Business Consultant at Discovery Limited

Key Purpose

• This role is required to build strong relationships and proactively drive ongoing engagements with key broker partners, create and implement sales strategies to achieve new business sales targets and ultimately drive the sales of all products in the Corporate and Employee Benefits business

Areas of responsibility may include but not limited to

• Proactively build personal relationships with the key contacts at the brokers in your broker panel
• Segmenting your broker panel into different tiers and prioritizing them accordingly
• Proactively involve the other senior/executive members of the growth team to build relationships at different levels at the brokers in your broker panel
• Develop and on an ongoing basis, execute the sales and growth strategy for the brokers in your broker panel
• Identify strategies and tactics to achieve your sales targets through broker partnerships
• Proactively create, manage and drive a pipeline of deals across all CEB products with the brokers in your broker panel
• Take proactive steps to put the Discovery brand and our employee benefits value proposition as top of mind in the broker distribution network
• Be/become the trusted partner of the brokers in your broker panel
• At all times represent Discovery in a highly professional, tactful and proactive manner
• Identifying gaps, opportunities and areas of improvement to enable growth in new business generation and lead-to sale conversion
• Engage and build strong relationships with all relevant internal stakeholders in relation to quotes, servicing, onboarding and all other relevant activities
• Always keep the Head of Corporate Distribution, the Chief Growth Officer and Growth Exco up to date about all the points above, ensuring awareness, progress on sales plans, pipeline management, risk mitigation and obstacle removal are well managed and supported collectively, including the supporting responsibility of the Growth Exco
• Track, analyse and take proactive steps to meet key performance metrics
• Issue new business quotations within agreed timelines
• Proactively engage the relevant consultant at your brokers in relation to key quotes, before and after submission of quotes, to gather information that will enable us to put our best proposal on the table, thereby maximizing our prospects of success for the relevant quote
• Obtain feedback from brokers on lost deals to enable us to improve future quotes
• Provide technical training and ongoing product support to financial advisors
• Keep up to date with competitor product and service offerings and industry developments
• Actively participate in proactive sales and marketing initiatives
• Being detailed orientated and taking the necessary steps to ensure that the Marketing Associate dedicated to you perform all their tasks and duties in line with requirements relating to accuracy and set standard and timelines
• Take full responsibility for all quotes issued to the brokers in your broker panel
• Adhere to requirements in relation to accuracy, set quality standards, engagement expectations and timelines relating to broker engagements and quote submission
• Building strong internal relationships, particularly with functions directly involved in new business quotes

Competencies

• Ability to build strong relationships (internal and external).
• Being strongly client focused.
• Being detail orientated.
• Strong proactivity in key areas of the role.
• Logical, analytical problem-solving ability.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to work independently.
• Ability to take accountability, responsibility, and ownership.
• Able to take initiative and exercise sound judgment and decision making.
• Ability to work in a highly pressurized, target oriented environment.
• Ability to deal positively with change and uncertainty.
• Strong business acumen.
• Strong sales and persuasive skills.
• Strong quality orientation.
• Good organizational, task management and prioritization skills.
• Being proactive and self-motivated.
• Ability to meet deadlines timeously.

Education and Experience

Qualifications

• Business degree (advantageous)
• RE5 (preferable)
• NQF5 in Wealth Management of Financial Planning / 120 FAIS credits (preferable)
• Knowledge of MS Office Suite
• Sales experience in employee benefits
• Knowledge of MS Office Suite
• Relevant financial services industry experience

Experience

• More than 5 years Employee Benefits Consulting, Client Servicing or Sales experience
• Demonstrated history of building strong relationships with key stakeholders relevant to role Relevant financial services industry experience
• Demonstrated experience of delivering new business sales results
• Sound Employee Benefits industry experience
• Adviser consulting experience in the financial services industry is advantageous

Requirements

• Valid driver’s licence and insured and reliable car
• Smart-phone
• Willingness to travel