Kate Martinez-Jenkins - Video Transcript
Tactical Sales Representative
Hi, my name is Kate and I’m a Tactical Sales Representative for Imperial Tobacco – and this is a typical fast moving day.
So, at the start of my week I arrive at the cash and carry and I check in with the tobacco manager to make sure there are no issues that I need to deal with, to ensure that all the promotions are running that we may or may not have set up and just to make sure there is enough stock and everything is OK for them.
Then I move on to collecting my stock, and this is the stock that I need for the week to sell to my customers. It is important to build a relationship with a cash and carry because our customers get their stock from the cash and carry, and so that they really know what is going on in the market and they really know locally, what is happening.
So once I have the stock I need, it is off to my first call. We make 12 to 13 calls a day, so planning and preparation is really important. So we go and see the customer, see if he has any out of stock, see if there is anything that he needs and if there are any new lines that we are promoting. Then we go and see him and tell him about those. It is important to have a really good relationship with your customers, and this comes from face to face meetings. They trust us because we see them every month so we are not a strange face walking through the door. We also look at our display – so we look at our cigarette units to ensure that the cigarettes are in the correct place and we have the best visibility possible for our brands.
We use our pen tablets in every call to collect information from the retailer. This tells us what was in stock last time we were in the call and it helps us to keep up to date with our records. If we are introducing new brands, it helps us with our targets and we download this so it can be used by our managers at the end of the day.
We have group meetings every month, which is great because it brings us all together as colleagues. We talk about our successes and sometimes our failures throughout the month. We also look at market data, we look at market share and what has been happening with our brands. We also have our targets set at group meetings so we can go ahead with a clear objective of what we need to do for the month ahead.
I really enjoy the role because it is varied, it is always changing, we have got an amazing portfolio of brands and every day is different. It is fast moving, we manage our own territories and we really look after our own customers. That is why I really enjoy working for Imperial Tobacco.