Director, Sr Business Lawn & Garden Products in Columbia, South Carolina at Shakespeare Company LLC

Position Summary

The Business Manager – Lawn & Garden Products is the commercial lead for the Lawn & Garden product line and is responsible for improving our market position and driving organic growth. This person will define long-term organizational strategic goals, identify new business opportunities, negotiate and close business transactions and maintain an extensive knowledge of current market conditions and trends in the Outdoor Power Equipment industry.

The responsibilities for the Business Manager – Lawn & Garden Products will fall into several categories, including building and maintaining important client relationships, pursuing sales leads and prospective clients, delivering customer presentations and proposals, negotiating and closing business transactions with key customers, developing business plans that include marketing strategies, maintaining and communicating sales forecasts, maintaining an extensive knowledge of current market conditions, and actively communicating to key staff and team members.

This position can be summarized as follows:

1. Profit and Loss responsibility for the Lawn & Garden product line. This includes defining and executing a global strategy for Sales and Gross Margin growth in line with corporate objectives and build contingency plans to ensure consistent delivery of targeted growth.

2. Identify/create new business opportunities in the Lawn & Garden market. To be successful, it is imperative to stay close to customers, sales representatives, distributors, suppliers and consumers to develop a comprehensive portfolio of products that will deliver the targeted growth for our Lawn & Garden business.

3. In conjunction with the National Account Managers develop a global standard for delivering sales presentations and determining standardized PLR elements.

4. Manage staff of Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, and Call Center to deliver best-in-class products and customer service.

5. In collaboration with the Chief Commercial Officer of Shakespeare Company, define and execute global marketing strategy to solidify and strengthen our position in the industry. This includes defining and creating appropriate vehicles to support our initiatives, such as POP displays, off-shelf promotions, catalogues, electronic media, website, etc.

Key Responsibilities

(Other duties may be assigned)

• Manage the customer portfolio and consistently deliver the planned Sales and Gross Margin for Lawn & Garden Products.

• Lead the U.S. Lawn & Garden team to successfully execute the business plan within defined scope, timeline, and budget.

• Direct the National Account Management team to drive growth across mass retail and home improvement channels, strengthening strategic partnerships with key accounts such as Home Depot, Lowe’s, Walmart, and Tractor Supply.

• Champion joint business planning, category leadership, and retailer-specific growth strategies

• Oversee the Landscaping Contractor professional channel presence. Implement strategy to penetrate contractors, distributors, and specialty retail segments and build targeted programs, partnerships, and product offerings tailored to professional users.

• Drive new business acquisition and expansion into new channels and customer segments

• Establish and communicate annual sales quotas to the Sales Representatives and provide them with sales reports in a timely manner.

• Manage all Sales Representative and drive year-over-year improvement.

• Attend trade shows and industry association events to solidify and improve the company’s visibility and market position.

• Identify new product opportunities and work with R&D to commercialize them across our customer base.

• Assist the CFO in setting the annual Lawn & Garden Products business plan and budgets. Manage and revise annual business plans, budgets, and forecasts as needed.

• Identify and execute marketing and promotional vehicles to deliver Sales and Gross Margin plan.

• Coordinate customer meetings, sales calls, and communications related to sales programs and opportunities.

• Lead the Customer Service organization to ensure best-in-class order accuracy, and on-time delivery. Partner with Supply Chain and Operations to optimize service levels and fulfillment performance.

• Provide product needs and forecasting to the Supply Chain team to ensure appropriate stock levels and product availability through regular communications with the customers.

• Ensure compliance with all legal requirements for products and packaging.

• Provide in-depth market, industry and competitive analysis and positioning.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, or related field required. MBA preferred

• 15+ years of progressive leadership experience in consumer products with significant exposure to Lawn & Garden markets

• Extensive experience overseeing hardware retail accounts (Home Depot, Lowe’s, Walmart, etc.)

• Experience serving landscaping contractor business or B2B dealer networks in lawn & garden markets preferred

• Proven track record of P&L ownership and delivering profitable growth

• Experience leading cross-functional teams including sales, product, and customer operations

• Strong background in category management, trade spending, and retail strategy

• Be a self-starter, a highly motivated person able to work in a fast-paced environment that is continually changing.

• Travel up to ~30% to customers, trade shows, and internal meetings

The above statements describe the general nature and level of responsibilities for this position, and are not to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required of this position. Company management may assign other relevant, business-related duties.