are
At EarthEnable, we believe that our clients deserve our very best, that morning
high-fives are the best way to start the day, and that the best ideas could
come from any part of the company. We celebrate each other’s wins, learn from
our setbacks, and are deeply proud of the impact we make every day. We believe
that a clean, dust-free floor means more than living in a healthy home. It
means pride and dignity in the place our customers most treasure: their homes.
Being a part of our team means more than building floors: it means building an
organization and building a better future for rural families.
What we do
EarthEnable is transforming the way people live, by making homes healthier for
families across rural Rwanda. 80% of Rwandans live in homes with dirt floors
which are dusty, unsanitary, and fertile breeding grounds for parasites and
germs. While replacing a dirt floor with concrete has significant health
benefits (e.g. reducing diarrhea by 50% and parasitic infections by 80%),
concrete is unaffordable for many who need it.
EarthEnable addresses this pressing and ubiquitous problem by selling
high-quality, earthen floors that are 80% cheaper than concrete with 90% less
embedded energy. Earthen floors are already prevalent in modern homes in the
United States and are composed of natural materials (gravel, clay, sand, and
laterite). EarthEnable trains and hires local masons to install the floors
which are sealed using a proprietary drying oil that makes them waterproof,
strong, and polished. In our first 3 years of operations, EarthEnable has
installed over 40,000 square meters of flooring and employed over 200 Rwandese
staff.
About The Role
The person hired for this role will have a unique and urgent opportunity to
catapult us to the next level of impact. We are in a great place; we have
developed an excellent product that our customers cherish and that has
multiplicative health, employment, and environmental benefits. We have scaled
rapidly to reach over 600 customers in just over a year and a half. Now, we are
ready for a visionary Director of Sales and Marketing to pilot and implement
innovative strategies and business models to fundamentally disrupt the home
improvement market for the rural poor.
The Director of Sales and Marketing will lead EarthEnable’s swift expansion to
new geographic regions as well as to even lower socio-economic segments of the
population. The job will include piloting, iterating, and implementing
strategies to improve all aspects of customer relationship management:
marketing, sales, branding, payment plans, promotions, pricing, and
after-service support. It will also include developing and testing scaling models
(Organic growth? Franchising? Partnerships? Licensing our oil? The options are
endless!). We need someone who is wildly creative and intellectually curious,
excited to take big risks that yield high returns, looks forward to days in the
field getting their hands dirty and talking to rural customers, and who runs
towards the most challenging of problems, never giving up.
Key Responsibilities Include:
Developing marketing strategies for EarthEnable
across Rwanda, e.g. organizing market days, door-to-door sales, village events,
village meeting announcements, and a rock-solid customer referral strategy
(most of our sales are currently referrals, yet we don’t have a referrals
system in place, given the challenges of tracking them)
Piloting innovative savings and credit mechanisms
to help customers finance the floor over time (including collateral for
savings).
Constantly assessing willingness to pay and
elasticity of demand to optimize both impact and revenue
Developing a training academy for sales
representatives and supervisory structures (as needed)
Identifying potential partnerships and negotiating
partnership agreements (for financing, marketing, sales, etc.)
Enacting an efficient customer follow up system to
obtain satisfaction scores and respond to complaints
Ensuring customer default rates and cancellation
rates are low
Collecting live and accurate data on leads and
clients (including their location) via mobile technology
Working closely with Operations team to align
supply and demand
Supporting local brand development and ensuring
excellent deals for branded collateral
Building a team that efficiently handles marketing,
sales, financing, customer service, and partnerships
Working closely with other senior leadership to
determine the optimal business model to scale
Requirements:
Educational level of A1 or B.A. in business,
management, marketing, economics or a related field
2+ years of marketing and sales experience;
experience with fast-growing start-ups is a plus
Commitment to Rwanda and specifically working in rural
environments for 2+ years
Experience living and working in a developing
country (preferably Rwanda / East Africa)
Creative and artistic with an eye for strong visual
design and video design
Experience managing and analyzing budgets; modeling
cost-effectiveness of marketing strategies
Resourcefulness and critical thinking skills to
quickly determine why something isn’t working and iterate quickly to try to
solve it; creative problem solving
Exceptional people skills and managerial skills;
avid team player; coaching and mentoring approach
Ability to work on a variety of tasks at the same
time
Maturity and poise under stress
Excellent attention to detail, commitment to
excellence, and outstanding work ethic
Positive attitude, sense of humor, entrepreneurial
spirit, curiosity to learn new things, patient with others
Passionate about international development and
social enterprise
Strong technology skills (knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel, Google Docs, and
Dropbox)
Graduate degree (MBA, MPA/ID, MPA, MPH, etc.) a
plus, but not required
Fluency in English
inquiries, please email jobs@earthenable.org
