Business Development Manager at Robert Walters

• We are looking for a driven, commercially sharp Business Development Manager with a strong product growth and product marketing mindset to join our sales team. This is not a traditional sales role — it is a hybrid commercial role for someone who can sell, but who also thinks like a product marketer: someone who can take new products from concept to revenue.

Product growth & commercialisation

• Partner with product, delivery, and leadership teams to commercialise new products — ensuring each product has a clear value proposition, target segment, pricing model, pitch deck, and sales process before it goes to market.
• Act as the bridge between product and sales: pull newly delivered products back into the sales cycle, package them for outbound and inbound motions, and equip the broader team with the assets and talk tracks they need.
• Build and maintain product-specific pitch decks, one-pagers, demo flows, and proposal templates across DTC, B2B, and Marketplaces (Takealot, Amazon).
• Develop go-to-market plans for new product launches — including positioning, target client lists, sequencing, pricing, and sales enablement.

New business & pipeline

• Source new business through inbound and outbound lead generation strategies, maintaining a robust pipeline of qualified client opportunities across DTC, B2B, and Marketplaces.
• Manage the full sales process: discovery, pitches, proposals, scopes (with the delivery team), and handover to project management for launch.
• Facilitate and manage the paid discovery process to ensure clients are scoped, quoted, and onboarded accurately.
• Collaborate closely with the Head of Sales / CCO to close new deals across full eCommerce builds, digital contracts, marketplace enablement, and product-led offerings.
• Track, record, and close deals against sales targets — ensuring win-win outcomes for the client, and the wider group.

AI-led prospecting & outreach

• Own and run AI-led outbound prospecting — using tools like Apollo, Clay, Instantly, ChatGPT/Claude, and lead-enrichment platforms to build, segment, and personalise outreach at scale.
• Build and continuously improve multi-channel outbound sequences (email, LinkedIn, follow-up cadences) that combine AI personalisation with sharp, human-quality messaging.
• Use AI to research target accounts and stakeholders — tech stack, recent commercial moves, pain points — and convert that research into relevant, high-conversion outreach.
• Test, measure, and iterate on outbound performance (open rates, reply rates, meetings booked, pipeline created) and feed learnings back into messaging, ICP, and product positioning.
• Stay ahead of the AI-for-sales landscape — bringing new tools, workflows, and tactics into the commercial team.

Sales enablement & process

• Ensure outbound marketing and lead-generation activities are running consistently and producing qualified pipeline.
• Research, plan, and assist the sales team in developing presentations and pitches tailored to each product line and client vertical.
• Maintain commercial discipline across systems (ClickUp, Pipedrive, Process Street) — pipeline hygiene, accurate forecasting, and clean handovers.
• Actively participate in strategic planning for the commercial team and contribute to achieving annual sales targets and strategic objectives.

Requirements:

• Diploma or degree / NQF level 6 or 7 in a relevant field (Commerce, Marketing, Business, or related discipline).
• 5+ years of experience in sales, business development, product marketing, or product growth roles — ideally with exposure to selling technology or platform-based products.
• Direct experience selling into, or operating within, the eCommerce ecosystem — including DTC, B2B, and/or Marketplaces (Takealot, Amazon, or equivalent).
• Working knowledge of ERP systems and how they integrate with commerce platforms (e.g. SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, Syspro).
• Hands-on understanding of platform and systems integration — APIs, middleware, OMS/WMS, and the practical realities of connecting commerce, ERP, and fulfilment.
• Strong grounding in retail — ideally with experience working with or selling to brands and retailers.
• Solid digital marketing literacy — performance marketing, SEO, CRM, content, and how digital channels drive eCommerce revenue.
• Demonstrable experience using AI tools in a commercial setting — AI-driven prospecting, enrichment, personalised outreach, and content/pitch generation. This is a core requirement of the role, not a nice-to-have.
• Track record of closing complex, multi-stakeholder deals with enterprise or mid-market clients.