Kabir Kainth
Field Sales Representative (New Role: Sales Development Executive)
Watch the video below to see Kabir talk about building good business relationships – and how Imperial Tobacco has given him both freedom and support in his role.
Kabir Kainth Video Profile - 1:40 mins
Kabir Kainth - Video Transcript
I work as a Field Sales Representative for Imperial Tobacco, which means I have to maintain distribution of our product portfolio in a select geographical area. With the people that we are meeting and the kind of skills that you need in relationship building, we are the face of Imperial Tobacco, so it is how we act with our clients and our customers, to how they see the company as a whole.
Previously I worked in Finance. They had a very, to the point, way of doing things so they would tell you go and do this now, go and do that now, whereas Imperial Tobacco give you a lot of freedom in what you want to do. You are given your patch of area that you are meant to cover, and they leave you to it. They give you your targets, what you have to achieve, and it is up to you to go and achieve those how you feel is best. So it makes you want to get up in the morning because you know that you have got the full backing of the company, that they know that you are going to do the best you can do, so you want to do even more because you know they are going to appreciate you for what you are doing.
We work in an interesting market. We have to be on point with what we are doing. With competition law the way it is, with legislation, the fact that we can’t do any kind of media marketing because there is a full media blackout on tobacco products, we have to be on the ball, we have to know what is happening, when it is happening, why it is happening, because we are the people that are going to be relaying that across to our customers.
In my experience so far, you are only limited to your ambition. If you want to be MD of Imperial Tobacco, potentially you have got that option available to you. You have got many programmes, and the personal development that is available is second to none compared to anything else that I have worked in.