District Sales Officers
Regional Zambia (Lusaka, Eastern, Central, Northern & Southern Provinces)
Sales & Operations /
Full Time /
On-site
About Apollo Agriculture:
Apollo Agriculture is the commercial farming platform that helps small-scale farmers maximize their profits. Apollo’s ML-powered credit models and automated operations technology unlock the massive, untapped small-scale farming market, starting in Kenya and now in Zambia. With optimized financing, high-quality farm products, and digital advice, Apollo farmers are already more than doubling their farm profitability. Apollo’s team brings together technology, credit, and operations experience from The Climate Corporation (acquired for USD $1 Billion), Google, Capital One, and One Acre Fund. We value the evangelical pursuit of mission with a pragmatic approach, humility in the face of challenge, active discussion of disagreements, and considerate listening.
About the Role:
Apollo Agriculture is seeking motivated Sales professionals to join our team as District Sales Officers (DSO). As a DSO, you will lead a team of field sales agents to achieve sales targets. You will be responsible for building a motivated sales team, managing their performance and providing overall leadership that aligns with the company’s goals. This is an ideal opportunity for self-driven, goal oriented & commercially minded sales professionals who can sell independently as well as manage & motivate a successful sales team.
Reporting Lines: Reports to the Commercial Lead
Location: Regional Zambia (Lusaka, Eastern, Central, Northern & Southern Provinces)
Number of Open Positions: 5+
Responsibilities:
- Sales Ownership. As the District Sales Officer, your number one priority is to ensure you and your team meet sales targets in the wards under your jurisdiction. This includes working closely with the Snr Sales Managers & Commercial Lead to divide and conquer these targets and trickling down the strategy to your sales agents.
- Agent Recruitment & Performance Management. As a District Sales Officer, you will be responsible for the hiring, training, and management of your dream team! Simply put, a District Sales Officer is only as good as the team they manage, as your team will be your eyes, ears, and hands on the ground. As DSO, you will identify, hire, train, empower, and deploy your team, setting them up for success, which in this case means meeting sales targets within the stipulated deadlines. You will be expected to provide in-field support for your team and conduct regular training as required. You will also be responsible for the collateral issued to the agent team, including company-issued smartphones and marketing collateral.
- Budget Management. As team lead for the sales team on the ground, you will be responsible and accountable for all monies assigned to your ward. This will include ensuring adherence to budget limitations, cost effectiveness and optimal utilization of availed funds. You will be answerable to your Line Manager as far as budget management.
- Insights & Analysis: Every good salesperson knows that numbers don’t lie! As a DSO, you will rely on data to make decisions and guide your team. You will be required to share bi-weekly reports to identify key insights from time spent with customers and agents to share and implement with the wider team e.g. best practices leveraged by high performing agents, feedback from customers on their Apollo experience etc. This will include field testing marketing collateral to ensure effective mass communication in the region.
- Sales Activations. Identify and execute high impact sales activations that will drive sales performance e.g. van roadshows, market activations, farmer group activations etc
- Fraud Reporting. As Apollo’s representative on the ground, you will be required to keep an eye out for fraudulent activity within your team and the wider customer base, and report the same to the relevant department.
Requirements:
- You are a natural salesperson. You love selling through and through. You find it easy to win the trust of customers and enjoy connecting with people. You understand that different customer segments prioritize different things, and are able to clearly communicate the value of Apollo’s product to our target customer base.
- You have a minimum 2-years of sales experience, especially in rural markets.
- You have experience leading a sales team to succeed.
- You understand the sales agent model, and the key performance metrics to keep an eye out on when working with such a model.
- You are highly organized, have a strong bias for action and enjoy collaborating with others.
- You have an analytical mind and enjoying making sense of numbers and drawing actionable insights from available data
- You are proficient in analytical tools such as Microsoft Excel.
- You are creative and enjoy figuring out-of-the-box solutions to challenging problems.
- You are a clear and confident communicator, and can clearly articulate sales targets and strategies to your team, and report back the outcome to your manager.
- You’re excited about Apollo’s mission, and are able to get your team and our customers excited about the same!
- You have a Diploma or a Degree in a business-related discipline.
- You love selling - did we already mention that!?
We:
- Are a collaborative team of smart and ambitious people who are dedicated to serving our customers
- Make magic happen to solve hard problems and always come with solutions when challenges arise
- Are comfortable taking risks that can result in radical scale and understand that failures are opportunities to learn and improve
- Are considerate listeners and take the time to deeply understand and seek out ideas from the people around us, even when we disagree
- Offer a dynamic environment that fosters talent, collaboration, and growth
- Take pride in our work and share the responsibility to see it through from conception to deployment
- Back up our talk with a competitive compensation and benefits package and challenging projects
- Value autonomy, honesty, transparency, and respect
- Are excited to hear from you
Apollo Agriculture does not discriminate on the basis of race, age, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, sex, gender, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. Apollo Agriculture is an equal opportunity/equal access employer fully committed to achieving a diverse workforce.
Apollo Agriculture is committed to providing a safe and productive learning and living community. To achieve that goal, we may conduct background investigations for all final candidates being considered for employment. Background checks may include, but are not limited to, criminal history, national sex offender search and motor vehicle history.
Apollo Agriculture does not charge money or any kind of fee at any stage of the recruitment process.
