Overview:
Title: Director of Strategic Accounts
Reports to: Vice President of Sales
Department/Division: Machine Prime Product
Branch: Columbia South
We are seeking a dynamic and experienced Director of Strategic Accounts to elevate Blanchard Machinery’s relationships with our most significant key partners in South Carolina. This senior leadership role serves as the architect of the "Total Account" strategy and the executive sponsor for the customer experience across all Blanchard divisions.
The ideal candidate will be a strategic force multiplier with a proven track record of managing large-scale, multi-stakeholder accounts. As the Director of Strategic Accounts, you will play a pivotal role in bringing the full capability of Blanchard—across Sales, Rental, Service, Parts, and Technology—to our clients, focusing on long-term value, data-driven consultancy, and proactively influencing our customers' businesses to earn increased market share and total share of business.
Ultimately, this role is about teamwork and relationships. You’ll help coordinate our internal groups so our sales teams are enabled to focus on delivering value at all levels of the enterprise. For the customer's leadership team, you will act as their primary partner—the person they rely on to remove hurdles, prove our impact on their business, and ensure everything runs smoothly.
Blanchard Machinery Company is committed to fostering a high-performance work culture with challenging work opportunities that inspire high quality results. Some of the benefits of joining our team are:
- Competitive Pay.
- Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, 401K, profit sharing, generous PTO and paid holidays, and much more.
- Exposure to world-class CAT training and development.
- A friendly and supportive work environment.
- Continuous exposure to learning and new technologies
- Opportunities for advancement
Responsibilities:
- Contribute to a positive work environment and promote the vision, mission, and values of BMC.
- Complete all job responsibilities in a safe manner, promoting and championing a safe and healthy work environment.
- Serve as the executive sponsor and single point of accountability for the customer experience across all Blanchard divisions.
- Develop and execute 1-year and 3-year strategic account plans that align total company actions with our customers' goals and drive market share growth.
- Lead quarterly executive reviews and long-term account plans that encompass the entire lifecycle relationship, including fleet health, proactive repair planning, and midlife evaluations.
- Create, maintain, and present a dynamic, quarterly "Living Dashboard" for each strategic account to visualize the customer’s entire ecosystem, including sales activity and opportunities, fleet health, rental utilization, parts spend, and predictive trends.
- Coordinate internal teams and Subject Matter Experts across all lines of business to eliminate friction, orchestrating monthly strategy sessions with Prime Product, PSSR, Rental, and Technology representatives.
- Own customer outcomes tied to Uptime, Speed to Repair, and Reliability, ensuring the delivery of commitments such as priority scheduling, parts availability, and service response.
- Use operational data and insights to identify improvement opportunities, quantify the value delivered by Blanchard, and proactively influence—rather than react to—the customer's business.
- Implement tiered strategic account management programs, including competitive OEM trade-in programs and preferential service strategies, specifically tailored for key accounts.
- Build and maintain deep, peer-to-peer relationships with C-Suite executives (Owners, CFOs, and VPs) and key organizational decision-makers to understand their total opportunity and long-term vision.
- Serve as the primary liaison and "voice of the customer" between the client, Blanchard, and Caterpillar National Accounts, providing a critical feedback loop to the OEM and ensuring alignment with OEM strategies.
- Actively represent Blanchard Machinery at a senior level within key industry associations (e.g., SCAA, CAGC, SCAPA) to ensure we are consistently represented to within the many industries we serve.
- Incorporate safety data and initiatives into account reviews, aligning Blanchard’s solutions with the customer’s safety goals to reduce risk and insurance liabilities.
- Perform all other related duties as assigned.
Qualifications:
- Minimum of 10 years of customer-facing experience in the construction, heavy equipment, or rental industry.
- Proven track record in a senior leadership or key account management role, specifically managing large-scale, multi-stakeholder accounts.
- Expert knowledge of how to utilize data to find trends, including proficiency with Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, Outlook) and CRM platforms.
- Expert knowledge of construction equipment, the rental industry, and the implications of new governmental regulations or industry trends on our customers’ businesses.
- Exceptional ability to lead collaboratively without authority, rallying cross-functional departments (Service, Parts, Sales) to drive total company results.
- Advanced selling mechanics applied to complex, long-cycle agreements, including prospecting, overcoming objections, and closing.
- Excellent oral and written communication skills with the ability to "code-switch" effectively between job site personnel and corporate executives.
- Exceptional attention to detail, deadline-oriented, and results-driven with a focus on accuracy and timeliness.
- Strong logic and reasoning skills to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions to complex customer problems.
- Ability to travel extensively within South Carolina to facilitate on-site reviews, association meetings, and internal branch collaboration.
- Flexibility for occasional overnight travel required for industry conferences or corporate training.