A fortune 200 tools company needed a regional Sales Director

A major US-based tools company and member of the Fortune 200 that was familiar with our work from past searches requested our help in finding them a Sales Director with the potential to graduate to regional Sales VP within a couple of years since they were unhappy with the revenue being driven in the region.

There were several major challenges the search presented.

First, the client would not allow us to inform candidates that they wanted the successful candidate to become Regional Sales VP within 2-3 years. This was a key point as it would have made the role a much more attractive proposition.

Secondly, the location of the office was about 25 minutes on foot to the closest station and commuting by car was not an option offered by the company for this level of seniority.

Finally, the client requested someone from the manufacturing sector with customers in the oil & gas sector. The ideal candidate would also need to possess knowledge of a fairly niche type of product. We knew we would have issues with identifying qualified and interested candidates.

We put together a team of 2 researchers and 1 consultant to do the initial groundwork of identifying and grading all possible target candidates.

Though we wished to cast a wide net, in reality there were only few target companies to pull from. We advised the client on the importance of maintaining flexibility through the process to ensure we missed no potentially interesting candidates. To this end we worked on sourcing candidates who came from different product backgrounds but who sold into the same oil and gas customer base.

Through the course of the market mapping phase of the search we provided regular weekly reports tracking progress as well as market feedback. Getting to a shortlist of 3 was painstaking but the candidates were excellent. From our shortlist, the Client had a clear preference for one and successfully on-boarded him.

The search was completed in 3 months.