Area Sales Manager Rural Distribution

Company: Mitthu — mouth fresheners, jaljeera, supari

Base: Purnea or Bhagalpur (field-based). Lucknow HO visit every 45 days.

Reports to: Director

Directly manages: 4 Sales Officers today, across 9 districts. Building this to 10–12 is part of the mandate.

Travel: 20–26 days/month in market. This is not a desk role.

Why this role exists

We sell through a super stockist distributor SO retailer chain across nine districts: Purnia, Katihar, Araria, Kishanganj, Supaul, Madhepura, Saharsa, Bhagalpur and Banka. The network is live and billing.

It is also being run by four Sales Officers. That is roughly two districts per man, which means most of the territory is being touched occasionally rather than worked, and nobody can tell you which parts. What we do not have is a single person who owns the plan: which markets get worked in what sequence, which distributors are worth keeping, where the SO’s day actually goes, and whether the offtake number on the sheet is real.

Territory knowledge today sits with individual Sales Officers. When an SO leaves, the area’s performance leaves with him—we have watched this happen. This role exists to build the team the territory needs and to move that knowledge into the company.

The mandate

1. Own the go-to-market plan for the territory

- Sequence which districts and which market points get worked, in what order, with what expectation.
- Set the beat plan for every SO—a permanent journey plan, not improvised routes.
- Decide the width vs. velocity call per market: where we push more outlets, where we push more offtake per outlet.
- Own the district-level number and defend it monthly with reasons, not adjectives.

1. Build and prune the distributor network

- Assess every existing distributor on capacity, credit behaviour, coverage willingness and infrastructure, and replace the ones who are just a godown.
- Appoint new distributors in gap markets; negotiate ROI, coverage commitment and stocking norms upfront.
- Enforce the 15-day stocking discipline. No loading.



Billing must track consumption, not our own pipeline.
- Handle claims, returns and market damage cleanly enough that distributors stop treating it as a negotiation.

1. Build and run the SO team

- Size the team properly: work out how many SOs each district actually needs against outlet count and beat days, and make the case district by district.
- Recruit, train and exit SOs. Taking the team from four to the right number is the first year’s most significant deliverable.
- Review daily beat adherence, productive calls, lines per call and new outlet addition weekly, not monthly.
- Work with each SO in market at least two full days per month, on his beat and on his counters.
- Ensure every SO’s territory data lives in the system, so a handover costs us a week and not a quarter.

1. Drive velocity in existing width

- Run targeted sampling in specific markets with a defined before-and-after read. Sampling is a velocity tool with a measurable outcome, not a spend line. We will provide a Trade Marketing Executive under you to coordinate these efforts.
- Identify slow-moving outlets and fix the cause: wrong SKU, wrong visibility, wrong retailer margin or the wrong retailer.
- Own visibility execution at counter level for our formats.

1. Operate through the system

- All planning, reporting and review run through our internal sales and stock tracking platform. Field observations that never enter the system do not exist.
- Submit a weekly written review to HO covering what moved, what did not, and what you are changing.

What you will be measured on

Metric

Why it matters

Unique billing outlets per month (by district)

Real width, not claimed width

Offtake per outlet per 15 days





Velocity—the number we actually manage

Distributor stock days on hand

Proof the 15-day discipline is holding

SO productive call % and beat adherence The engine that drives both above

New distributor appointments meeting ROI norms

Network quality

Continuity of area sales through SO handover

Whether territory equity moved to the company

Market returns and damage as % of dispatch

Discipline in the pipeline

What we are looking for

Must have

- 3–10 years in FMCG field sales, with at least 3 years handling a rural or semi-urban distributor territory as an ASM, ASE or Senior TSI.
- Has personally appointed distributors and closed non-performing ones, not just managed inherited ones.
- Has managed a team of 6+ Sales Officers, including hiring and exits, and has recruited SOs personally rather than receiving them from HR.
- Bihar or eastern UP market experience. Knows the mandi towns, the wholesale pockets and the transport realities.
- Comfortable using an Android app for reporting and can read an Excel sheet of his own numbers.
- Hindi fluency is essential; working English for written reporting.

Preferred
- Background at HUL, ITC, Dabur, Emami, Britannia, Parle, Balaji, Priyagold, Anmol, Ghari or a comparable rural-strength company.
- Impulse or low-unit-price category experience (confectionery, mouth freshener, snacks or sachets).
- Experience opening a market where the brand was previously unknown.

What this role is not This is a planning and command role. If the person we hire ends up personally working counters to make his own number, we have hired the wrong person. Working with an SO on his beat to coach and audit is the job. Becoming the tenth SO is not.

Compensation

4.5–6 LPA fixed depending on experience, plus a quarterly variable tied to the metrics above. Travel, stay and conveyance as per policy. A two-wheeler or four-wheeler will be provided as agreed at the offer stage.

To apply

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (phone hidden)

📌 Area Sales Manager (Purnia)
🏢 Satya Narain Kesho Ram
📍 Purnia