Selling Gourmet Pasteries

Business Account Manager for Dairy, Deli, Frozen – TexasI serve a dual role in Texas. For some Accounts I am the Business Account Manager and the Customer Business Manager. For others I am only the Business Account Manager strategizing for my clients. Retailers I assist serving are: H-E-B, Albertsons Southern, Brookshire Grocery, United, Affiliated Foods Amarillo, Brookshire Brothers, C&S Houston, Assoc Grocers Baton Rouge, El Rancho Supermarkets• Build and maintain close working relationships with Retail Customers, Customer Business Managers and other Business Account Managers • Collaborate with Buyers and Suppliers to build strategies for promotions, new item launches, marketing trade spends and annual planning using syndicated data and other data sources to aide in planning for growth and new items/distribution while managing KPI's. • Pitch new companies and products to Retail Grocers and internally to Customer Business Managers to sell into their retailers. • Average Business Account Manager manages 8-10 suppliers, I currently working with 15.Suppliers I assist on growing and developing are: Challenge Dairy, La Colombe, LALA, Pete and Gerry's, Saputo, Yasso, Grandma's Noodles, Florida's Natural, Chobani, Uncle Matt's, Dean Foods, Grillos Pickles, Earthbound Farms, Charles and Alice, The Town Dock

• Developed, created, customized, and oversaw promotional demo plans to support the introduction and growth of Distinctive Items portfolio for each income cluster, and by store event level.• Through Category Management Technics I built the first merchandising strategy, along with pricing, product selection and innovation, designed a follow up timeline after execution of the plan for HEB’s Chef driven kitchen program.• Worked with the BDM's and Own Brand Managers to develop, support, and implement promotional growth of the Own Brand portfolio.• Liaised with Business Unit Directors to develop strategies that supported Own Brand growth for Distinctive Items, Meal Deals, and Wine demos.• Liaised with BDM’s, Regional Offices, Operations, and Culinary Leaders to strategically plan their needs, ideas, business changes or to inform them of dept changes, capabilities, or new programs.• Sought out and mentored unique, exclusive, or distinctive suppliers to come in and demo their company’s products, bringing excitement around their products in stores.• Oversaw SESS/ISS development and enhancements to deliver sound improvements for technical advancements and changes for future technology.• Developed and implemented action plans for implementation or improvements for new selling programs, system enhancements, budgets, income and expenses, shipping, billing and training.• Planned and coordinated strategy for Corp Selling Events with Directors and other Department Leaders. • Strategically planned demo item selection across all stores and departments, creating exciting and compelling demos, with a current average Gross Margin of 44%; up from 27%. • Administered departmental expenses and promotional budget for Selling Department, Recipe Team, and Culinary Academy. • Developed a billing method that captured over $2MM in profit that was about to be lost, and assisted Accounting with annual AR collections from $12-$14MM, with no loss or write-offs in 10 years.

Managed all aspects of customer service, sales, demo scheduling, billing, A/R, shipping, and reporting processes as well as negotiated contracts, established new suppliers for supplies reducing expenses by 12% despite rising petroleum prices and material cost increases. • Improved P&L by 50+% year over year, and resolved all Customer Service complaints from HEB Stores, Buyers, and Leadership. Built teams for sales, account management, training, accounting/office, and managed HR.• Envisioned/developed new and improved ways for system usage, design and reporting methods.• Built relationships with HEB Buyers, Leaders, and National Brand vendors to participate in HEB’s demo program.PDS was in the red and experiencing low sales when I was hired to grow sales, work on building their struggling team and help the company become profitable. The company, in business for 2-years, were not making a profit with only 21,000 demos sold and struggled to reach $2MM in revenue. They had a good political leader who knew how to work top-to-top engagements with HEB, but needed support from another leader to build a sales team and increase sales. • After meeting with each staff member for 3-5 days to learn what/how/why they did it, I trained them how to search for new clients, how to sell them on our capabilities. • With the goal not losing anyone unless they were untrainable or they did not want to try different methods or work with new guidelines, I sat down with each one to offer feedback on what I saw as their strengthens, opportunities, and how I evaluated their overall performance. • Set up either a weekly or bi-weekly one-on-one with each employee. One employee (who was the weakest team member at that time) I met with daily as I believed he had potential. Impact: When recruited to join HEB, Pro Demo Services had 88,000+ demos, $10MM+ in revenue, and $1.5MM+ profit on a budget of $900K. Expenses were down 12% over prior years.

Consulting and sales training company. The focus of the company was sales training with a goal to get into Marketing. • Contracted with national companies (i.e., Whirlpool, Sears, Best Buy, Lowe’s, NPS) to train, coach, and motivate their sales associates on providing exceptional customer service, benefit/feature selling techniques, and new product launches. • Received national recognition for presentation and sales training achievements.

The company changed its name in 1995, going to Area and Zone structure from an independent bakery structure.REGIONAL SALES AND ACCOUNT MANAGER – TEXAS• Established customer relations with several grocery chains turning negative sales trends into long term positive ones. HEB Central Texas went to a 20+% sales increase for three consecutive years.• Accountable for a $40MM sales budget, CPG promotions, advertising, and incentive programs to assist in generating sales. Revised sales techniques and delivery methods that lowered HEB’s expenses and turned a negative sales trend around -5% to a +8%.DIRECTOR OF SALES AND OPERATIONS - COASTAL BEND TEXAS AND MEXICO• Accountable for $18MM sales budget and $17MM expense budget. Drove the salty snack category from $1MM to $1.5MM in 9-months to a record high and accomplished a 50% sales increase following 2-years. Reduced staff turnover from 150% to 5%.