Key Account Manager (Childrens Books) 1-year Contract

Our client, an internationally renowned mass market trade children’s publishing house seeks an experienced Key Account Manager to look after their leading bargain Key Accounts. This opportunity will be a one-year contract and ideally the new person would be able to commence immediately. 

Your account base includes The Works & Aldi and other similar large non-traditional book trade accounts.

You’ll be based in London and the Key Account Manager will report to the Sales Director, you’ll be selling a varied range of bestselling well-known licensed & character brands trade books.

This role offers a broad variety of account management work as each account is very different; i.e. you’ll have the opportunity to build print runs and create a range of individual bespoke books for your Key Accounts.

Please see below an overview of the Key Account Managers role;

• Maintain & growing sales, managing relationships with a large & varied account base
• Develop strong knowledge of the various publishing lists, both frontlist & backlist, & exploit this to provide a first-class service to clients
• Have an in-depth knowledge of customers’ businesses, proactively identify needs & recommend creative solutions
• Understand the industry sector, having knowledge of competitor titles and campaigns and using this information to maximise Company profile within accounts
• Communicate customer, competitor & other market intelligence feedback effectively
• Achieve targets
• Write business reports, forecast revenue figures and provide commentary to explain financials
• Work with bargain & clearance customers
• Develop bespoke products to meet individual customer needs – looking to maximise margin & grow incremental sales with experience and success with bargain, value & clearance customers
• Work with the UK & Export sales teams to develop print runs for bespoke product to develop sales efficiency & maximise opportunities
• Actively seek new sales opportunities
• Build relationships across internal departments to ensure business goals are met
• Work across all imprints within the business using excellent interpersonal & organisational skills to multi-task & work under pressure

We would like to hear from publishing sales candidates with good key account sales experience ideally within the bargain mass market trade, esp The Works, and if you also have good experience in another related non-traditional sales environment then that would be very useful in this role too.

The Key Account Manager will join a very successful established UK sales team and you will have the opportunity to work the odd day from home, depending of course on the work schedule of your key accounts.

In our view, an excellent salary is on offer, plus a very good bonus and Company benefits are part of the overall package. If this super new role sounds like it could be of interest to you, then please get in touch with Danny for more information.

In the first instance, please send a short intro note or your CV to Danny Parnes at danny@gregorymartin.org at Gregory Martin Search for full details of this opportunity.

Ps – we are always looking for good new publishing sales candidates, if you are feeling restless or simply seek informal discreet career advice, please contact our senior team in complete confidence