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HARRY’S COMMENTS: We are working with a confidential client in their search for a Director of Marketing based just two hours by car from this place …

As if that weren’t cool enough:

The client is a major Pac-Asian based grower of coffee, nut, and spices, and their products are sold into nearly a dozen HUGE markets, including manufacturing, further processing, and specialty retail. You can’t tell from my Linkedin bio, but I spent the 90’s in the food trading business.

In fact, I’m the son of a guy who co-founded a billion-dollar Georgia-based business which is incredibly similar to this client’s. Take it from me, this is a REALLY cool business to be in. Fantastic training found for future General Managers.

Let’s take a look at all the places where / how food is consumed, shall we?

Crazy, right? You knew it but you never really thought about it.

Catering, restaurants, retail, vending, and events / leisure. Food is everywhere, and no matter what happens with Covid, people are still going to eat even if their spend is channel-shifted away from out-of-home.

And this client is right in the thick of it.

The client is a $20 billion manufacturer of raw food ingredients, including spices, nuts, coffee, and cocoa. Traditionally, their core business has involved working offline with large complex customers. The sales process has revolved around sales reps using the phone, faxes, and emails.

Sounds old school — but it has worked great because frankly, that’s how things have gotten done in that space. The food business is a relationship-driven thing, and people do business with their friends.

What exactly does that mean?

It means that Account-based marketing is the order of the day. It means an intense focus on the customer, specifically on an account by account basis. It means targeting specific accounts/customers based on the firm’s ability to solve the customer’s problems and understanding the strategies, markets, business drivers of the account.

It means understanding the structure, priorities, and KPI’s of each account while developing strategies about how the firm can create the greatest value for each account. It means tailoring the firm’s marketing, messaging, and engagement strategies specific to the account while focusing on the account’s issues and priorities.

Your job will be to digitally enable that.

The company is building an ecommerce business that, in Phase I, will focus on customer acquisition. With an AOV of several thousand dollars, the target customer will sit squarely in the SMB space. Marketing will involve three separate business units: 1/ spices, 2/ nuts, and 3/ specialty coffee.

Collectively, those lines have a $15 million run rate for ecommerce — but the operation is effectively an internally funded startup looking to nail down its product/market fit.

Potentially, you could be marketing to THOUSANDS of accounts in more than a dozen potential industries. Indeed, the company already sells to 23,000 customers around the world — and there’s LOTS more “land to grab,” especially in America.

Again: I have actually DONE a very similar job — and this was back in the 90s. Jobs like this are 50x more manageable today, what with the improvements in CRM technology, customer accessibility, ecommerce technology, and the widespread knowledge of inbound marketing best practices.

This is a somewhat rare opportunity to build a high-visibility ecom business inside one of the world’s leading manufacturers and growers of food ingredients. In this role, you will lead all ecommerce marketing for all of the firm’s US-based businesses, and it will fall to YOU to drive profitable revenue growth.

To be clear: Especially at first, your focus will be on customer acquisition with conversion, retention, and share of wallet not far behind. You’ll be shaping the firm’s strategy to maximize revenue and CLV at a profitable CAC. Simple, but not easy.

You won’t believe how much we know about this search …

We spent a ton of time on the phone with the client’s CEO 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 …

1. The “real” background requirements for this position, along with the top five things all resumes MUST have to be considered for the role.
2. The top five problems that exist due to this position being open. These are the little brush fires you will be expected to put out during your first month on the job. Every job has these — and this one’s no different.
3. 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.
4. The leading and lagging KPI’s that will determine your success in this role. In a nutshell: How you keep score.
5. 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 marketing job exceeds 60 pages! Be sure to TEXT Allan Seibert, @ (706) 318-1196 for this info. Or simply use the email link when you apply for the role below.

View Harry Joiner’s profile

Responsibilities:

• Lead Marketing across ecommerce for all Company Business Units
• Help shape overall strategy – target market, product, value prop, messaging, etc.
• Define and continually evolve marketing plans and priorities
• Typical channels are in play – ads, SEO, email, content, social, and offline/other
• Utilize Account-Based Marketing (ABM) as a critical business lever
• Lead marketing execution in a player/coach role, and evolving that over time
• Build and manage a team – both internal and/or agencies
• Collaborate internally with all ecommerce functions, Business Units, offline marketing teams, and execs
• Maximize and leverage learnings across Business Units
• Become a key thought leader in the company for ecommerce
• Help establish an optimal culture
• Evolve all of this rapidly as the Team learns and grows

Requirements

• Proven success in a similar situation
• Digital marketing role
• As part of building a high growth startup
• 5-15 years of relevant experience (ability over experience)
• Analytical skills (quantitative and qualitative)
• Rapid learner
• Strategic thinking
• Creative problem solving
• Detail-oriented
• Decisive
• Action-oriented, gets stuff done
• Effective communication with various types of stakeholder audiences
• Grit & Persistence
• Intellectual curiosity
• Highly self-motivated and takes initiative
• Thrive in an ambiguous, fluid environment
• Constantly raises the bar
• Direct communication