Location: UK-based, hybrid, with travel across Europe as required
Commitment: Fractional, 2–3 days per week
Term: Initial six months, with a formal review at 90 days and scope to extend
Day rate: Competitive, depending on experience
Start: As soon as possible
Role
Exec Capital is retained to appoint a Fractional Sales Director for an established international consultancy and capability-development firm. The business works with major organisations across a wide range of industries, and its European team is made up of senior consultants who carry significant business-development responsibility alongside client delivery.
This is a hands-on sales execution role, not an advisory or training assignment. You will become the day-to-day owner of sales execution for a team of five consultant-sellers with mixed sales experience. You will set and run the sales and BD management rhythm, raise the consistency and quality of business-development activity, and take day-to-day sales management off the Regional Managing Director, who retains overall commercial and strategic responsibility.
Around 80% of your time will go on driving BD execution and sales effectiveness. You will coach and challenge experienced professionals who sell as well as deliver. That means holding them to account for agreed actions while respecting the demands of live client work. Success will be measured against clear objectives agreed at the outset, including pipeline creation and progression, forecast accuracy, CRM discipline, conversion and a material reduction in the sales-management time required from the Regional Managing Director.
- Establish and run a consistent sales and business-development management cadence across the European team.
- Drive proactive business development and account development, including growth in existing strategic accounts as well as new opportunities.
- Run effective pipeline and opportunity reviews, challenging and supporting consultants on opportunity progression and next actions.
- Improve qualification, stage discipline, pipeline quality and conversion.
- Strengthen forecasting accuracy and CRM discipline so the pipeline gives a reliable view of the business.
- Coach each consultant individually on their business-development activity and build their BD capability over time.
- Support the team directly on strategically important opportunities where appropriate.
- Lead the practical implementation of planned sales training and turn it into lasting changes in day-to-day behaviour and measurable activity.
- Create real accountability for BD execution while recognising the team's client-delivery commitments.
- Give the Regional Managing Director clear visibility of sales performance, risks, priorities and the interventions needed.
Essential
- Demonstrable senior B2B sales leadership experience.
- A strong background in professional services, consulting, training or a closely related knowledge-based services business.
- Experience of complex, consultative sales with multiple stakeholders and relatively long sales cycles.
- A genuine business-development orientation, not a background purely in sales operations or sales administration.
- A proven record of managing, coaching and challenging experienced professionals, combining coaching with accountability.
- Hands-on pipeline, opportunity and forecast management.
- Confidence working with senior consultants and executives.
- UK-based and able to work effectively across a European business.
- Available for approximately 2–3 days per week.
- Highly desirable
- Experience managing consultants or subject-matter experts who are expected to sell, not only dedicated sales teams. This is the most important selection criterion, so please set out clearly in your application where you have successfully run business development through professionals who also had client-delivery responsibilities.
- Experience embedding sales methodologies (for example the Challenger approach) or sales training into everyday working practice.
- Experience in a smaller or mid-sized professional-services organisation.
- Experience working across multiple European markets.
- This role is not suited to sales trainers who deliver workshops without owning the follow-through, strategy consultants who diagnose and recommend, lead-generation or SDR providers, corporate Sales VPs used to leading large teams of dedicated salespeople, or individual rainmakers whose main value is their own selling.
- A fractional engagement of 2–3 days per week, leaving room for other portfolio commitments.
- Real ownership: you will run the sales rhythm day to day, with the backing of a Regional Managing Director who wants to hand it over.
- A well-regarded international brand, a high-calibre consulting team and major organisations as clients.
- A European remit, with flexible hybrid working from the UK.
- An initial six-month term with clear success measures and a 90-day review, with potential to extend or evolve the role if the model proves successful.
- A competitive day rate, contracted through Exec Capital with simple weekly timesheets.
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