Regional Sales Director-Foodservice

The Regional Sales Director is responsible for driving sales performance, revenue growth, distribution, and market execution for Happy Dad across an assigned region. This role leads the development and execution of regional sales strategies while building strong relationships with distributor partners, senior distributor leadership, retailers, and key accounts. The Regional Sales Director will lead, coach, and develop the regional sales team while partnering closely with Sales Strategy, Marketing, Trade Marketing, Finance, Operations, and other internal teams to achieve company goals.

Regional Sales Leadership and Performance
· Develop and execute regional sales strategies to achieve or exceed annual volume, revenue, distribution, and execution goals.
· Inspire and lead the regional sales organization toward achievement of weekly, monthly, trimester, and annual company goals.
· Establish clear performance expectations and hold the team accountable to company KPIs, priorities, and commitments.
· Analyze sales trends, depletion performance, distribution, velocity, and market conditions to identify opportunities and performance gaps.
· Develop corrective action plans when markets, distributors, customers, or team members are not achieving expectations.
· Identify emerging market and consumer trends and develop strategies to capitalize on future growth opportunities.
· Distributor and Retail Relationship Management
· Build and maintain strong relationships with distributor principals, senior management, sales leadership, and field sales teams.
· Establish consistent communication and call frequency with assigned distributors to drive sales, distribution, execution, and share of mind.
· Manage distributor planning, forecasting, inventory, pricing, execution, and performance reviews.
· Conduct documented Top-to-Top business reviews with the region's Tier A wholesalers.
· Conduct a minimum of one planning meeting per quarter with the region's top 10 distributors.
· Monitor distributor inventory levels and proactively address out-of-stocks, excess inventory, forecasting issues, and supply concerns.

Sales Execution
· Drive execution of national and regional promotions, pricing programs, innovation launches, displays, and brand initiatives.
· Identify new market, retailer, channel, and account opportunities across chain, independent, convenience, liquor, grocery, and on-premise channels.
· Conduct regular market visits to evaluate retail execution, competitive activity, and business opportunities.
· Ensure market activity is focused on priority accounts, execution opportunities, distribution growth, and business development.
· Seek out appropriate marketing, sampling, promotional, and special-event opportunities that support regional sales objectives.

Lead, coach, and develop Area Managers, Territory Managers, and other regional sales personnel.
· Provide ongoing coaching, training, feedback, and development for direct reports.
· For Regional Sales Directors with five or more direct reports, complete a minimum of two formal ride-withs per employee annually.
· Use ride-withs to coach selling skills, distributor management, retail execution, business planning, and leadership development.
· Conduct regular regional team meetings to communicate priorities, review performance, address gaps, and align on upcoming initiatives.
· Market Planning, Analytics, and Opportunity Identification
· Utilize syndicated data, distributor depletion reporting, CRM tools, and internal scorecards to evaluate performance and guide decision-making.
· Maintain proficiency with platforms such as VIP, Karma, or similar distributor reporting and CRM systems.
· Conduct regular forecasting reviews and identify risks and opportunities versus company targets.
· Develop and manage regional pricing strategies, including price increase recommendations, distributor sell-in, and cents-per-case analysis.
· Provide senior management with clear assessments of regional performance, opportunities, risks, and recommended actions.
· Provide market intelligence and retailer/distributor feedback to help guide company strategy, innovation, pricing, programming, and resource allocation.

Financial Management
· Manage and evaluate regional investments, incentives, programming, travel, entertainment, and other sales expenditures.
· Partner with Finance and Sales Strategy to evaluate the financial return of regional programs and investments.

Partner closely with Marketing and Trade Marketing to develop and execute programs that increase awareness, trial, distribution, and sales.
· Collaborate with Finance, Operations, Supply Chain, Sales Strategy, and senior leadership to support regional business objectives.
· Ensure regional sales strategies and market activity are aligned with broader Happy Dad company priorities.

CRM, Reporting, and Accountability
· Use company CRM and reporting platforms to document required market activity, account visits, business reviews, commitments, and follow-up actions.
· Complete a minimum of 50 unique account visits per quarter and 200 unique account visits annually.
· Deliver monthly reviews of assigned distributor performance to Happy Dad senior management and distributor leadership as appropriate.
· Track regional sales performance, execution gaps, commitments, opportunities, and follow-ups through required company platforms.
· Maintain clear communication with senior management regarding significant regional opportunities, risks, and performance developments.

Account Visit Expectations
·
Quarterly Goal:
50 unique account visits
·
Annual Goal:
200 unique account visits
· Account visits must be documented within the company CRM platform.
· Visits should focus on priority customers, execution opportunities, competitive activity, key retailer relationships, and strategic market development.
10+ years of sales experience within the beverage alcohol industry, preferably across multiple markets and distributor networks.
· Minimum 3–5 years of sales leadership and people-management experience preferred.
· S. three-tier beverage alcohol system.
· Experience working across multiple channels, including chain, independent, convenience, liquor, grocery, and on-premise.
· Strong analytical capabilities with experience utilizing syndicated and distributor sales data.
· Familiarity with Circana/IRI, VIP, Karma, CRM platforms, or comparable sales and distributor reporting systems.
· Strong forecasting, financial management, pricing, and business-planning capabilities.
· Excellent leadership, communication, presentation, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.
· Proficiency with Google Workspace, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, and related business tools.
· Ability to travel up to 40% of the time.
· Must live within or near the assigned primary sales territory.
· Bachelor's Degree preferred.
· Passion for the beverage alcohol industry, brand building, and the Happy Dad brand.