Sales hires fail in 4 specific patterns — and they're all preventable. Sales-specific assessments, structured interviews, scorecards, and the 90-day onboarding that prevents early churn.
A bad sales hire costs £100k-£300k when you total replacement cost, lost pipeline, the opportunity cost of the seat sitting empty, and the territory damage. Most sales orgs hire 2-3 in any given year. The cost of getting it wrong is enormous — but the hiring process is usually a CV review, two interviews, and a gut-feel decision by a panel who all liked them.
This workshop is built on the Topgrading methodology (Smart & Smart) combined with structured interviewing research from Frank Schmidt and John Hunter's meta-analysis. It's the framework that underpins how the best UK sales orgs hire — not by intuition, but by deliberate process design.
The day is built around your real next hire. Delegates bring an open req, redesign the scorecard in the morning, design the assessment in the afternoon, and leave with a hiring kit for that specific role — not a generic workbook.
Built on Topgrading + Schmidt & Hunter structured interviewingEvery TESS workshop is designed backwards from the change you want to see in your team's behaviour. Here's what coaching graduates do differently on the Monday after.
Replacement, lost pipeline, opportunity cost, territory damage — your full P&L for the call you're about to make.
Move past 'self-starter' and 'hunter mentality'. The 5-7 observable competencies that actually predict success.
Where the top reps in your sector actually look — and why job boards are usually the wrong place.
Same questions, same rubric, same scoring — the panel debate becomes data-driven, not preference-driven.
Role plays, written briefs, deal post-mortems — what to test and what to ignore in the interview hour.
The 30-60-90 plan that prevents the early-churn pattern and gets reps producing by month 4.
Full-day format shown. The half-day version focuses on the morning blocks with a condensed live round at the end.
Genuinely the first time I've left a coaching course able to do it on Monday. The live rounds with feedback made the difference. My 1:1s have completely changed shape.
Pricing depends on group size, delivery mode (live online vs in-person) and whether we tailor the curriculum to your sector. Closed cohorts start from a few hundred pounds per delegate for half-day workshops and scale from there. Book a 15-minute discovery call and we'll give you a concrete figure within 24 hours.
Sales Recruitment is a full-day workshop by design — the afternoon's assessment design and panel discipline work produce the hiring kit. A half-day version covering scorecard design and structured interviewing only is available as a foundational session for HR or new hiring managers.
We're flexible. Most cohorts run with 10–20 delegates, but we regularly deliver for smaller groups of 2–4, particularly for senior teams or specialised sectors. The live coaching rounds work better with even numbers, but we'll make any group work.
Live online is our default and works well for coaching — breakout rooms make the practice rounds work cleanly. We also deliver in-person at your site or a venue you choose, particularly when the cohort already work in the same room.
Typical lead time from a first call to delivery is 2–4 weeks. We can move faster if you need to — the limiting factor is usually your calendar, not ours.
Yes. The frameworks (GROW, TGROW, observable behaviours) stay the same; the examples, exercises and case studies are tailored to your sector, tools and your team's real work. We discuss this on the discovery call and rebrief the practitioner before delivery.
Yes. Every delegate receives a CPD-certified digital certificate on completion. The certificate references the hours of learning and the frameworks covered, so it can be added directly to a CPD record for any chartered or professional body.
We allocate a TESS coaching practitioner based on your sector. All practitioners are independently qualified coaches (ILM Level 5 or equivalent) with active corporate coaching practices. We'll send the named practitioner's bio after the discovery call.
Two ways in. Book a 30-minute discovery call below, or fill out the form and we'll reply within 24 hours with cohort options for your group.