Business Development Manager

Who We Are:
Challenge’s mission is to manufacture with operational excellence by empowering our employee-owners. As a leading tier 1 supplier of complex metal assemblies for the global automotive industry, we drive innovative solutions for future mobility. We believe the best ideas come from individual unique perspectives. These ideas combined with the teamwork of industry leaders allow us to accomplish any challenge. Our team members take pride in the work we do and embody our core values of safety, ownership, and teamwork every day; they are the true driving force in our operations.

Challenge is proud to be one of the largest employee-owned automotive companies in North America. One of the many benefits of joining the Challenge team is the ESOP program. This program allows Challenge to give shares of the Company to all employee-owners annually. These shares are an additional retirement benefit that will continue to grow during your time at Challenge. Being part of an ESOP means our employee-owners share in Challenge’s success!

Together we own Safety! Challenge is #QualityDriven and #PeoplePowered!

Who We Want:
We are looking for an energetic, self-motivated, results-driven professional to help cultivate new business and create sales opportunities with current and prospective customers. Their goal will be to identify new opportunities in the market as well as expand growth with our current customer base. This person will be responsible to gather necessary information so our teams can respond with a proposal for sourcing consideration. They will need to develop and maintain relationships at multiple levels of accounts in order to be effective, understand the needs of the customer, and work internally to position Challenge properly to be successful but today and in the future.  

What You'll Do:

• Facilitate new business opportunities and close sales with key accounts. Works closely with estimating and finance teams to process competitive, accurate quotes for customer review.
• Work closely with customers to review quotes opportunities and provide value during the sale in order to differentiate Challenge beyond the numbers on paper. This includes technical support, VA/VE discussions, and more.
• Work to stay ahead of industry trends, shifts, and opportunities so the company can remain current or ahead of industry needs.
• Monitor long term forecasting and build/execute strategies to support company sales goals.
• Provide insight and feedback to company leadership keeping everyone appraised with significant changes in the market and/or at customers. Also communicate any company feedback that would hinder new sales efforts such as quality or performance related items so they can be addressed.
• Expand Challenge diversification efforts and identify new sales accounts that align with Challenge capabilities and locations providing additional opportunity for targeted growth in the future.
• Work closely with Account Managers in order to keep open commercial items with customers limited.
• Provides technical training and presentations to customers and communicates feedback internally for future product development ideas.
• Keep pulse of accounts internal activity by following the status of new program launches and plant performance.
• Manage quoting, sampling, and new business discussions for customers.
• Champion and drive completion of requests to meet customers on-time expectations.
• Be a solutions provider for our customers to allow the overall business to operate as smoothly as possible to maintain/grow customer loyalty.

When and Where:
This will be a corporate position located at our home office in Walker, MI. 
Occasionally, this may require you to arrive early, stay late, or work on weekends, outside of our regular hours, to ensure we successfully meet customer needs, deadlines, or urgent requests.

What You Need to Have:

• Minimum of five years’ OEM Sales, Business Development and/or Program Management experience required
• Bachelor’s Degree strongly preferred
• Outgoing with positive attitude
• Technical or automotive background is a strong plus
• Strong communication skills and ability to connect with many types of customers
• Ability to plan and manage at both strategic and operation levels
• Expert knowledge in Microsoft Office Applications
• Outstanding consultative selling skills
• Excellent communication, follow-thru, interpersonal, presentation, problem solving, and analytical skills
• Team player and self-directed
• Sales growth and strategic planning to support the Company Sales Strategy
• Forecasting and budgeting experience
• Proven ability t