CHEMICAL SALES PROFESSIONAL: COMPONENT CHEMICALS, CATALYSTS

We are nearly half a century into successful operations manufacturing specialty chemicals both domestically and internationally. We are looking for a genuine sales person that also happens to have history in the chemical business selling specialized additives and catalysts to big chemical industry (Fortune 100 and 500). The right fit is a chemical sales person that takes the most pragmatic and simplistic sales approach, but has real technical backbone and can be a genuine consultant as the need arises. The preservation and expansion of existing sales relationships in assigned accounts is part of the job and sales into new clients or even new applications is part of the job.

The market potential for the products you will be selling can be hundreds of millions of dollars. This is big business and there is growth to be had and markets to be taken.

What we have found is native intellect, passion, political sensitivity and discipline are the elements that yield performance. We have also discovered that deep technical acumen can be both a blessing and a curse. The best technical sales people limit the application of their deeper technical skill set to situations where it is a necessity and those professionals are smart enough to employ minimalist communication for most sales interactions.

Our concept of client maintenance and expansion is a process of continuously working with clients. Assuring the continuance of business is half of the job, and it is daily interface work. The expansion of sales into those existing opportunities is perhaps an additional twenty-five percent of the job, and the pursuit of qualified leads uncovered along the way the balance of the work. 

You are a businessperson and have an interest in the entire business process which is relationship building and maintenance, business format, contractual vehicles, strategic sales, and innovation; all of which is directed at retaining and growing the most profitable and secure possible relationships with all of your clients. Maintaining the status quo is not quite it.

THE BASICS OF THE JOB:

Our chemical product lines are generally well-known in the industries served and reasonably clearly defined for the applications addressed. Consisting of various catalyst systems, patent regulated and dictated ingredients for specific processed, organometallic compounds and inhibitors for various plastics manufacturing processes, the target audiences for these products are big companies that manufacture petrochemicals buying bulk process components. Typically, there is a limited number of form, fit and functional options available to clients, with most of these products very specialized in function, and very limited in terms of the numbers of global sources that manufacture.

 

The small producer network is an advantage and a curse. There is a fine line to walk where clients are pressuring you for advantage and there is nowhere else for them to go. Being diplomatic when you have half the global supply chain on hand can be as challenging in terms of preserving good relationships go as being effective when there is a huge pool of alternatives for your clients.

The job is business-to-business sales and sales support with interactions between our sales force and client staff ranging from professional purchasing agents and corporate executives most often working on well-understood and well defined programs, to the operations process engineers and even lab personnel. On that basis the person that we need has a combination of a savvy and refined business skills, a very high level of service orientation by nature and great analytical and tactical skills along with fine chemicals subject matter expertise.

In the course of doing the job you will identify political and purchasing power centers in client companies, recognize the buying cues and the define the issues that motivate the purchasers. You will design programs that address the needs of the clients at practical and even emotional levels. It may be price, it may be logistics management, it may be ease of use and it may be performance. It may simply be the way you communicate.

Great salespersons have closed business that provides great pricing by some means other that mindless discounting. We have done some creative work such as the marketing of process waste streams to clients with less demanding applications. We have offered a commodities tracking program where two potential chemical solutions for a process exist. We perform the necessary conversion to run form fit and functionally equivalent chemical systems where prices for raw materials change significantly enough to offer a client advantages to go back and forth between chemicals.

Many of the accounts to be serviced will be assigned to you. Generally, they are obvious on the basis of the products they produce and the processes that attend those products. The primary mission for assigned accounts is to keep them professionally serviced while providing the greatest benefit to your/our business (profitable business). There are days it may be as simple as making sure the company is fulfilling all service requirements, while making certain that we are not missing opportunities.  You always want to make certain that we are operating under the most favorable possible terms which can apply to pricing and logistics.  Your job is to sell chemicals to make money.

Working within our project teams to facilitate the deals you are assembling provides some of what we are referring to as client support. You are the client liaison and most sensitive to the clients overall environment and our internal environment, and you can see technical issues and people involved on all sides of your deals. You will help direct your own internal staff to quality fulfillment and make sure all the issues are known and properly addressed. Ultimately, you will maintain optimum business conditions and maximum possible sales levels.

We always wish to expand the sales of our products to your assigned and newly mined clients. There are a lot of ways to do it from service excellence and good old relationship development to new technical applications. The needs for special delivery and handling are issues we can address. There are times that changes in the values of commodities alter price/efficacy and we can address that, but we do not need salespeople who sell by cutting price, particularly when four of the products you will lead with have only one or two competitors on earth. When you are selling price and you are not the lowest, you have nothing left to sell.  Finally, relationships with clients lead to additional opportunities and we expect our professional account managers to mine such warm leads.

To be effective in this job we would expect you to stay current in the product niches technically, be on top of the known chemical product applications, the position of our products, the chemical processes that use our products and principals by which they work, and the costs and benefits of our products when compared to potential alternatives which may include unique functionality, ease of use, safety, the management of waste streams and, yes, at times price.

We expect your sales support and salesmanship to be accompanied by genuine product knowledge, principals and applications knowledge. We expect you to know the competition and their strategies. We expect you to learn the marketplace and track changes and trends. Chemical strategies for the chemical systems we sell represent a reasonable and modest body of knowledge and as a committed professional you will not be overwhelmed or taxed by keeping up to date with and technically sharp regarding the chemicals and their applications.

In parallel with the client focused mission is an internal mission that is very important. You will coordinate, facilitate, monitor, manage and expedite as necessary internally. Your client needs must be managed through our process. We are a well managed, professionally staffed and smart company that has been in the business approaching half a century, but we are still a collection of people. People make mistakes, miss deadlines and there is occasional miscommunication.  You, as a great sales professional take nothing for granted and follow you business through the system all the way, every day, every transaction, and every time.

We have manufacturing plant locations strategically located up and down the Eastern Seaboard, in the Southwest, in the Caribbean and the Far East. All of that spells coordination, follow-up, logistics management and that is if all the details have been ironed out and the customers are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, which is rarely the case somehow.

There is a measure of relentlessness as part of your professional nature. The notion that a manufacturing and transportation company can address brand new requirements, emergencies or changes recently requested by clients and get everything done precisely correctly the first time those new requirements are entered into our systems is unrealistic.  A good sales executive, and we are presuming that you are, should reflexively follow up / follow through in a detailed way when initiating new activity or addressing your clients’ emergencies.  We have quality of staff and passion that most companies in the industry will never have, and we are flexible in ways that none of our competition is, but our most successful staff key accounts managers and sales representatives “work” our internal process, follow up and are involved through the entire interaction on the client side of a transaction and on the company side as well.

SOME HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL INFORMATION:

We are a medium sized specialty chemicals manufacturer with a national and international footprint. We are a well-run company, with a long history of profitable operations, steady and predictable growth every year, business integrity and quality service. The business is big enough to be a meaningful international player, but is run on a personal level. We have great employee retention and the relationships between key people in the company have a nice personal dimension with loyalty that runs firmly in both directions.

Our fifty years has been a history of identifying niche markets that are small markets for the really big players. A simplistic explanation is we out maneuver the giants in the niches they are paying little attention to. Most of what we make are metal salts of various types serving the petrochemical specialty plastics manufacturing and pharmaceutical businesses, but we also produce chemicals for the water and wastewater marketplaces.

Visionary is a reasonable description of our operations. While the specific strategies of international materials acquisition, waste stream reclamation, and efficient international manufacturing may not excite you personally, differentiation, efficiency, quality and price point are exciting, particularly if you are going to commit yourself to a company with the idea of building a progressive sales career and even retiring with that firm. Differentiation and innovation are essential elements in a sales and customer service role.  The company you join has to be led and equipped to be successful for you.  We are bleeding edge in the industry, and management is young, smart and dedicated to systematic and controlled growth. We will be there and successful to support your good work.

We have locations on the Eastern Seaboard and southwest as well a locations internationally which are manufacturing locations. Clients are all over the place but for the products in question, the clients are concentrated in the southwest and in particular between Louisiana and the Gulf Coast of Texas. The home base for this position could be anywhere in the southeastern side of the US that is proximal to an airport but Houston would really make it easy. Virtual office is a potential here.

While we employ hundreds of people, remember we are a manufacturing organization. There are just a handful of executives, the layers few, and the politics are minimal. You will know the owners and all key managers on a completely personal level. We have amazing employee tenure and that is because we are an intimate environment when talking about that handful of managers and executives (you being one). You will be connected here, and will feel connected. We are really nice people and that always helps. Whatever your standards for screening by personality and ease of communication, I strongly suspect we will pass your tests.

QUALIFICATIONS

We need and essentially “plug-and-play” sales professional.  That suggests sales success in chemical sales and technical knowledge of petrochemical industry, plastics industry, and some pharmaceutical industry.



You are a great people person who can deal up and down the ladder of people types and stations in life from labor to persons leading major corporations. We require an organized and hierarchal thinker.  You are a powerful and charismatic personality. We need your broad exposure to and competence in business process. That suggests you have past formal exposure to deal packaging, contract vehicles, negotiation, and relationship management and perhaps even a bit of finance.

You will be negotiating sales and service contracts. You have to be a solid, quick and decisive thinker and be able to look at numerous variables and project out, envisioning exposures, issues and consequences that may not be part of past agreements at all.



This is a job for a leader not a clerk. You must be able to identify problems and you will be a key element in formulation and execution of solutions. We expect passion, persuasiveness, great listening skills, empathy, emotional intelligence, resilience and toughness in you. You will be dealing with seasoned corporate purchasing and contracts professionals and you will be dealing with plant managers and laboratory people. Some of these client companies are multi-billion dollar entities. It is reasonable to expect to meet seasoned, practiced and very specifically experienced staff on the client side in every position you touch.



You must speak well. You must be graceful under pressure. You must be a good thematic writer and get efficiently from the key idea to a firm conclusion in a concise and compelling way when dealing with everything from business letters to various proposals. You must be a craftsperson and proud of your products, which are letters and proposals. They must reflect the work of a genuine professional which means grammar, tense and general syntax are correct and the work going out has been carefully proofed.



We need a person willing to work hard, willing to make the calls, visit the clients and a person willing to do the routine administrative work accurately. You must have the discipline to keep all of it up to date. Honestly, we have had problems in the past with good salespeople who were accustomed to big scores followed by unauthorized and unofficial vacations between those big sales victories. That will not work here. This job is a full time commitment requiring diligent work every day. Jobs that reward windfalls are not jobs that you can keep for a lifetime. You are a person looking for a genuine and sustainable career and do not need just a job. You must be a great time manager, have a natural sense of priorities and a sense of urgency.



Emotional durability is a qualification because we need an individual that can see the interests of all parties on a project, and keep a business perspective even though there are occasions that the practical approach must be second in line based on client needs or even our own company’s reaction to the request for a change to standard operating procedures. Sales happens on all fronts, not only on the client side but often internally to make things happen.



You have fortitude. Asking for things is something you will be doing and must be comfortable doing. We need intellect and talent, by which we mean that you will be constantly doing new things and will have to tap into all that you know and be able to apply that knowledge in endlessly new and creative ways.



You are a person with passion. If you have no interest in the products, the chemical industry and the art of making the whole process work for yourself, our company and the clients, then you cannot succeed at this. Passion as we see it is the interest and concomitant energy driven by that keen interest.



We generally require a BS, but if you are smart and have been effective in the chemical sales business, we will review your history and are willing to look at experience and tangible success in lieu of academic credentials. A degree in chemistry or chemical engineering is useful in the business. We are looking for five or more years in blended sales, executive customer service, and customer project coordination in the component chemical business.



We mentioned that our target location is the southwest (Louisiana and Gulf Coast Texas). We have a number of our key sales staff and even senior management in virtual offices. This takes a special person and unique self-discipline. While we have a call reporting and tracking systems to keep the HQ in touch with field activity daily, there is no point in pursuing a very open engagement if you are not a relentless and driven person. Virtual office is a bad idea if you do not have the discipline and sense of urgency it requires.



There is travel involved with customer sites and our locations scattered domestically and internationally. You will be on the road during the week a maybe away from home one or two nights per week. If you are in the Gulf Coast region, the vast majority of client visits can be accomplished by car.



In doing a sales job most of the clients’ staff will not take the time to get to know us personally or deeply, particularly with intermittent exposure. All of the client and sales management team make an effort to look professional. We are concern with all aspects of professionalism, which includes appearance. A sales job is not the place to test social tolerance.



CAREER



We move our solid performers up if they exhibit aptitude and interest. Because we have grown every year for forty + years, and are actually becoming more aggressive about growth we have moved a remarkable percentage of our good people up and do that whenever possible. The likely progression for a sales person is a product manager’s or director’s position for a new chemical line. There are numerous other possibilities in marketing and sales management.



MONEY AND PERKS



This is a job that has a base pay range of $90 – 115,000.00 based on experience and capability. Our staff in this position has added 20 – 35% to base salaries by way of bonus compensation. The goals are realistic and attainable. We have a very good point of service medical plan paid for by the company. We have a well-managed 401K with an exceptional match. Two weeks vacation accompanies a year of service. We have 10 paid holidays. We will provide a car allowance and gas reimbursement, computer and office consumables, travel costs and client entertainment expenses.



CONFIDENTIALITY



A consultant we have worked with for years will respond to you. If, after your questions and his questions are answered you are not interested in moving forward, nothing at all will move forward.



CONTACT INFORMATION



EMAIL: propower@hughes.net

SUBJECT LINE:  FINECHEMICAL