On The Job: Kelly Kusmider, Channel Sales Manager
It’s time for another installment of our On the Job series, when we get the chance to chat with our employees to learn about their roles, and how each employee contributes to the Folding Guard operation at large.
This month, we spoke with Kelly Kusmider, Folding Guard’s Channel Sales Manager. Kelly has been with Folding Guard for a year and a half now, having begun her FG journey in February of 2020, right before the pandemic hit the US.
Channeling Kelly’s Sales Skills
As a Channel Sales Manager, Kelly is in charge of driving sales in all three of Folding Guard’s business channels. She explains the difference between her role and that of a Regional Sales Manager like this:
“A Regional Sales Manager has the responsibility to directly sell to customers within all the states they are assigned, and they have a quota for their regions. As a Channel Sales Manager I don’t have a region to manage, I have channels. My job is to make sure that at the end of the year, each channel has reached its overall quota.”
According to Kelly, being a Channel Sales Manager is all about collaboration and fostering relationships, both with her customers (primarily distributors and manufacturing rep agencies) and the Sales and Marketing teams within FG.
“With distributors it’s a relationship-based transaction,” says Kelly. “The goal of working with distributors is to build a partnership that is mutually beneficial. We offer training, leads, increased discounts on products, and opportunities to help them grow their business. In return, the distributor actively sells our products to their customers. Distributors are an incredibly important part of the Folding Guard sales strategy, and we work hard to build great relationships with them.”
A Rewarding and Fulfilling Job
Kelly finds her interactions with her customers to be the most rewarding part of her job. “My customers are distributors, and I really enjoy interacting and being able to problem solve with them. I have had quite a few situations where the distributor has reached out because they need something extra in order to close a sale, and helping them find a way to meet their customers’ needs is very rewarding.”
Because she sells to multiple different channels and works on projects like The Guardian (a program that encourages and rewards distributors who grow their business with FG), no two days are alike for Kelly, a fact that she relishes. “I have to be flexible, organized, and adaptable to the changes that come every day. I may have my day planned out and then something happens in one channel, and I have to change direction. I’m never bored, and I never run out of things to do.”
Life Outside of Folding Guard
Kelly manages to stave off boredom in her personal life as well, by being perpetually active. When she’s not spending time outdoors with her two pit bulls, with whom she often goes kayaking and hiking, Kelly can be found volunteering at her local Rescue Mission and food pantry, as well as earning her TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate so that she can tutor individuals who need help mastering English to find good job opportunities.