Sales Manager

Location: Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Department: Sales

As a Sales Manager at 3M, you will drive profitable growth within an assigned territory by acquiring new customers, expanding wallet share with existing accounts, and delivering value through application-based solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Sales & Growth: Achieve monthly, quarterly, and annual revenue and product mix targets. Drive new business development through prospecting, lead conversion, and pipeline management. Execute account plans and opportunity strategies in alignment with OP and OLCG goals.

• Customer Engagement & Solution Selling: Conduct regular customer visits, technical demos, trials, and joint application development. Identify customer needs and recommend adhesives and tapes solutions that improve process efficiency. Coordinate with technical service and application engineers to ensure successful trials and adoption.

• Territory & Funnel Management: Manage territory coverage, call cycles, and visit frequency to maximize reach and productivity. Maintain a healthy opportunity funnel with accurate stage definitions, value, and probability. Use the designated CRM for lead tracking, meeting notes, action plans, and forecasting.

• Commercial Excellence: Prepare and negotiate proposals within pricing and discount guardrails. Ensure on-time invoicing, collections, and DSO adherence; resolve billing and payment issues proactively. Monitor competitor activity, market trends, and customer risks; update counter-strategy plans.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with marketing for Ad Merch programs, campaigns, and promotion-led demand generation. Collaborate with supply chain for stock allocations, backorder mitigation, and aged inventory liquidation. Align with finance on credit limits, CIR impacts, and budget adherence.

• Compliance & Governance: Adhere to company policies on ethics, safety, EHS, trade compliance, and documentation. Maintain accurate records of trials, approvals, contracts, and regulatory requirements.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Science, or Business (Mechanical, Chemical, Production preferred) or equivalent experience.
• 3–7 years of field sales experience in industrial/B2B (adhesives, tapes, industrial consumables, or related).
• Proven track record in solution selling, negotiation, and closing.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with OEMs, converters, fabricators, and key accounts in automotive, electronics, packaging, construction, or general manufacturing.
• Hands-on exposure to process lines (e.g., lamination, assembly, gasketing, bonding); understanding of substrates and surface prep.
• Proficiency with CRM (e.g., Salesforce), Excel, and data-driven forecasting.

Core Competencies

• Product & Application Knowledge – Understand bonding mechanisms, test methods, and ROI/TCO.
• Consultative Selling – Diagnose problems and build value-led proposals; handle objections.
• Territory Discipline – Plan visits, optimize routes, and maintain call cadence.
• Negotiation & Margin Protection – Balance price, value, and terms within guardrails.
• Data Literacy – Use CRM and reports for pipeline, forecast accuracy, and performance tracking.
• Resilience & Ownership – Target orientation, self-motivation, and bias for action.
• Collaboration – Work seamlessly with technical, marketing, supply chain, and finance.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Revenue vs OP; OLCG contribution.
• NBD wins: number/value; conversion cycle time.
• Funnel health: coverage (≥3×), stage progression, forecast accuracy.
• DSO, collection efficiency, and overdue reduction.
• Ad Merch program effectiveness (leads, trials, conversions).
• Customer retention, expansion, and satisfaction.
• Visit productivity: calls/week, qualified meetings, trial-to-adoption rate.

Travel & Work Conditions

• Field-intensive role; ~50–70% travel within territory.
• Customer site work may require PPE and adherence to plant safety norms.
• Early starts or late visits as per customer production schedules.