Business Development Specialist at VisionSpring

• This role is a contract-based, full-time position for the initial period of one year. As with other contractors with whom we have worked for many years, we expect the successful candidates to be willing to be long-term contractors for VisionSpring.

About You

• You are an entrepreneur at heart and want to build a socially oriented business. The prospect of becoming an expert in the optics industry excites you.
• You are accustomed to being a top performer in a high-growth environment. Achieving targets fills you with a sense of drive and satisfaction.
• You are self-motivated and deliver excellent results without the daily direct supervision of an on-site manager.
• You are adept at business-to-business and institutional sales and fully understand the sales management cycle. You are particularly adept at wholesale selling and have a knack for expanding the distribution of physical products.
• You are strategic in your approach to new business, actively networking and doing research to identify new partners and nurture relationships. You are constantly seeking new and creative ways to reach your target market and go above and beyond what is required to do it.
• You have the experience, maturity, and confidence, as well as the communication skills, to interact with people in senior positions. You can get others excited about the possibilities that are unlocked by working with VisionSpring.
• You have a special talent for negotiating with partners for a win-win closure of deals.

About Us

• We are creating access to affordable eyewear, everywhere. Clear vision creates opportunities for increased learning, work, safety, civic participation, and quality of life.
• As a social enterprise, social change motivates us first. Our focus on sales and revenue targets serves and advances our mission objective—to increase functioning, productivity, and income earning potential for our low-income consumers by correcting refractive error with eyeglasses.
• We are working to transform the systemic dysfunction of an optical market that has failed to deliver eyeglasses—a 700-year-old technology—to 2.5 billion consumers in need of vision correction, most of whom live on less than $4 a day.
• We serve low-income consumers, not as beneficiaries but as customers. Our customers expect a high-quality and affordable product, and they will spend limited discretionary income for the immediate and tangible benefits of vision correction.
• By selling eyeglasses, we awaken new demand and seed a viable market. By selling new eyeglasses we are able to serve four times as many people per dollar input than the alternative of donating recycled ones. To efficiently scale, we must deliver each new unit with lower cost.
• We run our business on both sales metrics and social impact measures. We exploit a range of organizational forms and practices to get the job done.
• We believe in scaling our impact, not our organization. We are a lean team of doers.

What You’ll Do
New Business Development

• Conduct research, network, and cold-call to pro-actively identify and pursue new opportunities to grow partnerships with eye hospitals, clinics, and other health service providers; assist them in introducing or expanding their optical services.
• Contact and stimulate engagement with known potential partners; transform them into satisfied customers.
• Meet and surpass monthly, quarterly, and annual sales targets by winning new and repeat orders.
• Grow and manage the channel partner network. Use your creativity to find new paths, and expand existing ones, to bring eyeglasses to our target population.
• Engage and consistently follow up with existing and new accounts, deliver the highest levels of customer service.
• Faithfully and accurately enter all sales activity—calls, conversations, emails, meetings, WhatsApp, SMS, etc.—into Salesforce, a customer relations management (CRM) system provided by VisionSpring.
• Help to represent VisionSpring at local industry forums, peer groups, market development events, seminars, conferences, etc.

Account Management

• Service and manage assigned accounts. Maintain existing close relationships and assure that we are building new relationships that will last.
• Strengthen relationships with all key opinion makers and stakeholders.
• Periodically affirm that we are reaching our target population by reporting customer data and KPIs.
• Regularly follow up with customers for pre- and post-sale documentation and payments.
• Solicit feedback and gather testimonials from customers so that their words can inform our marketing collateral.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or Higher National Diploma.
• 3 to 5 years of professional experience in business-to-business and institutional sales.
• Current home residence is Nairobi and a willingness to travel up to 50% of the time within the country.
• Excellent written and spoken communication skills in English and Swahili.
• Experience creating and delivering sales presentations using PowerPoint slide decks.
• Computer software skills, especially Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Priority consideration will be given to candidates with these areas of experience and assets: institutional sales within the healthcare or pharmaceutical sectors; knowledge of vision care and/or optical services; comfort using Salesforce or another CRM; existing rolodex of contacts in healthcare/pharma/vision care sectors; and/or personal vehicle.