Case Study: Hiring for a Great Sales Leader, Quickly
CLIENT: FIREPOWER CAPITAL
The Result
How FirePower Capital and Sales Talent Agency partnered to make a critical hire.
The Challenge
FirePower Capital is one of Canada’s largest independent M&A advisory firms and private capital investors for owner-operated companies. It has built an ecosystem for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs; no other firm in Canada deploys advice and capital on deals the way it does. FirePower has a proven track record of getting deals done, and to-date, it has closed over 80 deals.
FirePower had recently hired a VP, Origination that didn’t work out, which meant that its business development team was without a leader, and its executive team needed to act quickly to fill this vacancy. On average, an executive search of this nature takes 120-160 days to fill. The challenge was to not only fill this role much faster than the average but to also ensure that the person hired was the right long term leader for the business.
The Solution
Since FirePower needed to hire a VP, Origination immediately, it partnered with Sales Talent Agency (STA), whose typical time to close a role like this is less than half the industry average. To get things started, STA consulted with FirePower’s executive team to understand its business, discuss the scope of the role, and map out the ideal candidate profiles.
FirePower needed to hire a true unicorn: it wanted a leader who understood financial services, had the growth mindset of a software company founder and had managed and grown teams of sophisticated sales professionals.
Right after the launch meeting, STA’s executive recruitment team began identifying candidates, and with access to the largest network of sales professionals, they were able to quickly identify 32 candidates that possessed the right combination of skills and experience that FirePower was looking for. And, within 24 hours, an extremely well-aligned candidate was ready to be introduced to FirePower’s hiring team.
The Result
After one meeting, Sales Talent Agency was able to assess FirePower’s critical hiring needs, identify who would fit well on its team, and ultimately present the perfect candidate within 24 hours. 14 days after meeting with the candidate, FirePower hired its newest VP, Origination which was 44 days faster than Sales Talent Agency’s average time to close and 106 days faster than the industry average.
The goal wasn’t to just make a hire, it was to make a great hire quickly. To date the VP, Origination has been an extremely impactful addition to their executive team and has helped FirePower:
- Re-energize an offering part of the advisory business that had been stagnant for a while, winning 8 new mandates for FirePower
- Implement a repeatable strategic campaign management process that has proven to be effective for audiences in which Firepower had been looking for more exposure
- Increase the sales team performance by 2.5x the output in overall activities; including a 10% increase in approved opportunities and 30% increase in productivity, within the first 100 days after joining
“Cam checked all our boxes. Put plainly, we didn’t know someone like that existed, and STA found him. That’s the bottom line.”
– Sebastien Douville, Partner & COO at FirePower Capital
“I was in the tech space for years and while exploring my next role I had the pleasure of working with Netty and The Sales Talent Agency. Through this relationship, they opened my eyes to opportunities I would have never considered and found an exciting role which fit perfectly from a cultural and skillset perspective.”