Use your marketing management powers for good.

Location: Knoxville

Shelton Group is the nation’s leading marketing communications firm exclusively dedicated to the sustainability sector. We help some of the most powerful organizations on the planet gain a market advantage by doing the right thing for people and the planet. How do we do it? By gathering rich market insights that help our clients make the right environmental and social purpose commitments, develop more environmentally friendly products, evolve what their brands stand for, and fuel the right stories and market engagement campaigns.

The Account Supervisor, as a liaison between clients and the agency, will be accountable for owning the client relationship and running internal project execution. Reporting directly to an Account Director, you will be responsible for the day-to-day running of accounts and/or specific campaigns and projects. You will also be responsible for ensuring overall client satisfaction throughout the marketing strategy process and managing client relationships to generate repeat business.

In this position, you will coordinate between the VP, Account Management, along with a range of agency staff and outside partners in order to execute the details of all projects and campaigns. You are the owner of the internal execution plan and will be a part of a team accountable for hitting client financial goals.

You will work closely with clients and the internal team throughout project development and execution, contributing on both a strategic and tactical level, managing administrative and organizational work, and ensuring that the work is completed on time and on budget while meeting client and agency goals and expectations. Moreover, you must understand the clients’ business, brand, goals and their limitations – proactively detecting client needs and opportunities.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Build strong internal and external relationships.
• Manage all projects and ensure all internal teams understand goals and have what they need to do the absolute best for our clients.
• Proactively identify and respond to client needs.
• Own the process, constantly thinking through ideas, opportunities and working with the VP Account Management, and/or other senior team members to ensure all work is on strategy.
• Independently manage client meetings and weekly status reports.
• Work with the Account Director(s) to intimately know the budget and scope of each client project and proactively manage expectations and agency AGI (Agency Gross Income). Secure approval of production estimates and oversee production budgets. You will ultimately be responsible for projecting budgets within 10% of actual AGI and managing projects to ensure that they are billed on budget.
• Be accountable for organic AGI growth and hitting financial targets by writing and closing new scopes of work.
• Meet financial forecasts by keeping in mind the AGI goal for the year on each client and proactively investigate and uncover new opportunities for the agency to organically grow the business.
• Develop client-ready scopes of work and keep the client/team informed through status reports, conference reports, status meetings, face-to-face meetings and any other means necessary.
• Be fully prepared for meetings, have determined goals, agenda, outcomes, and handouts ahead of time.
• Participate in the initiation, presentation, and completion of value-added projects and initiatives.
• Create briefs that inspire great work; brief media, creative and research staff, and assist with the formulation of marketing strategies.
• Coordinate with agency research department to plan and execute all types of qualitative and quantitative studies.
• Coordinate with agency creative department to plan and execute all types of creative marketing assets; present creative work to clients for approval or modification.
• Monitor the profitability of accounts.
• Learn and understand your clients’ businesses inside and out. Become the expert.
• Be a positive force within the company. As you know, this is a crazy, hectic business. Sometimes we work long hours. Sometimes we push and push for a client to accept a brilliant idea and they turn it down. Sometimes we lose out on big new business deals that we really wanted and spent months pursuing. You will be called on to help remotivate your peers and keep a positive outlook.
• To go at it 100% every day by keeping the client and other colleagues satisfied. Bring your best to work every day and put your heart and soul into all that you do.
• All other duties assigned by supervisor or otherwise directed by the Company.

Knowledge and Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in communications or marketing-related studies
• 5+ years of Account Management experience in an advertising or PR agency working and managing creative, research and production teams
• Strong verbal and written communications skills
• Demonstrated leadership, with minimum of 1 year experience managing and/or mentoring a junior account staff member
• Experience estimating, tracking and managing multi-phase projects and budgets
• Exceptional time management, attention to detail, proofreading and organizational skills
• Experience in assisting with the development of client presentations
• Demonstrated experience in handling multiple projects and working well under pressure in a fast-paced environment
• Proficient in Microsoft Office for Mac

Please send your resume and cover letter highlighting your experience and fit for the job to [email protected].

Title: Account Director
FLSA Status: Exempt
Department: Account Management
Reports To: Casey Ward

Do you speak CMO and CEO?

Are you one of those people who sees patterns, generates ideas, knows how to lay out a vision and inspires others to head down the path with you? Are you jazzed by business and get a thrill out of helping large companies succeed by being “one of the good guys?” And are you a dyed-in-the-wool communicator and marketer?

If so, meet Shelton Group, an ERM Group company. We are the nation’s leading marketing communications firm exclusively focused in sustainability. We help some of the most powerful organizations in the world realize a market advantage as a result of their commitments and actions on sustainability. We have a spot open for an Account Director to help our clients identify opportunities, overcome obstacles and properly position themselves as sustainability leaders. It means helping clients see opportunities that might not be obvious, making a data-driven case, and then crafting the action plan to get to market. It means partnering with and leading internal resources to create the story and produce assets to tell the story. And it means growing relationships, trust and revenue with those clients as a direct result of your actions.

Overview:

Account Directors at Shelton Group are a hybrid — part business management consultant, part communications director – advising clients in real time about how to leverage sustainability as a business strategy and directing creative and digital team members to craft compelling stories. The Account Director takes the lead in determining the problems clients need to solve and the opportunities they can leverage, and partners with internal resources in creating and proposing solutions. This requires maintaining deep, consultative relationships with senior-level client and agency contacts; maintaining a deep understanding of the client’s business, market situation, products and competitive set as well as an understanding of our latest market insights and the marketing industry; and becoming both a trusted advisor to clients and to the broader project and account teams. It also requires an ability to ask insightful questions, connect disparate dots, apply research insights and marketing industry knowledge, and think on your feet. This role is about creating a vision for clients AND the hands-on creation of solutions for clients – and about driving revenue for the firm in the process. Additionally, this role oversees client projects, ensuring deliverables are completed in an efficient manner – on time and on budget. And this role involves leading one or more large accounts and/or several small-to-large accounts.

Accountabilities:

Create and manage strategy for assigned accounts, generate results that meet client expectations/achieve stated goals, grow revenue of client base year-over-year.

Job Responsibilities:

Client Experience

• Leads senior-level relationships with clients and key Shelton Group players. Establishes trusted advisor relationships in which clients and colleagues seek out advice and counsel and in which you identify and offer up opportunities and ideas.
• Is a strategic partner to assigned clients by demonstrating a deep understanding of their market and business sectors and their specific challenges and opportunities. Provides thought leadership, insights, and perspectives that support client initiatives and align services and solutions with client needs.
• Is a true marketing and business consultant, able to recommend strategic ideas that connect to a client’s business strategy and position the client for market success; able to write and articulate marketing communications plans that allow a client to fully leverage their sustainability commitments and actions to build their brand and/or sell products.
• Maintains existing business relationship with assigned clients by staying closely connected to internal project teams, monitoring progress of ongoing client projects, as needed, and helping to address and resolve promptly, accurately, effectively, and to the client’s satisfaction, any issues or problems that may arise.
• Presents ideas and recommendations effectively, in an engaging, confidence-building manner – both in prepared presentations and extemporaneously in client meetings.

Operational Excellence:

• Regularly analyzes the profitability and growth of assigned client accounts through KPIs and other metrics; utilizes data in decision-making to maintain or improve account portfolio performance.
• Creates strong and effective internal partnerships with Research and Insights, Creative, Digital, and Client Management teams; collaborates across the business to ensure client needs are met and projects stay within scope, budget, timeline, quality, and other Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Effective Approach

• Maintains and utilizes a long-term, holistic view of the client’s business.
• Takes ownership of personal actions and outcomes and encourages and empowers others to do the same.
• Focuses own and the team’s efforts on achieving SMART objectives aligned to the Company’s Strategic Imperatives; acknowledges employees’ efforts and rewards results.
• Thinks strategically as well as tactically and takes a “big picture” perspective of the client.
• Sets high and clearly defined standards for direct reports; provides current, objective, and complete positive and constructive feedback and addresses performance concerns directly, fairly, and in a timely manner.
• Serves as a coach and mentor; provides coaching and feedback on specific skill development and encourages employees to pursue upward and lateral growth opportunities to enhance expertise and drive career development.
• Provides specific, objective feedback to direct reports through written performance reviews as part of the Performance Management program.
• Creates strong and effective internal partnerships and collaborates across the Company; listens and values the opinions of others.
• Is an effective team member; supports the team by pitching in at any level and effectively working across the organization to meet the needs of the business.

Revenue Growth

• Proactively seeks to increase revenue by translating assigned client’s challenges into opportunities to sell additional products and services across the Shelton Group portfolio.
• Develops and executes targeted “white space” opportunities for greater penetration of the client’s marketing spend through selling adjacent services or expanding into new client product lines.
• Leads the development and delivery of innovative proposals.
• Ensures client retention is maximized by facilitating the delivery of custom tailored solutions to meet clients’ objectives and expectations.

All other duties assigned by supervisor or otherwise directed by the Company

Qualifications / Requirements

Education:

• College degree (e.g. Bachelor of Arts) or equivalent degree within appropriate discipline such as Business, Graphic Arts, Marketing, communications.
• Graduate degree or MBA (Masters of Business Administration) preferred.

Experience:

• 8-10 years of experience managing and advising clients.
• Previous experience supervising others.
• Proven experience successfully managing and advising clients in a Creative, Public Relations, or Consulting firm.
• Proven experience meeting or exceeding sales targets with new and existing clients.
• Proven experience leading relationships and helping clients develop and deploy marketing communications within one or more industries.

Skills & Abilities:

• Strong knowledge of business models, objectives, financial metrics, etc. used in decision-making; demonstrated ability to build sound business cases to support innovative initiatives.
• Strong grasp of the business landscape and how public perception of a company’s actions and words can either drive or hamper growth.
• Strong understanding of effective digital, social and media practices, trends, techniques, and processes across various touchpoints or mediums.
• Strong understanding of effective Research/Insights practices, trends, techniques, and processes (e.g. secondary, quantitative, qualitative).
• Strong problem-solving skills; ability to proactively identify and implement effective solutions.
• Demonstrated ability to build new relationships and nurturing existing relationships with internal and external clients.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and adapt to the requirements of various client accounts; excellent client management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to profitably grow business revenue with new and existing clients.
• Demonstrated ability to influence decisions at all levels; excellent negotiation skills.
• Demonstrated ability to make effective decisions in challenging situations and/or under pressure.
• Demonstrated ability to lead, mentor and manage individual contributors.
• Demonstrated ability to work well in a team environment and develop collaborative relationships with colleagues across the Company; willingness to work with colleagues at all levels.
• Demonstrated ability to manage heavy workloads, prioritize work appropriately, and meet assigned deadlines; excellent organizational and analytical skills (including attention to detail).
• Strong presentation and communication skills (written, verbal).
• Proficient in Microsoft Office for Mac
• Ability to travel to client locations as needed.

Bottom line, if you enjoy working at a fast pace and solving clients’ problems … if you love thinking strategically and seeing beyond the numbers to the clients’ real threats and opportunities … if you love to learn and are excited to work inside a growing agency that gives you the opportunity to work with a range of skillsets and disciplines, then you may be our perfect match!

Please send your resume and cover letter highlighting your experience and fit for the job to [email protected].

Are you a freelancer looking to join a purpose for progress? Shelton Group is one of the nation’s leading marketing communications firms exclusively focused on the sustainability sector. Right now, we’re looking for top-notch freelancers that understand the language of sustainability to help us develop outstanding:

• Content
• Skilled/Seasoned Researcher with Qualitative or Quantitative experience
• Digital assets/campaigns
• Brand strategy

If you excel in any of these areas send us your resume and cover letter highlighting your experience and how you feel you could best contribute to our mission and purpose to [email protected].