Community Business Development Manager - Full-time

Barnes & Noble is an innovator in publishing, retail, and digital media, including our award-winning NOOK® products and an expansive collection of digital reading and entertainment content. We welcome creative, dedicated, and service-oriented team members who are passionate about being an integral part of our dynamic community and helping it thrive.

Whether your expertise is in retail, merchandising, publishing, marketing, technology, or finance, we have a place for you at Barnes & Noble.

As a Community Business Development Manager (CBDM) your primary duty is to maximize sales growth through outreach and events. Your sales efforts and marketing plans reinforce our bookselling culture, world-class customer service focus, digital and merchandising initiatives. You represent Barnes & Noble, cultivating existing business, generating new sales opportunities, and help to make us a valuable resource in the communities we serve.

Essential Functions:

• Drive bulk book and digital sales through proactive outreach to prospective institutional and corporate customers. Use the sales process to close sales by effectively targeting, initiating contact, conducting sales calls, and making sales presentations
• Plan, promote and oversee the execution of store events in partnership with store management while pioneering national initiatives with the goal to generate sustainable and reoccurring sales revenue
• Conduct proactive outreach to local educators to drive sales by increasing educator card enrollments and promoting our educational products and services
• Initiate meetings and conduct strategic and effective sales presentations with representatives of local schools, nonprofit agencies and literary organizations to cultivate existing accounts and to generate new business
• Analyze department sales to identify opportunities, developing strategies and action plans in partnership with the store manager to promote company initiatives and to increase store sales
• Research the local community to identify business opportunities, creating and implementing programs to expand sales potential
• Educate store team about your sales initiatives, products and services, enthusiastically model selling behavior, sharing technical knowledge, and recommending ways to connect our customers with the right solutions or products
• Complete all orders by using proper fulfillment and loss prevention procedures in accordance with Integrated Store Operations (ISO) standards
• Maintain the calendar of events, input store locator information, and handle media relations
• Leverage current store staff to implement and execute sales plans and store events
• Achieve annual sales goals outlined by the Business Development Group and consistently grow our customer base to meet the Company’s financial objectives
• Act with integrity and trust, promoting our bookselling culture and core values when interacting with the store team and customers
• Maintain a calm demeanor and manage issues professionally and according to store operating and company standards, setting a positive example

Requirements/Qualifications:

You are sales driven, perseverant and able to meet sales goals with energy and drive. You use your knowledge of the industry and community to assess current programs and identify opportunities to increase sales. You can anticipate and adjust for problems and roadblocks, allowing you to realistically plan your workload. You have effective presentation skills and are capable of influencing your audience in both formal and informal settings. You listen effectively and communicate clearly, establishing a presence and successfully adapting your style in any situation. You relate easily to people, building rapport and collaborative working relationships with your clients, your peers, and the store team. You are tactful and diplomatic, seeking feedback to ensure that you build constructive and effective partnerships. You comply at all times with the Standards, Policies and Code of Business Conduct and Ethics set out in the Bookseller Handbook.

You should have experience in one or more of the following fields: sales (preferably outbound sales in retail), education, marketing, fundraising and development, or public relations. As a CBDM, you will spend more than half of your time outside of the office setting, engaged in sales activities such as conducting outreach and local client meetings with the goal of obtaining sales commitments from existing and prospective clients. You must possess solid computer skills, including Excel, Word, email, and Internet navigation as well as strong written, verbal, and presentation skills.

Our stores are open daily, which may require early morning, evening, weekend, and holiday availability. Store and client marketing events may require some additional availability or physical activity, including maneuvering around the store and lifting.

Barnes & Noble is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer and is committed to providing employment opportunities to minorities, females, veterans, and disabled individuals, as well as other protected groups.