About us

SMG is one of the most exciting growth companies in the UK today. Home to three award winning agencies, Capture, Lobster and Threefold. At SMG, our people are at the heart of everything we do and are our biggest asset. We are proud to provide opportunities for fast career growth, recognising and rewarding great work, and doing this within an inclusive, highly flexible, and innovative environment.

We are dedicated to support our employees to be the best version of themselves both inside and outside of work. We have an extraordinary culture built by exceptional people and it’s because of this that we’ve been recognised as 2nd in Best Companies marketing and media's best agencies to work for, and we’ve just received our 3 star accreditation from Best Companies, making us a World Class company to work for.

Across the group, we have a shared mission to lead connected commerce marketing.

Read a summary of what each of our agencies do here!

The role

We are looking for a Business Development Director to join SMG and lead the acquisition of partnerships across all three of our award-winning commerce marketing agencies. This is a really exciting opportunity for someone to work to unlock new in-market relationships as well as pitching and closing new opportunities.

Our agencies are based across the UK and we operate a hybrid working model, so if you are based in or around one of our main office hub locations (Manchester or London), we want to hear from you!

What you'll be doing

We pride ourselves on creating challenging and exciting opportunities, meaning that no two days are the same. However, here's an idea of what your responsibilities will look like:

• Lead a team to achieve budgeted growth ambitions; meeting or exceeding defined margin targets per agency.
• Support setting financial targets in budgeting moments as requested.
• Provide accurate and insightful reporting of progress towards defined financial targets to SMG's SLT; define and discuss notable trends and actions to fast track the conversion of opportunities.
• Work autonomously across the business development cycle; unlock new in-market relationships as well as pitch and close new opportunities including the development of commercial proposals.
• Use a blend of engagement tactics to drive traction with key contacts including colder outreach, entertainment, events (attendance and co-ordination), awards, content development and distribution etc. Keep a pulse on 'what works' and proactively shape business development tactics accordingly.
• Each SMG agency has clear target prospects and as such the BD team leans on a hyper personalised engagement approach.
• Ensure all sales resources are best in class to support conversion efforts.
• Take a consultative approach to in-market conversations; unlock a detailed understanding of the needs of potential partners and map back key services by agency.
• Work as part of a small, specialist and determined team to knowledge share and maximise opportunities for SMG.
• Work in collaboration with each agency and department lead (Managing Director through to Client Director) to knowledge share insight on in-market barriers to purchase, creating plans to address these.
• Champion Business Development across the group, work to drive excitement for the department across wider colleagues.
• Support SMG's marketing efforts, creating and distributing key content, attending events etc.
• Own/support (scale depending) any up front consultation work with potential partners to sharpen our understanding of needs; this can include interviewing key stakeholders etc.
• Colleague management.
• Make recommendations on team ways of working/structure and deliver aligned changes.
• Make investment recommendations on key tools/in-market partners to fast-track business development.

What you'll need to have / be

• A proven track record of delivering business growth in a fast-paced environment. 
• A blend of strong commercial acumen and creative thinking. 
• A high degree of autonomy with a drive to succeed. 
• A strong problem solving/analytical mind-set, not afraid to challenge the norm. 
• Strong interpersonal, communication and presentation skill set.

P.s. we try really hard to make sure that we list only essential criteria here, BUT if you think you can do an amazing job, yet don't have every single thing on this list, we'd still love to hear from you.

The best bits

Here at SMG we are dedicated to continuously reviewing and improving our benefits package to offer the best that we can for our people. We have a whole page dedicated to our benefits here, but here's some of our favourites...

💰 Generous discretionary bonus scheme

🧘‍♂️ £1,200 yearly wellbeing fund (on top of your salary!) towards your personal wellbeing and passions

📚 £500 yearly “Uni Fund” towards learning and development

🎧 Free headspace subscription

🕐 4pm Friday finishes all year round

🥳 Two fully paid conferences a year at Summer & Winter, as well as a dedicated team that put on activities and celebrations throughout the year

The process

1. We will invite you to a first interview which we try to keep relatively informal, so it gives you the opportunity to share your authentic self. The hiring team will be looking to understand more about your experience and why you're interested in working with us.
2. There will be a second interview which will last a little longer, and involve some form of task to showcase your ability to do the role.
3. We then invite you to a meet & greet which is an opportunity for you to meet the team you'll be joining and ask them questions about the role and wider business.

🌟 Helping you shine 🌟

We are committed to helping you shine and show your full potential by making any changes you might need throughout your application. If you need an alternative way of applying for this role, support with understanding the role and its requirements, changes to be made to the way we hold our interviews, or anything else, then please reach out to us. You can either let us know on your application form or contact the people team to discuss how we can help on careers@shoppermediagroup.com.

🤝 SMG are proud to be an equal opportunities employer 🤝 

We are fully committed to providing equality in the workplace and ensure all opportunities for, and during employment, will be afforded to individuals fairly and irrespective of age, disability, gender, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race including colour, ethnic or national origins and nationality, religion or belief or sexual orientation ("the protected characteristics"). We want our organisation to reflect the diversity of our communities and we welcome applications from people from all backgrounds. More information on what we are doing can be found here.

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