Wild Marketing Group is seeking a highly driven, Strategic Sales Manager to lead and grow our retail business, with a primary focus on the Menard's account. This individual will take a solution-selling approach, uncovering Menard's category goals, merchandising challenges, and end-customer needs, then building and selling tailored programs that address them. They will play a critical role in winning new business, expanding existing customer partnerships, and driving strategic growth across multiple product categories, ensuring Menard's remains a top priority in all planning, execution, and relationship management efforts.
The ideal candidate combines strong product knowledge, retail expertise, and business acumen with an infectious personality that builds trust naturally with customers and internal teams alike. They lead with questions rather than pitches, act as a trusted advisor to buyers, and know how to turn customer insights into compelling, data-backed solutions. They bring deep familiarity with Menard's business culture, buying processes, and expectations and are energized by the challenge of growing and protecting that relationship. They are highly motivated, resilient, detail-oriented, and thrive in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment.
Responsibilities- Develop and grow strategic relationships within defined major accounts and across various product categories, positioning Wild Marketing Group as a trusted solutions partner
- Lead a consultative, solution-selling process with Menard's: uncover category goals, pain points, and growth opportunities, then develop tailored product and program solutions that address them
- Maintain a high level of responsiveness, accessibility, and partnership with customers
- Identify, qualify, and close new business opportunities within existing and prospective customers, owning the full sales cycle from discovery through program launch
- Use sales data, product trends, and market insights to build compelling business cases and customer recommendations that clearly demonstrate value and ROI
- Collaborate cross-functionally with product development, engineering, sourcing, creative, merchandising, supply chain, and operations teams to execute customer initiatives
- Present product concepts, packaging, merchandising, displays, and complete category solutions to customers, tying each recommendation back to the customer's specific objectives
- Manage business at the SKU level, understanding product performance, assortment opportunities, pricing, margins, freight, and promotional impact
- Partner closely with factories and sourcing teams throughout the product development and fulfillment process
- Build and manage a sales pipeline and forecast, consistently meeting or exceeding revenue and margin targets
- Effectively manage multiple priorities, projects, and deadlines while maintaining a high level of customer support and execution
Requirements
- 10+ years of sales, account management, or retail business development experience, with a proven track record of meeting or exceeding sales targets
- Demonstrated success using consultative or solution-selling methodologies (e.g., Solution Selling, SPIN, Challenger, or similar) with retail buyers
- Experience selling to large retail accounts, preferably within top 25 retailers
- Deep knowledge of big box retail environments; direct Menard's account experience is strongly preferred and considered a significant differentiator
- Understanding of product development, packaging, merchandising, and retail presentation
- Proven ability to analyze data and translate insights into actionable business strategies
- Excellent interpersonal, communication, presentation, negotiation, and relationship-building skills
- Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and problem-solving abilities
- Entrepreneurial mindset with the ability to work independently and collaboratively across teams
- High integrity, accountability, and a positive, solution-oriented attitude
- Able to be in the Menards office 3-4 times per week and lives within the Eau Claire community
