Referrals built the agency. They won’t scale it.
A shortlist of people who can already do the job, with the evidence on each one written down. You read it and decide who to see.
People who can originate without a founder in the room, scored on what converted rather than what got booked.
Tony Goodwin, founder
SaaS, cyber & AI·MSPs & IT services·Financial & insurance services·Professional services·Marketing & creative·Manufacturing & industrial·Construction & built environment·Logistics & supply chain·Energy & environmental·Facilities & contracts·Medical & life sciences·Food, drink & FMCG·Education & public sector·UK, US & Australia
“I have a mistrust of recruiters, but you’ve restored my faith in the value of getting the right hire.”
“Absolutely delighted with the hires we’ve made. The screening was first class and we had amazing candidates to choose from.”
“After 2 bad hires and months of lost opportunities, you found us an amazing Head of Sales — they’re 140% of quota.”
Six things go wrong when you hire.
Here’s each one, and what we do about it.
You’ll get applications from account handlers and marketers who’ve never had to originate anything. Agency new business has a reputation for chewing people up, so the ones who are genuinely good at it aren’t answering adverts.
We map who is actually winning work for agencies like yours, and go to them directly. You get that map free, before you commit to anything.
| 1 | A. Whitworth | London | Seven years new business at an independent agency. Named four accounts she personally originated and can evidence what they billed. |
| 2 | J. Ferris | Manchester | At a competitor of similar size. Strong on pitch process and comfortable in front of a marketing director. |
| 3 | S. Bracken | Leeds | Came from client side. Knows how agencies get chosen because she used to choose them. |
| 4 | D. Mallory | Bristol | Account director moving into growth. Less proven on origination, credible with creatives. |
Yours free, whether you use us or not.
Most agency new business hires fail, and everyone in the market knows it. The people worth having have watched a peer take a role with no pipeline, no process and a founder who wouldn’t let go, and leave nine months later.
We market the role properly. Every person we approach gets a page built for the role and addressed to them by name, with a video explaining the business, what the job actually involves and who it suits. It’s the difference between being pitched at and being made a case to.
“The quality and speed of the process has been outstanding. I have a mistrust of recruiters, but you’ve restored my faith in the value of getting the right hire.”
Neil Latcham — Sales Director, TomrodsNot sure if this is on your radar, but it felt worth putting in front of you.
Anyone who wants a marketing team feeding them briefs, or a founder who says they’ll step back and doesn’t.
A real page, sent to one person, by name.
Interviewing is a separate skill to the job. Some people are polished because they’ve done a lot of interviews, not because they’re any good. Others are awkward in a room and would be the best hire you make this year. And every CV now arrives with an AI polish on it, so the ones that read best aren’t necessarily the best people. You come away feeling reasonably sure — but feeling sure and having evidence aren’t the same thing, and only one of them survives month five.
A long screening interview, conducted by someone who has worked in your market, then a written suitability report on every candidate we recommend — scored against your brief, with the evidence underneath. And a section called Watch Points, where we set out what isn’t proven.
| Origination from cold | Strong | 9.0 |
| Credibility with a marketing director | Strong | 8.5 |
| Pitch process and conversion | Strong | 8.0 |
| Working alongside creative leadership | Good | 7.5 |
| Retaining and growing what they win | Partial | 6.0 |
Thirty CVs to read, eight people to see, half of them a waste of an afternoon. And you’re doing it around the day job, which is why the role has been open five weeks already.
You see the ones worth seeing, and nobody else. No padding a shortlist to make it look busy, and no thirty CVs to sift. The questions worth asking are already written down, because they came out of what we couldn’t close on the screening call.
Five weeks in, the person you wanted takes a counter-offer, or mentions a competing process nobody knew about, or turns out to have been thousands off on salary the whole way through.
We establish what it’ll take to land someone before you meet them — what they’re on, what they’d move for, whether they’re being pulled toward your role or pushed out of their current one, and what else they’re in process on. Then we manage it through to acceptance.
Counter-offer. Agencies counter hard for new business people because replacing them takes six months. Expect one and decide your ceiling now.
Which is the expensive one. You’ve paid a fee, paid five months of salary, lost half a year, and you’re back where you started with less confidence than before.
If they leave, or you exit them, within six months, we run the search again at no fee. But the real protection is upstream: Watch Points exist so the risks are on the table before you hire, not discovered in month five.
| Conversion, attributed | Weak | 4.0 |
| Leading a pitch alone | Weak | 4.5 |
Hired, and still performing.
The method is constant — the criteria change with the sale.
“Absolutely delighted with the hires we’ve made. The screening was first class and we had amazing candidates to choose from.”
“The quality and speed of the process has been outstanding. I have a mistrust of recruiters, but you’ve restored my faith in the value of getting the right hire.”
New business and growth roles in agencies and studios.
Where the work is won on relationships and reputation, and the founders have been carrying it themselves for years.
Agencies building a commercial function for the first time.
- Typically 20 to 200 people
- The founder hiring is the person who’ll work alongside them
- Revenue historically won by founders and referral
- Building new business capability for the first time, or fixing one that didn’t work
Creative & brand agencies
Long, relationship-led buying cycles and a client who is buying taste as much as capability. Credibility with a marketing director in the first meeting decides whether there is a second.
Digital, performance & media
Shorter cycles, more numbers, and a buyer who will benchmark you against an incumbent on cost per acquisition. Commercial literacy matters more than presentation.
Consultancies & specialist studios
Fewer, larger engagements, often bought by a procurement team as well as a marketing one. The sale looks more like professional services than advertising.
Most clients don’t stop at the role they came for.
We’re usually brought in for a commercial hire. Then, once we know how the business works and what it takes to succeed in it, clients ask us about the roles around it.
The method doesn’t change. The criteria still come from your brief, and where the assessment needs technical depth we bring in someone from our bench who has done that job.
One client has had us fill four roles across commercial and operations. Another started with a Head of Sales and is now three roles into a technical team. If we can’t assess something properly, we’ll say so rather than take it on.
You don’t pay unless you hire.
No fee unless you hire.
Most clients start here. We ask for 21 days' exclusivity so we can invest properly in the search rather than race three other agencies to the same active candidates.
Six-month replacement.
If the person leaves, or you exit them, within six months of starting, we run the search again at no fee.
We’ll tell you when to stop.
If the market for the brief isn’t there at the package you’re offering, you’ll hear it early — and we’d rather send three people we’d back than four to fill a shortlist.
Full terms confirmed in writing before any search begins.
Sold them.
Hired for them.
Tony Goodwin has built, scaled and exited B2B businesses — selling them himself — and spent the years since rebuilding the commercial function inside more than 170 companies. He designed the way we screen, and he still runs searches.
What we assess against comes out of your brief, not a template. And where the assessment needs depth we haven’t got in-house, we bring in someone from our bench who has done that job — a sector specialist, an engineer, whoever the brief actually demands.
Most screening tests whether someone can talk about the job. Ours tests whether they’ve done what your role actually requires.
A generalist recruiter can check a CV against a spec. Only someone who has sold in your sector can tell whether the numbers were earned or inherited, whether the accounts they name are the ones that matter, and what they’d struggle with in your business.
The things people ask before they call.
If yours isn’t here, ask it on the call. We’d rather tell you no early than sell you a search you don’t need.
Meetings booked is the easiest number in this market to hit and the least useful. We score whether fee earners took them seriously, what converted, and whether they could hold a partner to a follow-up without being resented for it.
That’s the criterion the hire turns on. Someone your partners wouldn’t take into a client meeting is a marketing function within six months, whatever their pipeline looks like.
We work on contingency for most roles — no fee unless you hire. The fee is a percentage of first-year salary and we agree it in writing before anything starts. We aren’t the cheapest option in the market and we don’t try to be; what you’re paying for is the research, the screening and the report.
Tell us on the call. If you’ve someone promising we’d rather pressure-test them than run a search you don’t need. We’ll be straight with you about whether it’s worth doing at all.
For 21 days, yes. It’s what makes the approach possible — nobody writes a page for each candidate and records a video on a role four agencies are racing. After 21 days the role is yours to run however you like.
If they leave, or you exit them, inside six months of starting, we run the search again at no fee. Full terms are confirmed in writing before we begin.
The UK, the United States and Australia. Most of our searches are field or hybrid roles outside the major cities, which is where the agencies chasing volume tend not to look.
A limited number. The research and the reports take real time, and doing eight searches badly is worse for everyone than doing three properly. If we can’t give a role the attention it needs we’ll say so.
Tell us the role.
We’ll show you who’s out there.
A researched Talent Map for your role, built from scratch, and fifteen minutes to walk through it. Yours whether you use us or not.
No fee, no obligation.
The map takes days. The search starts the moment you say go.
No sales deck. No hard sell. Just an honest conversation about the role.