Case Study: Hiring an Elite Sales Team to Scale to Series A
CLIENT: PLOBAL APPS
The Result
How Plobal Apps partnered with Sales Talent Agency to develop a repeatable, predictable and scalable revenue model by building an elite sales team.
The Challenge
Plobal Apps is changing the way merchants sell digitally – it’s one of the largest app builders in the Shopify ecosystem that allows brands to build and launch an app alongside an online store. Some of the world’s fastest growing brands have apps powered by Plobal, including Steve Madden, Forever 21, Kyte Baby, and NRML.
In early 2021, Plobal received a round of seed funding backed by two top-tier VC firms (Elevation Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners), and in 2022, it began pushing for its Series A. As such, it was looking to rapidly expand its operations and build out a sales division: there were a couple key sales executives already in place, but it still needed to hire essential roles across the go-to-market function.
Hiring for these roles proved to be a challenge. Working for a startup requires a specific mindset that not all candidates have, and being new to the market, there were already other well-known companies attracting candidates in the saturated Shopify ecosystem. And, without a dedicated talent acquisition team in place, Plobal recognized its need for support in finding, attracting, and hiring an elite sales team to lessen its internal workload.
The Solution
Plobal engaged Sales Talent Agency (STA) in January of 2022 to make key hires for its newly established sales division. To get the project started, STA connected with Plobal’s key stakeholders to uncover the ideal candidate profile and the goals associated with each hire.
Resiliency, grit, intelligence, and an excitement to start from the ground up were all qualities candidates would need to be successful in their respective roles at Plobal, in addition to having a startup mentality, strategic empathy, and a desire to grow. Plobal also wanted to make sure that each candidate brought on would have a strong impact on revenue and be able to ramp up successfully.
To find, attract, and choose these top performing candidates, it’s important to have the right process, especially for a company in a high-growth stage. For this project, the solution was a partnership with a dedicated STA account manager, who had extensive experience recruiting in the Toronto space for start-ups across all levels of hires.
With a strong understanding of the industry, the current hiring challenge and the ideal candidate profile, STA thoughtfully positioned Plobal in the market, and headhunted prolifically to source viable candidates. STA’s DNA/PRO™ methodology to qualify talent and experience was vital for the project, as it helped identify the resiliency and startup mentality that Plobal was looking for. STA also provided guidance throughout the interview process for all parties and strategic support when it was time to structure, submit and negotiate offers.
The Result
Plobal was able to strategically make 13 hires from 75 candidates presented, and even considering how competitive the market was for hiring top talent at this time, a hire was made from every 5.75 candidates presented. These hires included: a director of business development, five merchant success managers, a revenue and marketing operations manager, a project launch manager, and four account executives. From launch to close, placements took an average of three to five weeks to fill, depending on the seniority of the role, and 14 offers were extended in total, making the offer acceptance rate 93%.
Being a software company scaling in an economic downturn, Plobal was strategic about making every role impactful for the business, and it was careful about not overhiring. Every candidate placed is still onboard, which is a substantial feat considering the competitive market.
This recruitment project is still ongoing, and Plobal Apps will continue to work with STA to make key go-to-market hires throughout 2022 and 2023.
“As an early stage startup, partnering with STA has been critical in finding the right talent in a timely manner. They have been an incredible talent partner and extension of our team. They are very professional and took the time to truly understand our business needs, saving us countless hours in the hiring process that would have otherwise been taken from our hiring managers. Highly recommend them!”