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Opportunity Snapshot

In this newly created role you will have the opportunity to make a significant impact on our organization by bringing a new level of strategic and tactical leadership to marketing and sales. You'll be able to leverage the success and established relationships of a 73-year old organization that is highly regarded by the member clients it serves. In fact, some say we're the Northwest's "best kept secret," and you'll transform us into a high profile resource across a variety of industries.

You'll lead a number of initiatives, from enhancing our sales process to expanding the sales team to growing our presence in particular market verticals, and recommend ideas of your own. To be a good fit for this opportunity you will have extensive sales management experience as well as experience managing a marketing function. You will need a demonstrated ability to sell intangibles such as services, ideally human resources (HR) consulting, and a proven ability to develop and implement integrated marketing plans. Relationship building is the key to our business, and we're looking for a professional with demonstrated success in consultative, solution-oriented selling. Quick question for you - click here

Washington Employers is a member-based business organization that provides consultation and HR management services for companies in the Pacific Northwest. We offer a wide range of comprehensive human resources services, complete with unparalleled professional expertise and reassuring continuity of counsel. While Washington Employers has more than 80 employees, we cultivate a family atmosphere -- just one of the reasons we have an unusually large number of long-tenured people.

What Else You'll Bring to the Table

In addition to the qualifications detailed above, you'll need:

• A proven ability to build and manage a direct sales force, including leveraging metrics to drive performance and productivity.
• A demonstrated ability to develop and maintain consultative relationships with key decision makers.
• Experience with responsibility for revenue and a track record of exceeding financial goals.
• Outstanding account management skills with an emphasis on profitably growing sales.
• A highly collaborative approach and the ability to consult and partner with peers.
• Exceptional presentation, communication and interpersonal skills.
• A willingness to "roll up your sleeves" to achieve both sales and marketing goals, including making outside sales calls.
• Strong emotional intelligence.

You will spend a fair amount of time in the field in the Puget Sound area, but overnight travel will be minimal.Quick question for you - click here

What's in It for You

Strategic impact -- over the past couple of years we have pursued a proactive course to drive growth, including broadening our consultative service offerings, completing a re-branding initiative, and more. You'll drive the next key component of that course: getting the word out and building revenue.

Leverage strength and success -- this is not a case of fixing something that's broken. We're posting good numbers and a survey conducted in Spring 2009 indicates that our members are extremely satisfied with our services. Your goal will be to build on this success and these relationships to drive to the next level. And the opportunities are certainly there; for example, while our membership portfolio is quite diverse, there are a number of select verticals with high potential for you to pursue.

Improving by design -- we understand that any goals our team achieves are the result not just of working together, but of working together well. Therefore we take deliberate steps to build team skills. Most recently the entire organization has been working with Patrick Lencioni's body of knowledge in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

Great company culture -- you'll find a relaxed and collegial environment at Washington Employers, in offices overlooking Lake Union. We definitely practice what we preach: creating member loyalty is one of our primary values and we do an excellent job of it, in large part by being loyal to our members, demonstrating respect, and offering expert advice. We encourage all our staff to grow professionally and we value work/life balance.

Excellent compensation -- in addition to a competitive salary and bonus potential, we offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes fully paid medical insurance, a 401(k) as well as a defined benefit plan, and more.

More About Your Role

If you're a good fit for this position, you already know most of what this job entails. However, to be sure we're providing a complete picture, here are some details.

Reporting to the President you will oversee an initial staff of four (two are in place; you'll bring on the other two) that includes a Member Acquisition Manager, two Account Managers, and a Marketing Manager. If all goes according to plan, this team will grow. You'll work closely with the leadership team, made up of Directors of service/practice areas (Legal and Labor Relations, Workers Compensation, HR Consulting and Health Plans), the CFO and the President.

We recently partnered with a consultant to develop an action plan for strengthening our sales and marketing efforts (hiring a Director of Sales & Marketing is one action item on the plan), and your mission will be to implement those actions. We'll also look to you to flesh out the plan, recommending strategies and tactics of your own. Quick question for you - click here

Among the key actions, many of which are under way, are hiring more dedicated sales staff, developing and implementing a comprehensive sales approach and putting sales metrics in place. Regarding the sales approach you will work with your sales team as well as with the service line Directors and their staffs, both to develop strategies specific to their service areas and to coach them on their sales skills. Quick question for you - click here

With regard to marketing you will develop and implement programs to generate leads and, in general, raise the visibility of Washington Employers. You'll make sure we are making optimal use of our recent re-branding initiative and also approaching marketing with a high level of professionalism.

In both sales and marketing your strategies will focus on growing our membership base, including expanding into targeted market segments, and growing existing accounts via consultation and cross selling. Building and maintaining relationships is at the heart of our success, and you'll lead by example in this area, spending a fair amount of time in the field developing key relationships.

Keys to Success

If you are the savvy professional we're looking for, you've already "read between the lines" and realized that sales and marketing are a work in progress at Washington Employers. You'll find that expertise and service are part of our fundamental DNA -- your mission will be to ensure that consultative selling is also embedded in our genetic makeup. To excel in this role you will bring strong collaboration skills; an in-your-face approach won't work in our organization. In addition, you'll need to be creative in achieving goals with the resources at hand.

If this sounds like the right mix of challenge and opportunity for you, and you meet the minimum qualifications, we want to hear from you!

Who We Are

At Washington Employers our business is helping organizations deal with the complexities of human resource management. Since 1936, member companies have relied upon us to be their single source for consultation on all matters affecting the employer-employee relationship.

Our professional staff of expert human resource managers and attorneys provides timely, practical, and real world advice tailored precisely to the needs of our members. When we consult on a current issue, our advice takes into account the circumstances and recommendations from previous consultations just as if an in-house department were doing the work, only without the expense.

The following are some of the services we offer:

• Information Resource: useable, practical, and comprehensive local human resource management information.
• Training and Development Programs: our members have the opportunity to participate in numerous highly effective programs and seminars that reflect 10,000+ participants annually.
• Consulting Services: members save money and time when our experts handle their major human resource-related projects.
• Human Resource Advice and Policies: we offer a preventive management approach based on experience with over 1200 organizations.
• Employee Benefits: we are able to provide cost-effective benefits through group pooling.
• Governmental Regulations: our experts assist members in understanding the practical implications of compliance decisions.
• Collective Bargaining: we offer the reassurance of having 70 years of local experience with hundreds of labor contracts.

We are an equal opportunity employer. EOE M/F/D/V

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