Senior Business Development Executive - United Kingdom - Stone King LLP

Description

About us

Stone King is an ambitious and friendly firm specialising in the Business & Social Enterprise, Charity, Education, Faith and Private Client sectors. Our collaborative culture and core values are intertwined with our ethos of doing the right thing by our clients, communities, and our people. Our passion for the sectors we work in and the purpose-driven work we do with our clients has resulted in SK being recognised as national leaders in our specialist fields across the country.

The opportunity

This is a fantastic opportunity for an individual looking to progress their career to join Stone King's highly respected Business Development and Marketing Team. The role will involve supporting a structured approach to the firm's bids strategy and will work across our key sectors including, but not limited to Education, Charities, Faith, Business and Social Enterprise.

This position also presents an excellent opportunity for a Business Development Executive to support winning, developing and retaining clients and new work across the firm. The role is working alongside a Business Development Executive and as part of a wider BD & Marketing Team.

This role can be based in either our Bath or London office, with hybrid working available, with a required two days in the office.

Reasons to apply

• Opportunity to gain invaluable experience across our friendly BD & Marketing Team , you'll have the opportunity to work closely with our specialists across the firm.
• To be part of an ambitious, collaborative and friendly national firm where our culture and values are at the heart of everything we do. We believe our people are our greatest asset and strive to create the best place to work.
• Excellent benefits for our people, with a focus on wellbeing and development at the forefront.
• Hybrid working - Stone King are proud to be signatories of the Mindful Business Charter as part of our commitment to mental health and wellbeing. We want to support all of our people in achieving a healthy work/ life balance, and would be happy to speak with prospective candidates about flexible working arrangements.

Key responsibilities

General duties include, but are not limited to:

Bids

• Supporting bids/tenders, working collaboratively with fee earners and the wider BD&M team to create winning propositions.
• Developing relationships with key stakeholders across the firm.
• Coordinating evaluations for all new bid and framework opportunities, ensuring our approach to a bid/no bid strategy is supported. Ensure our bid proposals are in line with the firm's strategic direction.
• Maintaining and developing bid alerts from portals and hubs.
• Providing research and insights for all new bid opportunities; existing clients, revenue, new clients, markets, frameworks, trends, pricing, competitor analysis.
• Seeking any opportunity to influence our bid content to ensure it meets and where possible exceeds the client needs.
• Reviewing, maintaining and developing capability statements including ISO standards, other sales support collateral and constantly working to improve the pitch process and content.
• Injecting best practice into bid production in terms of content, style and consistent brand message across the firm. Continually evolving our content.
• Reviewing and researching our added value content, ensuring is always competitive.
• Seek out new added value opportunities.
• Organising and delivering training for fee earners in the various skills necessary to pitch and win new business.
• Supporting the delivery of the pitch process by preparing proposal structures, training and rehearsals and post pitch debriefs.
• Supporting the follow up process to all bids with fee earners and successful/unsuccessful bids. Ensure that feedback helps influence our future direction.
• Coordinating the bid tracker, ensuring the content is kept up to date and informs/influences our future decisions by conducting analysis.
• Analysis to include bid activity as well as MI around time recording and ROI.
• Management of MI reporting for all frameworks.
• Managing monthly reporting that shows our bid trends and analysis.
• Managing an ongoing engagement process for all successful bids to ensure we maintain a client and grow revenue where possible.
• Develop the bids database of all past, current and future content to manage our content in an accessible, efficient and user-friendly way for the team and the fee earners.
• Creating bids content to be accessible to colleagues on our Brand Hub.
• Championing the use of ChatGPT and/or other AI to help produce content in an efficient way.
• Attending wider BD&M meetings so are aware of team activity and how this could potentially benefit our bids strategy.
• Identify networking and learning opportunities to meet with other bid managers, procurement officers, inhouse lawyers.

Business Development

• Actively manage the business development process including: lead generation, managing a development pipe line (using CRM).
• Supporting the development of our CRM system Salesforce.
• Supporting the identification of leads eg via our events, digital content and internal referrals.
• Creating KPIs for our BD activity and ensure we report on and develop.
• Creating monthly reports with the support from Finance to help track new work, identify trends and profile against existing clients and identify new potential work areas.
• Supporting the identification and development of our key clients.
• Supporting a target programme for identifying new prospects and working with the fee earners to develop.
• Supporting our intermediary BD activity.
• Supporting the development of our client listening.
• Manage mystery shopping across the firm.

Other

• Contributing to wider BD&M projects.

Essential

• Proven experience in bids, business development, sales, or a related role.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to build strong relationships with external and internal stakeholders and colleagues to work towards common goals.
• Collaborative approach and able to work autonomously and as team.
• High attention to detail.
• Strong organisational skills and ability to meet deadlines in time.
• Ability to articulate and present ideas effectively.
• A track record of achieving and exceeding sales targets.
• Ability to adapt to changing market conditions and client needs.
• Proficiency in using CRM software, and Microsoft Office.
• An aptitude for learning and be able to show initiative.

Desirable

• Bachelor's degree in business, marketing, or a related field.
• Familiarity with the legal sector and market trends.
• Previous experience within professional services or legal sector.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Individual differences are embraced at Stone King, and we strive to create an environment in which people feel supported and able to be themselves. We have a partner-led Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategy Group, and a dedicated DE&I Adviser. We are committed to promoting an inclusive working environment that supports the growth and development of all our people, and we welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds and identities. As part of our continued commitment to an inclusive working environment, we are proud to be part of the Race Fairness Commitment, the Age Friendly Employer Pledge and a Disability Confident Employer.

As part of our commitment to DE&I, we want our recruitment practices to be as inclusive as possible, which means we will make reasonable adjustments to help you perform to your best, so please let us know if you need us to make any reasonable adjustments during the application or interview process. Our recruitment team are on hand to discuss any reasonable adjustments with candidates and can provide full job details and applications in alternative formats if required. You can contact our recruitment team via email at or

As a Disability Confident employer, Stone King LLP is committed to offering an interview to any job applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the role as defined by the job description and person specification. A full copy of the person specification and job description can be provided by contacting our Recruitment team. In some recruitment situations such as high-peak times, we might need to limit the overall numbers of interviews we offer. This will include the number of interviews offered to disabled people who meet the minimum criteria. When that happens, we'll still aim to offer a proportionate number of interviews to disabled applicants.

• Competitive salary
• Profit Share Scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Employee Benefit Platform
• Private Medical Insurance
• Life assurance (4 x salary)
• Pension scheme
• 28 days holiday (in addition to statutory UK holidays)
• Additional day allocated for CSR activities per annum

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Individual differences are embraced at Stone King, and we strive to create an environment in which people feel supported and able to be themselves. We have a partner-led Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategy Group, and a dedicated DE&I Adviser. We are committed to promoting an inclusive working environment that supports the growth and development of all our people, and we welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds and identities. As part of our continued commitment to an inclusive working environment, we are proud to be part of the Race Fairness Commitment, the Age Friendly Employer Pledge and a Disability Confident Employer.

As part of our commitment to DE&I, we want our recruitment practices to be as inclusive as possible, which means we will make reasonable adjustments to help you perform to your best, so please let us know if you need us to make any reasonable adjustments during the application or interview process. Our recruitment team are on hand to discuss any reasonable adjustments with candidates and can provide full job details and applications in alternative formats if required. You can contact our recruitment team via email at or

As a Disability Confident employer, Stone King LLP is committed to offering an interview to any job applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the role as defined by the job description and person specification. A full copy of the person specification and job description can be provided by contacting our Recruitment team. In some recruitment situations such as high-peak times, we might need to limit the overall numbers of interviews we offer. This will include the number of interviews offered to disabled people who meet the minimum criteria. When that happens, we'll still aim to offer a proportionate number of interviews to disabled applicants.

Closing date: 3 May 2024

Adverts normally close at midday on the closing date, however vacancies may close early if sufficient applications have been received. Therefore we would encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible.

Stone King LLP is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to ensuring equality of opportunity by encouraging all our staff to achieve their full potential and guaranteeing that all employment decisions are taken without reference to irrelevant information or discriminatory practices.

Recruitment agencies – please do not send us unsolicited CVs. If you do so, we reserve the right to contact the candidate directly and your T&Cs will not apply.

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