CASE STUDY | SALES HIRING PARTNERSHIP
Sales Hiring Built Around The Business
PharmacyX are an early-stage B2B software scale-up providing technology to the community pharmacy market. They brought Harvey Thomas in as their Sales Hiring Partner to support the growth of the new business sales team.
Rather than starting with vacancies and immediately searching for candidates, we started by understanding the environment the new hires would be joining.
That meant getting underneath how PharmacyX sells, who they sell to, what success in the role really looks like and whether the hiring environment supported the people they wanted to attract.
From there, we could define the right profiles, take the search to market and assess candidates against the actual PharmacyX environment, not just a job description.
Within the first two months of the partnership, three new-business salespeople had been appointed across three different regions.
FIRST 2 MONTHS
3
New Business Sales Hires
3
Different Regions
1
Sales Hiring Partnership
SCALE Assessment · Market Mapping Headhunting · Candidate Assessment
STARTING WITH THE BUSINESS
Understanding The Environment Before Starting The Search
Before we started headhunting, I spent more than two hours face to face with the PharmacyX founders at their offices.
This wasn’t a traditional vacancy briefing. It was the client side of the SCALE Hiring Fit Review, so understanding how PharmacyX sells, who they sell to, what success actually looks like and what the new hires would be walking into.
We looked at the sales motion, expectations around the role, compensation and quota, onboarding, leadership and the wider environment around the hire.
That gave us a much clearer picture of the type of salesperson most likely to succeed before we ever started looking at candidates.
Why Face To Face Matters
Where possible, we prefer to meet clients in person.
You understand far more about a business, its culture and its sales environment when you spend time inside it than you ever will from a job description or a 30 minute Teams call.
CHALLENGING THE BRIEF
Not Just Accepting The Job Description
Part of the value of the Sales Hiring Partnership was being able to challenge the hiring plan before taking it to market.
The SCALE review highlighted areas that needed further thought, including the compensation plan, how the roles would actually work in practice and the type of salesperson most likely to succeed in the PharmacyX environment.
Rather than simply recruiting against the original brief, we worked through those areas first so the search reflected what the business actually needed.
Compensation & Quota
Challenging whether the package and targets offered by PharmacyX were right for the role and meet market expectations.
Sales Motion & Role Fit
Clarifying how PharmacyX actually sells, who the buyer is and what the salesperson would need to do day to day.
Candidate Profile
Defining the backgrounds, behaviours and experience most likely to translate successfully into the PharmacyX sales environment.
TAKING THE SEARCH TO MARKET
Starting With The Obvious. Then Widening Intelligently
Once the environment and success profile were clear, we built the search around where the strongest candidates were most likely to come from.
We started by identifying and speaking to salespeople already operating in the pharmacy and pharmacy technology market, where there was the closest possible match in terms of customer, language and buying environment.
From there, we widened the search into adjacent sectors with a similar sales process - businesses selling into owner-operators, independent groups and relationship-led markets where trust, pace and a clear commercial outcome matter.
That allowed us to broaden the talent pool without diluting the profile.
Sector Search
Starting with candidates already selling into pharmacy and closely related markets.
Adjacent Market Mapping
Identifying sectors with a similar buyer, sales motion and decision-making process.
SCALE Assessment
Testing whether each candidate’s experience and expectations genuinely aligned with the PharmacyX sales environment.
RESULTS
Three Sales Appointments In The First Two Months
In the first two months of the Sales Hiring Partnership, PharmacyX appointed three new business salespeople across three different regions.
The important part wasn’t simply the speed. Each hire had been assessed against the environment we had defined with the founders, giving PharmacyX a much clearer basis for deciding who was most likely to succeed.
3
New Business Sales Hires
3
Different Regions
2 months
First Three Hires
WHAT PHARMACYX SAID
"We brought Jon in as our Sales Hiring Partner to support us with a number of new business sales hires across different regions.
What stood out was that he didn't simply take the job descriptions and start sending candidates. He took the time to understand our sales environment, challenged areas including the compensation plan and helped us get much clearer on the type of salesperson who would actually succeed at PharmacyX.
He then used that understanding to headhunt and assess candidates against both their sales experience and their fit with the way we sell.
Within the first two months, Jon helped us appoint three new-business salespeople across three different regions.
It felt much more like having a specialist sales-hiring partner working alongside us than using a traditional recruitment agency, and I'd happily recommend him to other B2B software companies looking to build their sales teams."
Ben Durrant - CEO, PharmacyX