Head of Sales (Premium and Groups)

Job reference

REQ002523

Date posted

01/02/2022

Application closing date

11/03/2022

Location

NEC Venues

Salary

Competitive

Package

25 Days Holiday Group Personal Pension Plan Entitlement to Single Cover Private Medical Insurance Free Parking Meal Entitlement plus many other benefits

Job description

The NEC Group is the UK’s leading live events business operating in exhibitions, conferences, music, sports, family entertainment and hospitality. We Bring Live to Life, creating destinations of the future, helping customers make every moment count. From world leaders, rock and pop loyalty, to hosting some of the globe’s most well known brands, the UK’s leading venue management busines the NEC Group, welcomes millions of people through the doors of five of the UK’s most iconic venues.

This is an exciting and rare opportunity to lead our Premium Hospitality “Amplify” and Group Ticketing Sales team as Head of Sales, offering exclusive hospitality experiences and group ticketing packages for the NEC Group Arena’s venues.

Utilita Arena Birmingham, based in Birmingham City Centre, is one of the busiest, largescale indoor sporting and entertainment venues in the world and accommodates everything from music, sport and comedy, to family entertainment and live theatre. Each year, the venue hosts over 90 events and welcomes half a million visitors through its doors. The Resorts World Arena, complementing Genting UK’s neighbouring development, Resorts World Birmingham, is the UK’s largest fully integrated destination leisure and entertainment complex. The Arena hosts over 100 shows per year, welcoming over 700,000 people through its doors.

We are looking for someone exceptional, who is passionate about live events and has experience of leading a team to achieve sales targets and deliver an exceptional customer experience. The role is varied and challenging, you’ll report into the Commercial Director, to help deliver the commercial and customer strategy for Amplify and Group Ticket sales, whilst continuously seeking opportunities to maximise sales revenues. You will have experience of working in a fast paced commercial background, with a track record of building excellent relationships with internal and external stakeholders.

If this sounds like you, then we would genuinely love to hear from you!

Key Responsibilities:

General

• Reporting to the Commercial Director, Ticketing and Arenas, deliver sales strategy to grow sales revenues and profitability for Amplify, our Premium Hospitality brand and our Group Ticket Sales Business.
• Alongside the Commercial Director, track on a quarterly basis, where Amplify and Groups are measuring against the strategic initiatives and team targets.
• Lead a high performing, motivated sales team to deliver KPIs in line with our annual targets.
• To live and breathe the NEC Group values, “Customer, Teamwork, Spirit and Energise”, maintaining the highest possible standards of customer relationships and at show experience.
• To develop a culture of respect and collaboration within a team working at pace.
• To set monthly targets for the sales team and monitor performance at a team and individual level.

Amplify

• Identify and maximise opportunities to drive growth in annual membership and ongoing renewals.
• Maximise annual member spend via tickets and hospitality.
• Maximise sales of hospitality boxes and premium lounges to members and non members.
• To develop strong, long term, personal relationships with our biggest and longest standing members.
• To lead the Amplify Team, with disciplines covering sales, marketing, operations, customer service and ticketing.
• To play an active role in selling hospitality packages and memberships to customers when activity levels demand.
• To work in partnership with Amadeus, our in house catering business, to ensure that both teams work smoothly, ensuring event operations are seamless and customer experience remains high.
• To work with Amadeus to develop innovative menus to appeal to a wide range of audience profiles and age demographics.
• To work closely with our Marketing and Ticketing teams to continually evolve the Amplify brand to ensure we remain relevant, premium and profitable.
• To lead on pricing decisions and ensure costs are managed carefully to deliver increased profitability for the business.
• To prepare effective monthly forecasts for senior management and the finance team, and to Amadeus for resource planning needs.
• To play a visible role at shows, on a rota with the team, to lead the operation and be the face of Amplify to meet and greet customers.

Groups

• To provide strong, clear leadership and strategic direction to grow Groups ticketing business, Tour Companies, Coach Companies, Large groups and databases.
• Review current processes and packages and establish where improvements can be made to drive growth.
• To develop a strategy that further integrates Amplify and Groups to maximise the opportunities to up sell groups into Hospitality packages.
• Ensure there continues to be a focus on developing new business and maintain strong relationships with our current clients.
• Develop opportunities to sell groups for our key arenas clients, our off site contracts and for other arenas and venues across the UK.
• Build strong relationships across our ticketing and event management teams to ensure we can deliver fantastic customer experience for groups customers whilst ensuring operational seamlessness.

Key Skills and Experience:

• Experienced leader, with a track record of working in fast paced commercial environments and a desire to build a collaborative team culture.
• Proven track record of delivering and managing effectively your sales team’s targets.
• An energetic, self starter, clear thinker, and confident decision maker, who gets things done.
• A passion for live events and customer experience and a commitment to be there at events at often anti social hours.
• Ability to forecast and communicate accurate sales team revenues on a weekly and monthly basis.
• Evidence of leading a high performing sales team.
  Be a driven and self motivated sales professional with a proven track record of successfully winning new business and building relationships with clients.
• Significant and proven Business to Business, B2B, sales experience ideally within the Corporate or Association market.
• Ability to forecast and communicate accurate sales team revenues on a weekly and monthly basis.
• Sales experience and an understanding of the full sales lifecycle.
• Skilled in identifying new markets and opportunities to generate new leads.
• Drive and energy to succeed, must have a ‘hunting’ attitude and tenacity for the sale.
• Ability to understand the commercial drivers of the business as well as the creative ones.
• Strong relationship builder with customers and team members.
• Have a positive assertive style, good facilitation and influencing skills.
• Commercial flair with sound financial analysis.
• Must be able to understand and develop business development plans that can deliver against sales targets.
• Highly motivated, able to work with limited supervision.
• Able to adapt to a constantly changing and growing business environment.
• Strong organisational skills with the ability to prioritise an often conflicting workload.
• Strategic thinker who can think ‘outside the box’ and see bigger picture as well as the detail.
• Resilient and tenacious; Calm under pressure.
• Computer literate, Microsoft packages, Word, Power Point and Excel.
• Experience of producing sales presentations and presenting to senior management.
• Extensive experience in all aspects of customer relationship management maintaining customer confidence and account management.
• Proven ability to drive sales and increase revenue.
• Be confident and charismatic.
• Ability to develop productive working relationships with colleagues, industry peers and clients.
• A strong client service ethic with the ability to deal with clients at a wide range of levels.
• The ability to liaise and negotiate effectively.
• Well developed emotional intelligence.
• Organised and strong multi tasker.
• A confident communicator both verbally and in writing.
• Be able to work independently and as part of a team.

Benefits

• Competitive Salary
• 25 days annual leave rising to 26 after one year plus all UK bank holidays
• Free Onsite parking
• Free lunch when office based
• Potential home working options for part of the week
• Pension matching up to 7%
• We will provide you with a Life Assurance cover if you are actively contributing to the NEC group personal pension plan and have joined at the first opportunity or within 12 months of becoming first eligible
• Private Medical Insurance funded by the company
• Great Learning and Development
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Dental, Cash Health and Holiday Buy flexible option
• Exclusive Discounts and many more great benefits

The NEC Group is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, colour, age, religion, gender, sexual orientation or preference, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. NEC Group is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

Our customers come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm, you will find a home within the NEC Group.

Should you require further assistance or require any reasonable adjustments be put in place to better support your application process, please do not hesitate to raise this with us.