An exciting opportunity has arisen to join our team as a Sales and Marketing Innovation Advisor. supporting members at our Falmer, East Croydon and Brighton Centres. This is a pivotal role in the support team, and an excellent opportunity to leverage your understanding and practical experience of marketing and sales to provide new or growing companies with strategic insight, coaching and hands-on support.

Sussex Innovation works with start-ups, inventors, innovators, and academics to take their projects to market or grow their existing businesses sustainably and profitably. You will be part of the on-site support team who offer advice, mentoring, workshops and practical tools to foster that growth.

The purpose of the role is to use your practical experience of sales and marketing to help start-ups and innovators develop effective marketing and sales activity. On the ground, this activity will include one to one mentoring, facilitating Sussex Innovation authored workshops, and developing/delivering practical tools in response to our customers’ needs.

Working as a consultant you will provide expert advice to our members, helping them to:

Understand who their first customers and target market(s) will be for their new innovation/product or service
Devise lean and cost-effective marketing strategies and tactics that start-ups can implement to acquire first customers and quickly accelerate their growth
Help them understand the importance of developing a strong coherent brand, including working with them to understand their vision, mission, value proposition and values
Upskill founders and their team in business development and sales techniques
Accompany members on first sales meetings and work hands-on to improve their skills
Help members create scalable processes to manage their sales and marketing activity
Work with our Market Research advisor to test and qualify each market segment and help the member to develop an in-depth understanding of their potential customers
Help members develop ways to build and maintain relationships with existing and potential customers so that they develop their innovation with the customer (not for the customer)
Provide sales and marketing input as part of a multi-disciplined business support team
Provide a sounding board and strategic advice to members on all aspects of their marketing and sales activity

Person Specification

The ideal candidate will have the confidence to promote our services and sell their skills to work directly with clients to achieve their goals. You will have:

Essential criteria:

A background in marketing and sales with experience in developing marketing strategies
Experience in sales strategy and tactics
Experience of working one to one or one to many as a consultant or mentor
Experience of facilitating marketing and sales workshops
In-depth sales experience and the ability to train others in sales and business development methods.
In-depth marketing experience and the ability to develop marketing strategies and tactical plans for clients
Ability to harness and utilise the skills of colleagues to deliver strategic support to clients such our PR advisor, Market Research advisor and a team of recent graduates
Ability to work independently and as part of a team with clients and manage multiple simultaneous deadlines
Analytical mind and curiosity about innovative products and services
Experience in supporting small businesses, ideally running your own business.

Desirable

Experience in designing (and delivering) workshops to meet clients’ business objectives
A working knowledge of lean start-up tools including the Business Model Canvas

Salary and benefits

Salary circa £35-45k per annum, depending on experience, for a full-time position or pro rata for part time hours. We offer a competitive package of benefits, including flexible working, a supportive and collaborative working environment, generous holidays increasing with service, life assurance, staff discounts to any of the available on-site services such as Sussex Sport. University Campus facilities also include an Ofsted rated Outstanding Nursery: Little Pioneers which is directly opposite our Sussex building.

Location

We have centres based at the University of Sussex (close to Brighton), East Croydon (opposite the station) and one in development at Brighton (next to the station). Successful candidates can be expected to deliver support across all our sites but to be primarily based at one.

Equal opportunities

Sussex Innovation is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

How to apply

If you meet the essential criteria outlined above, we invite you to send your application, as soon as possible, to Tanya Popeau, enclosing your C.V.