Agova Sales and Marketing Assistant at Agova

Agova (formerly Business Development Services Africa)
Location : Lusaka, Zambia
Contract Length: 2 years
Remuneration : ZMW 5,999.00 per month gross (incl. gratuity)

Background:

Agova is a consultancy service and its mission is to make shared value the new way of
doing business. Shared value refers to ‘a management strategy in which companies find
business opportunities in social, environmental, or economic problems’. Since 2011,
Agova has been delivering management and technical advice to actors in the private
sector in Zambia to further the expansion of business models and norms that increase
economic, social and environmental prosperity. Our mandate is to leverage capital, data
and innovative ideas to develop a sustainable form of poverty reduction; we focus on
creating win-win business models within our client organizations such that commercial
and competitive mandates can be met while improving the livelihoods of an
organization’s customer and supplier segments, who are generally the urban and rural
poor and emergent agropreneurs.

This role will act as a supportive function to the Director of Business Development in all
or most BD activities for Agova, with the intention to see you advance and grow into
increased responsibilities over time. Such increased responsibilities may include taking
on more potential client meetings with more high profile potential clients, representing
Agova at numerous networking events and conferences, expanding Agova’s
communications and marketing efforts and maintaining relationships with some of
Agova’s current and past clients.

Job Description:

This role will be reporting to the Director of Business Development.

Tasks could include (but are not limited to):

• Conduct client recruitment lead generation activities for corporate, NGO and
  SME clients including potential client research, client outreach via marketing
  emails and cold calls, setting up and coordination of meetings, maintaining client
  database, supporting potential client follow ups and attending some events;
• Writing project proposals and tenders for potential client opportunities;
• Attending, co-leading and taking minutes in some informational meetings and
  presentations/pitches with potential clients; lead meetings with smaller potential
  clients (when ready);
• Support with client retention activities such as communication with consultants on
  current projects to gather relevant information to encourage retention, support
  with consultant trainings to promote retention, etc.
• Carry out regular communications activities to market Agova’s corporate
  consulting and training courses, SME consulting services and SME co-working
  space to corporate companies, NGOs, SMEs and funders in Zambia and
  internationally. Activities include website and social media content updates and
  development, developing new communications materials and concepts to further
  promote Agova and its services, managing inventory of current communications
  materials, managing relationships with any sub-contractors, any other duties as
  required, etc.
• As deemed necessary, additional duties may involve business development
  process improvement, supporting the Agova team with grant proposal writing for
  its SME services, and supporting the coordination, customer service and
  monitoring of Agova’s pilot products and services such as grant writing, client
  courses, specialist services, etc.

Required Skills:

• A relevant four-year Bachelor’s degree (ideally a Master’s Degree);
• One to three years of relevant work experience, in business development,
  marketing and/or sales;
• Interest in Shared Value (businesses solving social/environmental challenges by
  reshaping their business strategy);
• Experience in identifying and understanding customers/clients’ challenges and
  needs in the market and a determination to find market-based solutions;
• Thrives working within strict timelines and in ‘high-pressure’ environments and
  demonstrates excellent time management skills;
• Strong communication skills (both oral and written) required;
• Has demonstrated ability to take initiative and take leadership in several areas of
  his/her department;
• Driven, ambitious and eager to learn;
• Demonstrates a positive and resilient attitude towards challenges;
• Experience in client-facing roles, interacting with senior and executive levels of
  staff is desired;
• Enjoys engaging with a host of different people and strong potential to develop
  business relationships and generate new client opportunities ;
• Ability to work independently and ability to work as a team player; and
• High-level of computer literacy with a solid command of Microsoft Office suite.

Agova Offers:

• A manager to support the person in their day to day work;
• A coach to support long-term career path;
• A competitive salary;
• Communication and transport support;
• Health Insurance;
• Professional development support;
• A comprehensive training program; and

.