Title: Account Director / Client Services (Senior, Director, Group, VP)
Location: Los Angeles
FSLA Status: Exempt
Reports To: Group Account Director
Supervises: 0-3
Travel: Reqiured, mostly West Coast, 2-3 trips/month, 2 days/trip
The Role.
The BLITZ account director is the “CEO” of the book of business (accounts) under his or her management. He or she leads the BLITZ teams and is ultimately responsible for delivering on the following:
Lead Clients Strategically
- Identify, get client agreement on, and clearly state the business objectives behind every engagement.
- For each engagement set clear KPIs and get client agreement of how our work will be measured towards the business objectives we set out.
- Position self and the agency as the trusted strategic advisor to the client. Know the business of the clients’ business and the nuances of how they really make money. Develop account plans and marketing strategies that moves the client business against their objectives.
- Sell in the thinking and the work. Ultimately responsible that all work presented to client is on strategy.
Lead Internal Teams
- Author tight account and opportunity briefs that focus BLITZ teams towards clear, measurable business objectives.
- Lead the BLITZ account and delivery teams to produce work that is defendable and grounded in strategy.Identify, create, organize and lead BLITZ teams towards producing effective work against the business objectives, while satisfying the terms of the contract.
- Team up with Business Development to win new business pitches.
Peformance KPIs
- Account Revenue and Profit Growth
- Client Satsifaction (strategic leadership and business results)
- Internal Team Satisfaction (leadership, collaboration, team relationship and value perception)
- Account Relationship Growth (horizontal – new business units, vertical – seniority of relationship)
The other responsibilities, which should already be assumed.
- The Account Director is involved in the day to day workings across client engagements, leveraging knowledge and experience from project to project, and identify common goals and ensure quality deliverables that align to the client’s business objectives/strategy.
- The Account Director manages the business relationship between the client and BLITZ. The Account Director must balance client needs with BLITZ needs to grow long lasting, highly relevant, valuable, and profitable relationships. The Account Director is responsible for growing client revenue through consultative selling (up-sell / cross-sell) of creative solutions across all BLITZ integrated services, including brand and product marketing, digital media/publisher services, product development, social media, measurement, and analytics.
• Client Leadership
- Initiate and lead Strategy sessions to develop client/industry business objectives and approaches to solving client challenges
- Drive client ROI, define and develop measurement models for project success with clients
- Provide Industry Expertise
- Develop long-term partnerships with clients
- Ensure consistency and accuracy on all proposals by working closely with the BD team, for clients and prospects under your management.
- Serve as the top escalation point within an account to manage project, communication, and financial issues.
• Client Satisfaction and Growth
- Manage successful client on-boarding (new clients to BLITZ), transitioning from Business Development to Client Services
- Provide ongoing, pro-active strategic consulting, POVs
- Facilitate BLITZ customer satisfaction evaluation process
- Is expected to prevent issues from happening, and can solve problems in a constructive fashion
- Manage customer retention
- Develop client outreach programs
- Manage client and team events
• Account Management/Growth
- Develop and maintain strategic account plans
- Sustain a healthy pipeline of opportunities, manage the pipeline
- Manage a portfolio of clients/engagements, $3-5M in value by self, more with a team.
- Maintain target profit margins across projects within an account
- Proposal Development/Leadership
- Manage contract and financial negotiations
- Account Contract and Financial Management (Interim Agreement, LOA, MSA, SOW, Change Orders, Invoicing and Collections)
- Own issue escalation and risk management
- Manage the overall client relationship by setting and delivering upon client expectations.
• Account (internal to BLITZ) LeadershipSupport monthly account/office updatesManage internal communications, announcements and accolades
- Provide weekly status Updates (account and company-wide)
- Support annual budget planning
- Support client-centric PR, case studies, client references, conferences, publications
- Support BLITZ business development teams where appropriate, and review all strategic proposals, presentations and formal documentation for assigned accounts
- Mentor, train, and develop new account managers.
- Motivate and inspire account teams (across all disciplines)
- Adhere to company guidelines such as timely completion of performance reviews and time sheets, regular and accurate factored pipeline reports and revenue forecasts and achievement of utilization goals.
- Interview and hire new talent into the organization. Participate in cross-functional interviews, panel interviews and the overall candidate selection process.
Knowledge, Skills, Sensibilities.
The ideal candidate for this role is someone who not only lives and breathes digital marketing and brand strategy, but also has a very strong background business consulting and innovation. The Account Director must have a passion for helping clients tackle business challenges, must think like an entrepreneur on the clients behalf, and must be strategic--driving thought leadership with both clients and BLITZ. Client should see the Account Director as an advocate for the client within BLITZ, and also as a valuable extension of clients’ team.
• BA or BS from an accredited school; MBA preferred
• 6-10 years mix of Digital (interactive) and Traditional agency experience with Business consulting, marketing/communications or Sales exposure
• Experience managing work, delivering ROI and business objectives
• Experience managing work that MOTIVATES consumer action
• Strong & Confident personality with positive energy to lead and drive smart teams
• Adaptive personality in order to create quick client chemistry
• Demonstrate an understanding of strategic marketing, business and financial principles
• Ability to demonstrate bigger picture understanding of client's marketing or business strategy.
• Ability to consume and interpret research and build actionable insights that align to client objectives
• Solution-oriented thinking: anticipates client questions and has well thought-out answers.
• Ability to represent and promote BLITZ in a professional manner and demonstrate value added service to clients
• Superior written and verbal communication skills and outstanding presentation abilities
• Natural leadership, motivational and organizational skills
• Hungry, Humble, Smart
Mission: Help Build Extraordinary Client Relationships
The Clients Services team at BLITZ is responsible for winning new work, managing overall client satisfaction, and delivering work on time and on budget. We strive to become an extension of our clients’ teams by learning all we can about their business, from how they position their brand in the marketplace, to what products and services they sell, to how they operate internally, and how consumers interact with all of the above. We strive to make working with BLITZ as extraordinary as the work we produce for our clients; and we deliver on this mission through aggressive business development efforts, thoughtful account management, and solid project management.
As a CS intern, you will be part of a team that is constantly thinking about how we can innovate our business to better serve clients. You will help map BLITZ skills to client’s needs to formulate new ideas to bring to clients. Your tasks will include research, planning, writing, strategizing, documenting, communicating, selling, servicing, and managing. You may assist in new business pitches as well as helping keep current projects on track. You will assist in managing projects, project planning and project communication. You must be a team player, be able to think strategically, and to be able to see the forest through the trees, yet be very detail oriented. Basically, if you want to learn how the business gets done, we want to talk to you.
What You Will be Doing:
- Helping our Business Development and Account Management teams research brands/companies and look for strategic opportunities to share our story (new prospects and existing clients)
- Help develop custom reporting to track sales, sales effectiveness, identify trends, maintain status of department tasks
- Help prepare presentation materials for key new business pitches, including preparing internal briefs,
- Participate in brainstorm sessions for new pitches and client projects
- Scheduling meetings and taking notes
- Creating Pitch / Project Schedules + Maintaining schedules
- Client/Competitive SiteContent Audits
- Document Management: File Server Structure + file naming
- Compile and Manage Copy / Translation Docs
- General Project Management Support, project coordination, follow-up on team member tasks, note-taking
Qualifications:
- Pursuing a B.A./B.S., or M.S. degree in Business, Marketing or Communications or simply a wacky liberal arts degree in subjects like Philosophy, Art History, English, or anything that proves you can think critically and communicate thoughts concisely yet with eloquence.
- A passion for the way in which new tools and technologies are changing the way the world communicates, interacts, buys and sells.
Skills:
- Must be detail-oriented and demonstrate proven organizational and planning skills
- Ability to multi-task and manage time and people to task completion
- Must have effective verbal and written communication skills
- Strong teamwork, cooperative attitude in working with individuals at all levels
- Passionate, self starter who can work independently and work well under pressure
- Excellent time management skills and work effectively in a fast-paced environment
- Proficient with MAC and PC, iPhone and Droid, iPad and Kindle
- Proficient in Microsoft Project, Excel, Word and PowerPoint, knowledge of Keynote a bonus
- Active digital native: search, blog, tweet, friend, like, fan, rate, comment, vote, connect, upload, download, all those web 2.0 nouns that are now verbs.
PLEASE APPLY ONLY IF YOUR SCHEDULE ALLOWS YOU to report to our Santa Monica office for an average of 20 hours per business week between the hours of 10am and 6pm.
We Design Love: As an intern for the BLITZ Creative Team you'll be hands-on, working alongside and under the tutelage of Creative Directors, Art Directors and Designers to produce work for our great roster of clients. You will also learn the ins and outs of what it takes to work on a world-class creative team, and how our clients’ needs get translated into engaging messages to consumers.
As the Creative Intern @BLITZ, you will also have the chance to work closely with an amazing team of Developers, User Experience Architects & Project Managers, and learn how the creative team works within a project life-cycle.
You will need a passion for creative innovation, mastery of Adobe Suite of Design software, a pro-active and “can do” attitude and unrelenting attention to detail!
What You Will be Doing:
- Working with Creative Leads and Project Managers to develop a wide variety of online, video, and multimedia projects.
- Assisting with break-up and optimization of visual assets for final development.
- Creating comps based on existing design direction.
- Integrating high quality animation for site builds, rollovers, transitions, etc. for both Flash and video.
- Contributing well developed ideas during brainstorms and conceptual meetings.
Qualifications:
- Pursuing a B.A./B.S., M.S. or Ph.d. degree in Fine Arts, Graphic Design, Multi-Media Design
- Mastery of Photoshop, Illustrator, & Flash, Knowledge of After Effects, InDesign and 3D applications a plus
- Strong problem solving ability to interpret wireframes and bring User Experience designs to life.
- 1-2 years experience work or classroom experience design comping and animation.
- 1-2 years of practical work experience in Flash break-up and optimization techniques.
- Excellent communication and presentation skills, as well as self confidence and ability to work independently when provided with direction, but also on a team environment.
Samples to be Submitted Include:
- A professional looking online Portfolio
- Evidence of creative process, conceptualization to completion, comps
- Please no PDFS – ideally we would like to see links)
PLEASE APPLY ONLY IF YOUR SCHEDULE ALLOWS YOU to report to our Santa Monica office for an average of 20 hours per business week between the hours of 10am and 6pm.
Title: Director, Business Development
Manager’s Position: VP, Business Development
This position is Accountable for producing the following result:
The Director of Business Development is responsible for managing and growing the BLITZ portfolio by providing highly-qualified new client prospects, successfully integrating the BLITZ Client Services team, and closing the opportunities within the pipeline. The Director will also be responsible to maintain a sufficient pipeline as mutually agreed by the parties.
This individual provides strong attention to detail, basic business development strategy and planning, consistent and accurate reporting on all new prospective client engagements, preparing and delivery of all documents, presentations, etc. necessary to close the opportunities, and keeps constantly informed on all new developments within the industry in general (both client and agency-side).
The Director of Business Development role is a high-growth position at BLITZ, and reports directly to Vice President, Business Development. As the Business Development department grows, the Director will be expected to manage other individuals and their respective targets, efforts, reporting requirements and pipelines.
Responsibilities:
Strategic Work
1. Identify, evaluate, and prioritize targeted new business opportunities and execute the practices necessary to successfully close these opportunities.
2. Be knowledgeable of market and industry trends, emerging technologies, competitors, and leading customer growth strategies.
3. Maintain a working knowledge of all services offered by BLITZ and its competitors, in order to determine customer needs, volume potential ,as well as, competitive offerings and billing rates.
4. Consistently demonstrate leadership and teamwork orientation by successfully leading local and remote cross-functional teams in high-pressure RFP or RFI responses and prospective client presentations.
5. Cultivate and maintain relationships with complementary channel partners.
6. Conceive of and execute effective promotional and prospecting programs to increase awareness of BLITZ among qualified prospects.
7. Effectively negotiate contractual terms for new business and ensure that BLITZ receives contracts on time.
8. Promote and evangelize BLITZ in line with the company vision and mission statement.
9. Attend relevant industry events for pursing business opportunities.
10. Work with Client Services to transition new business accounts to the Account Management team.
Tactical Work
1. Meet or exceed annual, quarterly, and monthly goals in coordination with the BLITZ Business Development strategy.
2. Provide weekly status reports, revisions, and modifications to your opportunities.
3. Provide monthly reports on quota and goals measurements.
4. Accountable for and responsible for delivering high quality, winning proposals.
o Write cohesive proposals, putting together Power Point presentation decks for capabilities, proposals or pitches, incorporating content and estimates from discipline leads as needed:
- Strategy
- Creative
- UX
- Technology
- Marketing
o Cross reference / up sell relevant services.
o Provide pricing guidance and implement budget / schedules / estimates from Client Services.
5. Owner and practitioner of the BLITZ Pursuit Process and New Business Development Practice at BLITZ.
o Responsible for collecting and entering all new business opportunities into the BLITZ CRM solution, capturing client and opportunity information, as well as, tracking and logging activities.
o Updating CRM appropriately and frequently.
o Driving new business go/no go meetings by coming prepared with opportunity details print-outs from CRM.
o Setting up and driving internal and client meetings to gather information and details.
6. Improve BLITZ’s response materials:
o Owner of decks / slide content, proposals, templates, Intranet, boilerplate content on Intranet.
o Constantly review internal and competitor proposals / templates.
o Analyze strengths, weakness, copy-tone.
o Revise BLITZ proposal format, boilerplate copy, decks so they are current, and as strong as possible.
7. Frequently give capabilities presentations and pitches to potential clients and existing customers.
8. Involve strategy on AOR or brand level engagements.
9. At the highest level of integrity and character, represent BLITZ at networking functions, trade shows, conferences, and other industry-related events and/or evangelism opportunities.
Skills and Experience:
• BA from an accredited school; MBA preferred.
• 7+ years of interactive industry experience in business development, consulting, client services.
• Superior written, verbal communication skills, and outstanding presentation abilities.
• Natural leadership, motivational, and organizational skills.
• Sound judgment and interpersonal skills.
• Rapid comprehension and retention of information.
• Demonstrated understanding of strategic marketing, business, and financial principles.
• Ability to demonstrate bigger picture understanding of client's marketing or business strategy.
• Ability to consume and interpret research and build actionable insights that align to client objectives.
• Solution-oriented thinking: anticipate client questions and has well thought-out answers.
• Ability to represent and promote BLITZ in a professional manner and demonstrate value added service to clients.
• Hungry, Humble, Smart.
Manager’s Position: Director, Technology
This position is Accountable for producing the following result:
As a Senior Web Developer you are the know-it-all when it comes to Magento and web applications. You’ll be leading BLITZ’s ecommerce projects and be responsible for the planning, architecture, integration and development through final client delivery. You are able to evaluate open source solutions and provide buy vs. build guidance. You are resourceful and either has the answers or knows where to get them. You take great pride in every line of code you write, you own your own projects for which you are accountable and recognized for. You think in OOP and code with re-usability in mind. You are abreast of the latest techniques, and are ready to translate our clients’ business goals into usable applications.
Your code is developed for a diverse client base, requiring sensitivity to cross-browser and cross-platform issues. You will participate in general planning meetings with key team members to ensure project planning is accurate, and that online standards are being developed and utilized.
Responsibilities:
Strategic Work
1. Document technical standards and processes, define overall development standards with development team members.
2. Quickly decipher and resolve complex and unique obstacles.
3. Collaborate regularly with stakeholders to ensure project meets requirements.
4. Promote teamwork among peers and transfer of development knowledge.
5. Will be requested to lead evaluation of external technologies and technical contractors.
Tactical Work
1. Hands-on-development using PHP, HTML, JavaScript and CSS.
2. Web development using Magento and creating custom modules.
3. Evaluation of technology vendors, contractors, software products.
4. Support web development projects as needed.
5. Prepare accurate documentation throughout the project.
6. Unit test and document work.
7. Ensure bugs are rectified and accurate moving forward.
8. Fix complex bugs, resolve ongoing issues, and document solutions.
Goals:
Will be formally outlined with your manager within 90 days of hire.
Qualifications:
• 3+ years experience developing and deploying Internet sites and applications in an agency / design firm environment.
• 5+ years experience developing PHP driven websites.
• 2+ years experience with Magento E-Commerce platform.
• Significant Experience with at least one PHP development framework (Zend, Code Igniter, Sapphire, CakePHP).
• Open Source and Commercial Content Management Platforms.
• Experience with hand-coding advanced HTML, CSS, JavaScript.
• Experience with SSL, Certificates installing, removing, renewing.
• Object-oriented design and development strategies.
• Service Oriented Architecture.
• Ability to analyze and debug complex systems.
• Familiarity with web authoring tools.
• Familiarity with cross-platform, multi-browser issues.
• Strong written and oral communication skills.
• Familiarity with product development life cycles.
• Must be comfortable working in a collaborative environment with Producers, Designers, and other Developers.
• Must be flexible and be willing to move between projects and tasks as needed.
• An excellent ability to deal with people at all levels and build trust and confidence with management and employees.
• Understanding of the challenges of cross-site software development.
• Takes ownership of tasks and drives tasks through to completion.
• Must be positive, constructive and accountable for own actions.
• Able to focus while under pressure.
Please do not submit without having the skill-set indicated regarding project requirements
As a Senior Web Developer (UI) you are the know-it-all when it comes to a creative and interactive rich development experience. You must be passionate about programming interactive technologies and committed to building unique and innovative User Experiences. You obsess over building the coolest navigation and presentation interactions that "feel" real and respond intelligently to user interactions using the latest technologies; HTML 5, CSS 3, Advance JS frameworks and emerging Mobile development platforms.
Your work transforms client goals into compelling, usable, and media-rich Interactive Experiences ranging from Websites, Games, Applications and Widgets, to intelligent User Interfaces for mobile and the console. Our creative concepts, design, motion graphics, video and audio teams will challenge you to plan and build innovative experiences for our well known clients, appreciated by millions and often awarded top industry accolades. You will participate in general project planning meetings with key team members to ensure level of efforts are accurate, and that existing industry standards are meet or new standards are being developed and implemented.
Skill-set:
- 4+ years experience developing and deploying Internet sites and applications in an agency / design firm environment
- Expert with hand-coding advanced HTML, CSS, JS/AJAX
- Expert with integration of complex applications using PHP or .Net
- Passionate about pushing the boundaries of interactive technologies
- Expert with the latest web authoring tools and latest Adobe Creative Suite
- Expert with cross-platform, multi-browser issues
- Strong written and oral communication skills
- Familiarity with product development life cycles
- Familiarity with enterprise level software development practices (sprints, version control systems, issue tracking tools, local build environments)
- Must be comfortable working in a collaborative environment with Producers, Designers, and other Developers
- Must be flexible and be willing to move between tasks as needed
Directly resume submissions without recruiters only, please. Must be fully committed to project duration without interruption.
Please state your salary requirement in an hourly pay range.
The User Experience Department at BLITZ seeks to change the world, one user experience at a time.Utilizing research, consumer insights, whiteboards, and a little bit of magic, the team imagines and architects digital experiences for BLITZ clients.
As a UX Intern at BLITZ you will work with our User Experience team to create innovative solutions and form lasting, durable connections between users and brands. You will work closely with world class Creative, Development, and Project Management teams to learn how User Experience fits into a project lifecycle while working on real projects with major national brands.
Excellent analytic skills, attention to detail, a passion for crafting great user experiences, and an adventurous spirit are all important to success in this role.
Responsibilities:
- Define functionality, content, navigation, and interaction models through UX deliverables.
- Contribute to the overall strategic direction and vision of projects, making positive contributions in a tightly-knit, multidisciplinary team environment.
Qualifications:
- An understanding of user-centered design and the ability to solve complex interaction problems.
- Excellent problem-solving ability and collaboration.
- Basic familiarity with standard UX software applications, such as OmniGraffle or InDesign.
- Pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree in information design, human-computer interaction, library/information science, human factors, visual/technical communications, cognitive science, or related field.
PLEASE APPLY ONLY IF YOUR SCHEDULE ALLOWS YOU to report to our Santa Monica office for an average of 20 hours per business week between the hours of 10am and 6pm.
BLITZ is always looking for the top talent in the interactive space.
We strive to hire people who love to create amazing interactive experiences like we do.
If you're hungry, humble and smart, we want to know you!
Thanks for your interest in BLITZ.
