Now Hiring - Junior Client Strategist & Relationship Manager in Burnsville, MN

Junior Client Strategist & Relationship Manager
Join the FurnitureDealer.Net Client Relations Team as a Junior Client Strategist.

Do you love business?
Do you love solving problems?
Do you love internet strategy and consumer experience?

Are you a person whose actions speak louder than your words, and want a chance to prove yourself?
Do you love serving and WOWing others?
Would you rather join a great company, or work your tail off to help build one?

If you answered yes to these questions, and if you know that you can wow our team and our customers, then please read on.

Who We're Looking For

This is an entry level position, but we're looking for someone who wants to join us long term. If you're just looking for a "job" or some "entry level experience," please do NOT apply. We are looking for highly motivated self starters who want to join a team, who are committed to personal excellence - who don't just want to be good, they want to be great. We are looking for someone who we can invest in, and who will invest back in us long term to help us build a great company, and to help our client companies compete and win online against Amazon. We are looking to jointly invest in each others' growth and success.

Nearly all job seekers claim that they want to be successful, but very few are actually willing to put in the time, energy and sacrifice necessary to become the best version of themselves, or to help their team and their clients be truly great. We want to work with people who want to work, and who enjoy working. We are looking for people who don't need a lot of direction and can work well in an unstructured environment, who know how to ask questions, figure out what needs to be done, and know how to get it done.

We are looking for people who love learning, strategic thinking, setting big goals, executing and being accountable. We strongly value curiosity, accountability, and humility.

We think work should be fun. Our clients run businesses, and they hire us to help them do business better. To succeed in this role, you must think business is fun.

Our company is driven more by values than we are by money. "We love making money by helping our partners make money." That is our company motto, and it highlights how we think long term and how important win-win partnerships are to us. We are looking for unselfish

people. We know that if we partner with the right kind of people (teammates and clients), and if we work hard to serve them and help them be successful, that it will bring personal success to us over time. We believe that career happiness and personal excellence are achieved by focusing on others rather than on yourself, and from working really hard, obsessing over details, doing great work, and being someone who others "love" working with. If you are the kind of person who is more interested in looking out for yourself rather than serving others and committing long term to our team, then please do not apply.

About Us

FurnitureDealer.Net is an internet technology, online marketing, content publishing and management company located in Burnsville Minnesota. We are the internet business partner for more than 100 leading full-service brick and mortar furniture retailers. We build, manage and host our clients' websites, publish their online digital product catalogs, and strategize with them to attract and serve consumers both online and in-store. We are a hard working team of tech-savvy, business-oriented problem solvers, constantly striving for innovation and efficiency.

Why We Love What We Do

The internet is all about moving information, and we want to provide great information to people using our websites to shop for home furnishings. Our company publishes and manages the product catalogs for several hundred furniture, mattress, appliance, and electronics brands. This involves, researching, communicating, objectively presenting and maintaining a wide range of helpful information about these products for our more than four million e-commerce visitors per month.

Furniture isn’t meant to simply fill the space in one’s home, but instead it encourages you to create meaningful spaces. It’s easy to overlook the fact that the furniture in your home will play host to countless memories, but that is what makes furniture shopping so special. From that first sofa you buy for your new apartment, to the dining table where family traditions will be made, furniture continuously plays an important role. We recognize the substantial impact that furniture has on people’s lives, and that has led us to develop a passion for simplifying the furniture shopping experience. Through the inspiring and informative content we create, we are better able to connect people with the furniture that will allow them to create meaningful spaces.

The Client Strategist Role

We are looking for someone who can be the strategic advisor to our retailer clients. You will work closely with them to help them better use and leverage the Internet and our technology platform to grow their business. Our mission is to help our clients grow and be successful omnichannel retailers. This means we aren't just managers of their website, we are their trusted advisers and experts on all things digital. You will be responsible for learning a lot about retail, business, technology, and the home furnishings industry. Your curiosity and innovation should help us drive new ideas and strategies our retailers can use to be more successful.

You will start by working directly with our senior team leads to be mentored and trained on our retailers, their businesses, and how to solve problems for them using our website platform and tools. Eventually, you will become the main point of contact for a group of clients, responsible for understanding their business goals, and creating action plans to support them. You will develop a great relationship and rapport with them so they are happy, successful, and couldn't imagine their future without us.

Expert communication and strategic thinking is key for this role. You should get excited to talk about nerdy business problems, and have a great sense of urgency and respect for our client's problems. You will need to clearly articulate complicated thoughts, ideas, and processes. You are not a task manager, you will be expected to understand why the client is asking for a request, and evaluate all the best options for accomplishing that request. You will need to handle high-stress conversations, and diffuse tense emotions while maintaining the strength of the relationship with the client. Your accountability should help us consistently deliver high-quality work on fast paced deadlines.

This is an entry level client strategist position, which means we are not expecting you to come in with any previous knowledge of furniture, retail business, or client management. We're looking for someone with the right personality and attitude to complement our client team.

Responsibilities
- Be the digital advisor to 25-30 clients
- Maintain their happiness & loyalty to us
- Expert user of our platform tools, capabilities, and performance
- Liaison between the client and internal teams to ensure projects get done on time
- Team player, contributor, and volunteer for projects that support our team and company
- Travel to 2+ industry markets per year

Relevant Skills & Tools (Not required but helpful)
- Achiever & Strategic Thinker/Problem Solver
- Professional & clear communicator
- Familiar with Google Analytics
- Understand basic SEO
- Proficient in Excel
- Creating presentations or digital materials for clients

CRITICAL STRENGTHS:
- Attention to detail is critical in this role. You’ll be working with a complex web platform that has a lot of moving parts. Getting something 95% right will not be good enough.

- Communication Skills. This role sits at the intersection of many parts of our company.

You’ll be interacting with multiple teams on a daily basis. You will need to be able to communicate timelines. In situations where there are multiple ways to reach a specific outcome (each with pros and cons that may be different for each case) you'll need to communicate the options clearly and in a simple manner that a non expert can understand.

- Tech Savvy. While this is not a programming/developer position, you’ll be in a more technical role than most people. You’ll work with HTML/CSS and a complex website platform.

- Passion for Online. Ecommerce and online shopping are changing constantly. To do this role successfully, you’ll need to be continuously expanding your knowledge of the online world. We’ll expect you to be on top of the latest trends and best practices when it comes to creating an excellent online shopping experience.

- ‘Get it done’ Work Ethic. To be successful in this role you will need to have a bias toward action. Some people just seem to get more done than others. They are the type of people that will thrive in this role.

What to Expect

We are a company that believes financial rewards and compensation should go to individuals who work hard and earn them. We focus on long term (not short term) success and payout in our relationships. We want to hire a few individuals who are looking to invest along with us in their career and in our business.

Tryout Period:

- Actions speak louder than words. Every new hire is given a 16-week tryout, during which you will be given the opportunity to learn about our business and culture, to work alongside us on important projects, to earn our trust, (and for us to earn your trust).

- You will receive training that extensively covers general industry knowledge, the tools we use to manage our catalog, and the daily operations on our team. The people who have been most successful in our company invest their time and energy in not only doing great work, but also in learning as much as they can about our business. The individuals who have been the most successful have recognized business opportunities and needs, and gotten themselves into roles that match their individual strengths and passions.

- Your starting total compensation will be $39,200 per year, which includes a starting salary (during the tryout period) of $34,000 per year.

- In addition, (starting on your first day) you will be paid $5,200 per year in benefits compensation to use towards our company's truly unique "benefits." At the start of your second full month, you will become eligible apply your benefits compensation to purchase any of our optional pre-tax cafeteria plan options such as group health insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, and health savings account. If you don't want or need our cafeteria plan benefits, you can continue to “cash out” your benefits money as taxable compensation to use for a variety of "after tax" choices such as student loan repayment, save for car, save for house, save for vacation, or save for just about anything that is important to you.

- "LOVE YOUR WORK" is our goal, and is how we measure ourselves. If during the tryout, we find that you love working with us and we love working with you, then we will offer you a full time position and increase your annual salary by $2,000 to $36,000 (plus the $5,200 in benefits). You will become eligible for our IRA retirement savings plan with 3% company matching, and will be offered a free new smart phone.

This has been a challenging time for our company. Our business is good, we’re growing, and we’re poised for significant growth in front of us, but we have lost quite a few employees and need to rebuild our team. We need help. Shutting down our office during Covid, really hurt our culture. We are looking for a group of new people to join us who want to work really hard to rebuild our great team, and help re-invigorate and reinvent an amazing company that we all love working for.

All of our new employees are expected to work full time from our office in Burnsville, Minnesota. This is an in-office, (NOT a virtual or hybrid) role. Please do not apply unless you are already living in the local Twin Cities area, or plan on moving here without financial assistance.

If interested in joining our team, please submit your resume, a cover letter, and your top five strengths.

Job Type: Full-time

Pay: From $39,200.00 per year

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Flexible schedule
• Health insurance
• Health savings account
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance

Experience level:

• 1 year
• No experience needed
• Under 1 year

Schedule:

• Monday to Friday
• Weekend availability

Supplemental pay types:

• Bonus pay

Ability to commute/relocate:

• Burnsville, MN 55337: Reliably commute or planning to relocate before starting work (Required)

Application Question(s):

• This is an in-person (NOT virtual) job. Our office is located in Burnsville Minnesota. We are re-building our great team culture. Please confirm that you currently live in the Twin Cities area, and that you are willing and excited to work in our office with us.

Work Location: In person