Business Development Manager

Business Development Manager – Co-op Wholesale 
£60,000 to £70,000 plus great benefits including private healthcare (Work Level 5) 
A full UK driving licence required
National field-based, in this role you’ll work in a hybrid way splitting your time between home, the field and occasional visits to the office in Scunthorpe (find out more about our hybrid working policy at colleagues.coop.co.uk/hybrid-working-policy).

We’re looking for a Business Development Manager to join Co-op Wholesale. Since 1977, we’ve championed independent retailers to thrive with Nisa – and now, we’re entering a bold new chapter as Co-op Wholesale. It’s the same spirit, with bigger ambition: bringing the power of Co-op to more local businesses than ever. And with that, exciting opportunities are on the rise, like this one.

We’ll look to you to help us find opportunities to recruit new and different businesses of scale for our multi-site and wholesale business. You'll foster strong partner relationships, collaborate with internal teams to recruit high-potential retailers, and drive profitable lead generation to meet annual targets. You'll also help refine processes and reporting to support ongoing improvement. If you’ve got great tenacity, excellent communication skills and the knowledge and experience of new business development, then we can offer you a fantastic opportunity to build your networks and really make an impact across our Co-op.

What you’ll do

•    Deliver the annual new business growth target, specifically focussing on large scale recruitment in national accounts and wholesale
•    Own the sales process through to success of a number of corporate sales opportunities, with values of up to c£20m annual sales per opportunity 
•    Support the creation of recruitment strategies, working with our marketing team to deliver the best return on investment
•    Engage and build strong relationships with relevant third-party lead generators
•    Own the process to continually review the competitor base and benchmark the group proposition

This role would suit people who have

•    Experience in new business development within FMCG
•    Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to articulate in a clear and professional way 
•    The ability to build positive relationships and collaborate with others to get great results
•    Excellent organisation and time management skills, with the ability to manage workload effectively
•    Strong IT skills with the ability to use Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel confidently
•    The resilience and confidence to manage challenging situations

Why Co-op?

At Co-op, we’re owned by our members. And because we’re owned by you, we can do right by you. So when you join us, you’re not just taking a job, you’re joining a movement. We’re an organisation that puts people and communities first, and we’re powered by purpose. We want this to be a place where you can thrive, so you’ll also receive:

•    An annual bonus (based on personal and business performance)
•    28 days holiday (rising to 32 with service) plus bank holidays 
•    A pension with up to 10% employer contributions
•    Private healthcare 
•    Access to a subsidised onsite gym (at our Manchester HQ)
•    Coaching and training to support your career development
•    Wagestream app – giving you access to a percentage of your pay as you earn

Building a diverse environment

We’re actively building diverse teams and we welcome applications from everyone. If you have a disability, we can make reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process according to your needs. We're also part of the Disability Confident scheme, meaning we'll always offer an interview to disabled candidates who apply through the scheme if they meet the minimum criteria for a job.

We'll ask whether you’d like to be considered under the Disability Confident scheme when you apply.
If we invite you to take part in the recruitment process for any of our jobs, we’ll ask you if you need any reasonable adjustments to enable you to participate.

You can find out more about our recruitment process at jobs.coop.co.uk/apply-process

You can find out more about the Disability Confident scheme and all our commitments to diversity and inclusion at colleagues.coop.co.uk/diversity-inclusion-and-wellbeing

Please note that we may close applications for this role early.