Polydrain Civils Ltd
Business Development Manager (London, SE and East of England)
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Region
London, the South East and East of England
Location
Field-based across the region, with time at our West Bromwich factory as the job needs it
Reports to
Managing Director
Contract
Full-time, permanent
Who we are
Polydrain Civils is a family-run British water management solutions business, manufacturing in West Bromwich. Our range covers the key parts of the water management cycle - drain, treat, attenuate and infiltrate, inspect, access - and we sell it as systems rather than products: one manufacturer for the whole package below the ground. Our customers are civils and landscaping merchants, groundworks contractors and the engineers who design drainage for housing, logistics, infrastructure and commercial schemes across the UK and Ireland.
The business has just made a significant investment in its future: a new three-acre site and a doubling of the machine base from 13 to 27, including larger injection moulding machines that let us make bigger products. There is a region to develop and a factory that has just doubled its capacity to back you.
The job
You own the sales number for your region. That means three things: getting Polydrain stocked and selling through the merchant network, winning the groundworkers and civils contractors who pull product through those branches, and getting Polydrain named on drawings by the engineers who specify it. You run all three.
This is a new-business role. There are accounts in the region already and you will keep them well served, but the job is not a milk round of existing customers. It is opening the ones we don't have. We are hiring a hunter, not a farmer, and we expect you to arrive with a network of merchants, contractors and specifiers you can start working almost immediately.
You will be on site, in branches and in design offices more than you are at a desk.
What you'll do
Our internal sales team takes on the day-to-day running of accounts - orders, admin, routine queries - so that your time goes on new business and growth: the next branch, the next contractor, the next spec, and getting more from the accounts you have already opened.
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Merchants
- Open branches that don't stock Polydrain today, across independent and national civils and landscaping merchants, and get a first order on the shelf, not just a listing on the system
- Use your existing branch relationships to get in front of the right managers fast; we expect your first stocking orders to come from people who already take your calls
- Train branch staff so they quote us first, with internal sales covering the routine servicing between your visits
- Run branch trade days and on-site demos and judge them by the orders they produce
Contractors
- Map the top 20 groundworks and civils contractors in your region, get in front of the person who decides, and get them trading
- Take our products to site: demos and trial installations against the incumbent products are how we win groundworkers, and you will be the one running them
- Turn every successful installation into a reference you can take to the next contractor, and into case studies and content we can use in our marketing
Specifiers
- Get in front of civil and structural engineers, drainage consultants and housebuilder technical teams who have never specified us, starting with the ones you already know
- Get Polydrain named in drainage strategies and SuDS designs, and defend that specification through to order
- Deliver CPD sessions and technical support, supported by in-house technical engineering where needed
Pipeline and reporting
- Prospect every week. Cold calls, site visits and branch drop-ins are the job, not what you do when the diary is empty
- Keep every live project in the CRM with stage, value and next action, so forecasting is a report, not a conversation
- Work project leads from planning through tender to order
- Weekly pipeline call with the MD and a monthly forecast, with new accounts opened as the first number on the page
The wider business
- Feed what you hear on site back to product development and pricing
- Represent Polydrain at national and regional trade events
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What good looks like after 12 months
- New accounts opened and ordering inside 90 days, from the network you brought with you
- Region revenue at or above target, with a good proportion of it from accounts that were not trading with us when you started, and a pipeline that covers the following year
- The top 20 contractors in your region mapped and met, with at least half of them placing repeat orders
- A prospect list that is always longer than your customer list, and a CRM the MD can forecast from without ringing you
Who we're looking for
You'll need
- At least three years in field sales for drainage, civils, SuDS or heavy-side building products, with a number you have hit
- Existing relationships with civils merchants and groundworkers in the region. You should be able to name the branches and contractors you would call in your first month
- Enough technical grounding to read a drainage drawing and talk attenuation volumes, flow rates and load classes with an engineer without reaching for a brochure
- Comfort on a live site in PPE and in a consultant's boardroom, on the same day
- The discipline to run your own diary and keep a CRM current without being asked
- A full UK driving licence and willingness to travel across the region, with some overnight stays
It would help if you have
- Working knowledge of CIRIA C753 and the SuDS National Standards
- A civil engineering or construction qualification, though track record counts for more
How we work
We are a family business. Decisions are quick, titles are light and the owners and MD are hands-on in the business. We make things in the Black Country and we are proud of it. We would rather you told us something was wrong than told us what we wanted to hear.
If you are good at this and tired of being one of forty reps in a large corporate, this is a chance to build a region your way and be seen doing it.
Polydrain Civils is an equal opportunities employer. If you need any adjustments during the application process, let us know.
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