Business Development & Sales Lead

Own the commercial engine. Convert visibility into listings, listings into closings, and closings into a durable revenue machine.

1. About the organisation

We are a high-visibility real estate business that sits at an unusual intersection: professional property agency, real estate television programming, and owned digital platforms. That combination is the commercial advantage. Property owners, developers, buyers, investors and tenants already meet us through listings, content and broadcast. This role exists to turn that attention into a predictable, high-quality sales engine.

The company operates across residential, commercial, land and investment property. Our channels include agent-led advisory, television shows, social and digital audiences, websites and property marketing packages. The next stage of growth requires a commercially ambitious leader who can sell at senior level, build a team, and productise the media-and-digital advantage rather than treat it as a nice-to-have.

2. Role purpose

The Business Development & Sales Lead is the owner of revenue growth for the property agency and of commercial monetisation linked to the company’s media and digital assets. The role is both hunter and builder: originate high-value relationships, convert them into listings and transactions, design repeatable sales systems, and lead the team that executes them.

Success is not activity for its own sake. Success is a stronger, higher-quality portfolio; a visible, managed pipeline; closed transactions; new strategic accounts; and measurable revenue that can be attributed to TV, digital, referrals, partnerships and direct origination.

3. Scope and decision rights

You will own

• The agency sales pipeline, conversion process and revenue forecast.
• Property acquisition strategy for sale and lease, and the quality standard of the listing book.
• Developer, landlord, investor and corporate business development.
• Commercial packaging of TV, digital and content assets for property marketing, sponsorships and campaigns.
• Sales team performance management, coaching cadence and KPI discipline.

You will recommend / co-own with the MD/CEO

• Pricing architecture, commission structures and incentive design.
• New products, markets, joint ventures and major partnership terms.
• Headcount, hiring and territory design for the sales organisation.
• Brand-sensitive campaigns that sit on air or on flagship digital channels.

You will work through

• Content, production and digital teams for campaign design and lead hand-off.
• Operations / transactions support for documentation, compliance and closing logistics.
• Finance for forecasting, collections discipline and deal economics.

4. Key accountabilities

4.1 Business development and market origination

• Map and systematically pursue priority segments: developers, landlords and property owners, private investors and HNWIs, corporates and occupiers, and selected financial-institution referral partners.
• Build and personally work a named account list of high-value prospects; run a disciplined outreach and meeting cadence.
• Originate joint ventures, exclusive or preferred listing mandates, project marketing appointments, and long-term retainers.
• Identify sponsorship, branded-content and co-marketing opportunities that sit naturally on the company’s TV and digital platforms.
• Open new revenue lines around agency services, media-led property campaigns, listing packages and strategic collaborations — without diluting brand or operational focus.
• Represent the company at industry events, launches, viewings, investor briefings and selected on-air or digital appearances where commercially useful.

4.2 Property agency, listings and sales

• Grow a quality book of sale and lease listings across residential, commercial, land and investment stock, with clear intake standards (mandate quality, pricing realism, media-readiness, exclusivity where possible).
• Lead the end-to-end sales cycle: prospecting, qualification, needs diagnosis, property matching, viewing strategy, offer management, negotiation and close.
• Design channel-specific conversion paths for leads originating from television, social platforms, websites, events, walk-ins and referrals.
• Ensure every qualified lead is owned, followed up within agreed SLAs, and either converted, nurtured or cleanly recycled.
• Coach agents and executives on pitch quality, objection handling, viewing-to-offer conversion and client care through to handover.
• Protect client relationships after completion so that referrals, repeat instructions and portfolio expansions become a material share of pipeline.

4.3 Media- and digital-led commercial growth

• Treat TV episodes, digital content and social reach as demand-generation assets, not as brand decoration.
• Work with content and digital teams to brief commercially useful stories: developer features, listing spotlights, market explainers, investor segments and call-to-action journeys.
• Build and sell packaged products — for example project launch campaigns, sponsored episodes or segments, listing-plus-media bundles, and developer always-on retainers.
• Define lead capture, tagging and attribution so management can see which shows, posts, pages and campaigns produce listings, meetings and revenue.
• Run experiments on offer, creative, landing pages and follow-up sequences; keep what converts and retire what does not.
• Protect editorial credibility while increasing commercial yield. The audience must remain an asset, not a dump for undifferentiated inventory.

4.4 Sales strategy, forecasting and insight

• Produce and own monthly, quarterly and annual commercial plans with explicit targets for revenue, listings, conversion, partnerships and media-attributed business.
• Maintain a single source of truth in the CRM: stages, values, next actions, owners and close dates.
• Run weekly pipeline reviews that distinguish real opportunities from optimistic clutter.
• Analyse competitor moves, pricing, absorption, incoming stock and buyer/tenant behaviour; translate insight into offers and targeting.
• Present concise management packs: forecast vs actual, risk to target, wins/losses, channel ROI and recommended course corrections.
• Propose new services, geographies, client segments or partnership models when the data supports them.

4.5 Team leadership and sales culture

• Lead, coach and hold accountable the sales and business-development team; set individual targets that roll up to the company plan.
• Install a simple operating rhythm: daily activity standards, weekly pipeline meetings, monthly performance reviews, quarterly planning.
• Raise the quality of conversations — discovery, commercial storytelling, negotiation and follow-through — through ride-alongs, call reviews and playbooks.
• Support recruitment, onboarding and first-90-day productivity of new sales talent as the book grows.
• Model a culture that is ambitious, client-respectful, numbers-honest and allergic to unclosed loops.

5. First 90 days — expected outcomes

Days 1–30: Diagnose and take control of the funnel

• Learn the listing book, live deals, media calendar, digital properties, current partners and team capability.
• Audit CRM hygiene, lead sources, conversion leakage and response times.
• Agree a 12-month commercial plan and a 90-day scorecard with the MD/CEO.
• Publish a named target-account list and a listing-acquisition plan.

Days 31–60: Install the engine

• Launch or tighten lead SLAs, stage definitions, proposal templates and media-led campaign packages.
• Begin systematic outreach to priority developers, owners and corporates.
• Run the first full pipeline and forecast cycle that leadership can trust.
• Identify two to three quick-win commercial plays (exclusive mandates, campaign packages or stalled deals).

Days 61–90: Show commercial proof

• Deliver early listings and/or closed or late-stage transactions against the agreed scorecard.
• Have at least one packaged media-and-agency offering in market with a paying or contracted client.
• Present a Q2/Q3 forecast, team gap analysis and recommended resourcing.
• Leave the organisation with a visible pipeline, a cleaner process, and a team that knows what ‘good’ looks like.

6. Key performance indicators

Exact numbers will be set with the MD/CEO against market conditions and the current book. The scorecard will typically include the measures below.

7. Stakeholder map

• MD / CEO: strategy, pricing, major deals, public positioning and resource decisions.
• Sales / agency team: coaching, allocation of leads and territories, deal support and performance management.
• Content, TV and digital teams: campaign briefs, listing storytelling, CTAs, lead routing and commercial packaging.
• Developers, landlords and owners: mandates, project marketing, pricing advice and campaign design.
• Buyers, tenants and investors: advisory, matching, negotiation and aftercare.
• Corporates, brokers and financiers: occupier requirements, referrals, funding introductions and co-marketing.
• Operations and legal/transaction support: documentation quality, compliance and closing reliability.

8. Person specification

Essential experience and qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Real Estate, Communications or a closely related field — or equivalent senior commercial experience.
• At least five years’ successful experience in business development or sales, ideally in real estate agency, property development sales, media sales, or another high-consideration, relationship-led market.
• A documented record of originating business and beating revenue targets, not only farming an inherited book.
• Working knowledge of Kenyan (or comparable East African) property transaction processes: listing mandates, viewings, offers, deposits, due diligence, and sale/lease completion.
• Comfort selling to and negotiating with developers, property owners, investors and senior corporate buyers.
• Practical fluency with digital acquisition: social platforms, content-led funnels, landing pages, CRM hygiene and basic campaign metrics.
• Proficiency with a CRM and pipeline discipline (HubSpot, Salesforce, Property24 CRM, or equivalent).
• Excellent written and spoken English; strong Swahili is a commercial advantage.

Highly desirable

• Direct experience leading or coaching a small sales team.
• Experience packaging media, events or content as a paid commercial product.
• An existing network among Nairobi developers, agents, HNWI intermediaries, corporates or property owners.
• Exposure to both residential and commercial / land / investment product.
• Familiarity with Estate Agents Registration Board requirements and good practice in agency conduct.

Competencies

• Commercial judgement. Knows the difference between a busy pipeline and a valuable one; prices effort against likely yield.
• Origination muscle. Opens doors that were not already open; does not wait for inbound alone.
• Narrative selling. Can turn a development, a street, a yield story or a TV segment into a reason to act now.
• Media-commercial imagination. Sees inventory, airtime and audience as one system, not three departments.
• Negotiation and presence. Credible with principals; firm on terms; calm under pressure.
• Pipeline rigour. Dates, owners, next steps, no ghost numbers.
• People leadership. Raises the standard of others without creating theatre.
• Handles client money conversations, competing instructions and on-air claims with care.

9. Success profile — who thrives here

This is a builder’s seat, not a caretaker’s seat. The person who will flourish is entrepreneurial, socially fluent and competitively calm. They enjoy rooms with developers and owners, they respect the craft of a good listing presentation, and they are restless when a television audience is applauded but not converted. They can spend a morning on a site walk, an afternoon in a forecast review, and an evening at a launch — and still update the CRM before they sleep.

They will be less successful if they need a fully built machine before they can sell, if they confuse activity with revenue, or if they treat media teams as a vending machine for free publicity rather than as commercial partners.

10. What we offer

• A rare mandate: agency growth plus the commercial use of established TV and digital platforms.
• Direct access to the MD/CEO and a short line from idea to market.
• A stage already watched by property owners, buyers and industry players — if you know how to use it.
• The chance to build and lead the sales organisation as volume grows.
• Exposure to developers, investors, corporates and high-value private clients.
• An entrepreneurial culture with visible room to grow in seniority and earnings.
• Competitive base salary plus performance commission and incentives, agreed against experience and the target architecture.

11. Working arrangements and conduct

• This is a full-time role based in Nairobi, with substantial time in the field.
• Evenings and weekends will occasionally be required for viewings, launches, filming tie-ins and client entertainment.
• The role requires a high standard of professional conduct, confidentiality and accurate representation of properties and terms.
• The company is an equal opportunity employer. Appointment will be based on capability, track record and potential to deliver the mandate.

12. How to apply

Submit a concise CV and a one-page commercial note covering: (1) the most relevant revenue target you have owned and the result, (2) a partnership or listing mandate you originated, and (3) how you would turn a real-estate TV audience into listings and closings in your first two quarters. Please include current compensation and notice period.

Applications should be sent to career@vanguardtalentgroup.org with the subject line: Business Development & Sales Lead [Your Name].

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.