies, and validates customer needs on an on-going basis
- Meets assigned targets for profitable sales volume and strategic objectives in assigned accounts.
- Facilitates and coordinates the involvement of company associates with strategic customers, including support, service, and management, meeting account performance objectives and customers’ expectations.
- Leads solution development efforts that best address customer needs, while coordinating the involvement of all necessary company associates
- Monitors and consistently communicates to Kichler headquarters; Business trends, distribution patterns, consumer and trade trends, competitive practices and product performance
- Ability to analyze data and trends; develop insights that create a competitive advantage, improve customer retention and driving incremental revenue.
- Encourages other associates to interact with the customers; works with the Kichler team to maximize sales opportunities
- Establish productive, professional relationships with key personnel in assigned customer accounts
Education / Experience
- Must possess a minimum of 5 years of proven sales or sales management experience
- Strong understanding of how functional areas of a company work together to achieve results
- Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to communicate and maintain positive relationships with Kichler associates, customers and external sales force
- Ability to travel 35-40% of the time
- Must be able to coordinate multiple projects simultaneously
- Ability to analyze market conditions and competition, developing strategic responses to opportunities
- Must have a college degree, or equivalent experience – MBA preferred
Applications for this position are being coordinated by Harry Joiner. To apply, CLICK HERE. Candidates, please be sure to email Harry for a packet of market research and company / competitive intel that will differentiate you in your candidacy. Due to the intensely competitive nature of this search, thorough preparation for these interviews with this proprietary material is strongly recommended.
