Reducing Risk When Hiring Commercial Talent
Principl helps companies hire the commercial leaders and account executives who can actually operate in the reality of your market, your sales cycle, and your stage of growth.
Then, we we reduce the risk by staying close through coaching to ensure they deliver.
Sales roles are notoriously hard to hire for.
Strong CVs and confident interviews don’t always translate into real performance. I’m sure we all know that.
Many companies end up hiring people who sound impressive but struggle once they enter a complex commercial environment. With the intersections between direct clients, distributors, intermediaries/brokers, current providers, etc, it can be a minefield.
The reality is that hiring well requires a deep understanding of how HealthTech revenue functions actually operate — from pipeline development and deal strategy to stakeholder management and long sales cycles. I’ve seen £100k+ base salary SaaS AEs fail spectacularly when moving into HealthTech without the right support.
That’s the perspective Principl brings to the hiring process. And having ran recruitment businesses previously, as well as having hired dozens and dozens of commercial people in my time, I know through 20 years of first hand experience what works, and what doesn’t.
Why commercial hiring is so difficult
Your retained recruitment partner
If you get it right, you’re 6 figures up within 6 months. They hit the ground running and pay for themselves + more quickly.
Get it wrong? You’ll be 6 figures down in 6 months through cost, lost opportunity, and lost time.
That’s a significant difference, and not usually a risk most startups/scaleups can afford.
Commercial Leadership
Hiring Heads of Sales, VP Sales, Commercial Directors, Heads of CS and other business leaders with revenue accountability.
Sales Teams
Finding experienced AEs, SDRs, and RevOps hires that understand complex B2B sales processes and building pipeline. Driven executors, not those who expect everything handed to them.
CS Teams
Customer Success/Account Management isn’t just keeping clients happy. It’s proactively reducing churn, increasing ACV, and seeing/delivering growth.
Principl doesn’t operate like a traditional recruitment agency.
We understand there is a gap, and we want to fill it. Traditional models come with high cost, and no risk mitigation.
Rather than running large candidate pipelines, the focus is on identifying a small number of carefully selected candidates who genuinely fit the commercial environment of the business.
This typically includes:
• Clarifying the role and commercial expectations
• Designing a structured hiring process
• Sourcing and introducing relevant candidates
• Supporting interviews and evaluation
• Helping both sides make the right decision
Once the hire is made, we coach them for 3-6 months (or longer) to ensure they hit the round running for you and your business.
A different approach to recruitment
“Most recruitment firms focus on filling roles.
Principl focuses on building commercial capability and long term business growth. With recruitment, this looks like role definition against your company needs and the market, a clear outbound search + headhunting strategy, shortlisting & interviewing, designing remuneration packages, and negotiating the final offer.
Then, once they begin, we move into defined coaching to support them to ramp quickly - Reducing the risks associated with hiring and ensuring we’re maximising the opportunity of them delivering revenue in the quickest possible timeframe.
From first hires, to moving away from founder-led sales, to building GTM teams once PMF is ready - I’ve been there, done it myself in businesses I’ve worked in, and I’ve done it for others too.
That unique perspective reduces the business risk, and changes the way hiring decisions are made.”
Simon Jay, Founder