Director, Syndication Sales

This is a Full Time Job

Director, Syndicated Sales

Sony Pictures Television U.S. Distribution

Sony Pictures Television (SPT) is looking for a talent Director, Syndicated Sales to join our dynamic U.S. Distribution team. The Director, Syndicated Sales will focus on selling programing to television stations, building and maintaining strong customer relationships while also creating development strategy. Excellent communication, interpersonal and negotiation skills are critical to achieving success in this role.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Sell programming to television stations, build customer relationships and research competitive information:

The Director will call on 40+ markets and 120+ stations. This role will prepare and deliver written and verbal sales presentations both in person, via video conference and phone. The specific sales focus will be: The Goldbergs, Blacklist, Seinfeld, King of Queens, The Dr. Oz Show, Community, Rules of Engagement, feature film packages, library product, et al.

This position requires the ability to build objectives for sales calls, establish sales strategies and assess customer needs. The Director will be responsible for full understanding of the competitive landscape of each market. This landscape will provide a guideline to create market specific sales strategies. This role will determine the best opportunities for SPT programming; anticipate customer concerns and objections, highlighting SPT strengths and points of difference to the client base.

During the sales process, the Director will develop offers for Sony programming in all necessary television markets. The position requires up to forty plus weeks of travel annually. In addition to developing offers for SPT product, while travelling on company business, the Director will utilize business meetings, client lunches and dinners to develop long term business relationships with customers. While not travelling in a specific market, it is expected that he/she will stay in contact with clients regularly via phone and email.

During the sales timeline, this position will strategize with the SVP/Western Region to negotiate license fees for off-network and first-run programs and narrow time period windows to maximize ratings and revenues. Much of this role's business will require interaction with colleagues in other offices. It is essential that the Director build and maintain quality relationships with the salespeople in each SPT sales office. Local market deals will regularly have ownership group impact and require specific coordination with the group salesperson. Succinct and accurate communication is necessary to ensure that all parties are comfortable with the deal making process.

Plan and set up market visits to meet with each station:

The position requires advance planning of local market travel. The Director will work with SPT Travel and the sales coordinator to schedule trips. All travel must adhere to SPT travel policy. The Director will, in advance, set up appointments with customers, allowing appropriate time during the trip and meetings to achieve business goals. Eighty percent of travel planning is done from the LA (home) office with the remaining twenty percent is completed while traveling.

Account maintenance and strategy development:

At the home office, this role will work with other SPT departments to fully understand the business cycle and impact of SPT programming in the marketplace. The Director will work with Research to understand history and trends of local television stations. This position will collaborate with Affiliate Marketing to ensure that SPT's partner stations are properly promoting and supporting our products. This role will work with the Credit department to ensure that our customers are credit-worthy and paying in a timely fashion. In addition, this position will analyze industry information (compiled by Research) to develop presentation strategies that best advance the sale of SPT content. As a Los Angeles based position, it is expected that the Director will maintain these inter-departmental relationships in person.

Initiate new projects, hone expertise and apply continuous improvement:

The Director position requires a creative and proactive approach to current sales initiatives as well as new and unforeseen opportunities. The Director will attend various industry conventions to understand SPT's customers businesses. The Director will continually seek to improve upon existing sales practices, identifying areas that can become more effective and/or efficient and make strategic recommendations to affect change. This person will be responsible for investing in his or her personal growth within the company by utilizing various educational/professional resources offered by SPT and SPE.

REQUIREMENTS:
• Bachelor's degree preferred
• Two or more years of experience in a director role or similar in entertainment; five or more years of entertainment experience and knowledge in the space, television industry preferred
• Powerful communication, interpersonal and relationship skills
• Tremendous teamwork skills, ability to fit into a team environment
• Superior organizational and time-management skills
• Excellent negotiating and dispute resolution skills
• Ability to work independently and think strategically
• Skill in establishing long-term business relationships of trust and understanding
• Extremely strong service orientation
• Ability to work on several projects concurrently while maintaining attention to detail
• Must be flexible and adapt quickly to changing needs
• Ability to strategize with and delegate to others in research and affiliate relations when necessary
• Excellent computer skills - MS Office, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook

*Sony Pictures Entertainment is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, veteran status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other protected characteristics.

* Sony Pictures - NY - New York City