Consumer Durables

Our clients are family businesses in home & living, PE portfolio companies with a clear growth plan and international brands with a Dutch sales organization.

A market that moves with sentiment

A sofa, a television or a bike is something consumers buy at long intervals. That makes demand highly sensitive to economic sentiment. When demand falls, warehouses fill up and margins come under pressure.

Internally, the challenge is to align sales, purchasing, product management and supply chain. Externally, channel strategy keeps getting more complex, with dealers, own stores and online side by side.

What this asks of a commercial leader

The sales conversation is changing too. Buyers of furniture, electronics or cars research online for a long time and only speak to a salesperson late in the process. Meanwhile, brands and dealers use more and more technology, such as 3D configurators and augmented reality, to make a product tangible before the customer has touched it. That helps sales, but it also asks more of salespeople. They have to switch between screen and conversation, and build on what the customer already knows. A good sales leader develops exactly that adaptiveness in the team, and keeps a grip on a channel mix that keeps getting more complex.

How we search

Development Driven Search® looks for the leader for whom your assignment is the logical next step. In consumer durables we often look for someone who can balance channels and lead a team through a downturn. We assess on the predictors of success in sales, and on how someone has kept a team productive in a shrinking market before.

From intake to signed contract takes 8 to 12 weeks on average.

Discuss your vacancy with SalesQuarters. Call +31 20 226 90 00 or email info@salesquarters.nl. A first conversation commits you to nothing. Would you like to hear how it went for others first? We will put you in touch with a client as a reference.

Where we have done this

For Light & Living we found the Sales Director, for Trust a Category Manager. And for the CCO of Enviolo, maker of gear systems for e-bikes, Bart was a sounding board when the market dropped sharply after its peak. Berend Kistemaker: "It felt like I had a co-pilot for a while."

Want to talk it through?

Does the market call for a different commercial approach? In a first conversation we look at what your organization needs now.

Call SalesQuarters on +31 20 226 90 00 or email info@salesquarters.nl.