From the field
Written by a recruiter who specialises in this sector, not a content team. Market-specific, direct, and useful.
Most reps who want a management role are already in the best place to get one. What businesses actually promote on, what to do in the year before, and why leaving to get the title is usually harder.
The order to work in when you start looking. Six steps, starting before you open your CV.
The honest version: why I only recruit sales talent in building products, lighting and A&D, what specialist knowledge actually changes on a brief, and how I work.
Most reps can name NCC 2022. Few can hold the conversation a specifier wants. Where code knowledge bites by sector, what bluffing costs, and a five-question screen for hiring.
Residential and commercial BDMs are separated by decision chain and route to market, not seniority. How to tell them apart, test channel fit, and brief the right one.
What to test for when hiring building envelope sales reps in 2026: AS 5113 literacy, NCC 2025 readiness, and the defect liability they now carry on every spec.
The merchant-counter mis-hire is the most expensive recruitment pattern in flooring and tiles. Why specification-led is a different job, not the same job at a higher level.
How to choose and brief a civil sales recruiter in Australia, how to test that they read both technical credibility and commercial fit, and how to write a brief that gets the right candidates.
The State Sales Manager seat costs $260k to $400k+ to hire. Five briefing questions, package math, and the 2026 sourcing playbook.
Eleven technical sales titles in Australian building products map to four actual jobs. Work out which role you are really hiring before you name or advertise it.
The LinkedIn checklist for sales reps in the week between signing a new role and starting it. Duplicate profiles, the job-change notification, tagging your new employer correctly, and who to connect with before day one.
NCC 2022 changed what a building envelope rep actually does. Why charisma is now a liability and what good hiring looks like in 2026.
How to design a building products BDM commission plan in Australia. Set the budget, define the job, choose credit and ramp rules, handle inherited revenue, with a reconciled worked example.
Two in three Australian design employers can't find the talent they need. Pay matters, but at mid-level the offers cluster in the same band. The lever that actually moves the candidate is role design.
Why the civil BDM who can sell and read a drawing is so rare in Australia, which candidate pools are worth approaching, and how to set the brief for the capability the role actually needs.
Hiring a waterproofing sales rep in Australia is a defect-risk decision, not a normal sales hire. The four capabilities to test for, how to assess them on real work, and what you can train.
Reps fail because the runway was wrong, not because the hire was wrong. The 30-60-90 day fix for building products onboarding.
How to choose between a specialist building products recruiter and a generalist agency. A side-by-side comparison, the four questions to ask, and how to compare fees and guarantees on the same basis.
A diagnostic scorecard for hiring managers. Ten questions across Role Clarity and Hiring Readiness, before you post the role.
A worked, no-double-counting model for the cost of a bad building products sales hire in Australia, plus first-party survey data on ramp-up and a free calculator.
A deep dive into Australia's interiors sector. Key players in flooring, tiles, joinery, plasterboard, ceilings, furniture and bathrooms. How products get sold, what sales roles look like, and where the market is heading.
A deep dive into Australia's building envelope sector. Key players in cladding, facades, roofing, waterproofing, insulation and glazing. How products get sold, what sales roles look like, and where the market is heading.
A recruiter's field view of Australia's civil and infrastructure products market. How products get specified and sold, who the buyers are, the sales roles, and what it all means for hiring.
A deep dive into Australia's lighting sector. Key players in architectural, commercial, industrial and emergency lighting. How products get sold, what sales roles look like, and where the market is heading.
Most salespeople accept commission structures without running the numbers. Here's how commission actually works in Australian building products sales, what it pays after tax, and a free calculator to check your own.
How to use LinkedIn when looking for your next sales role in building products. Open to Work settings, recruiter outreach, and using your network effectively.
LinkedIn is the front door, not the room where the deal gets done. How to move LinkedIn conversations to phone, email, and face-to-face in building products.
Ten minutes of LinkedIn commenting will do more for your visibility than an hour of posting. The 10-minute rule for building products salespeople.
LinkedIn doesn't replace the phone. It warms up the call before you make it. How to use LinkedIn alongside traditional outreach in building products sales.
The LinkedIn content that builds credibility in building products and the content that wastes everyone's time. A practical guide for salespeople.
Your LinkedIn profile needs to sell you to two audiences: customers and future employers. Practical tips and AI prompts for salespeople in building products.
Why your oversized LinkedIn network is hiding you from the right people. A practical guide to cleaning up your connections if you sell building products in Australia.
The questions building products sales candidates should ask employers, and what the answers reveal about the target, territory, support and why the role is open.
How hiring managers and candidates in Australian building products can use AI to prepare for a sales interview: the right role context, safe inputs and source checks, not a generic prompt library.
Job ads only reach 20-30% of the candidate market. In building products sales, the people you actually want to hire aren't scrolling Seek. Here's what to do instead.
What makes a great building products sales rep in Australia, and how to assess it when hiring: a capability framework, the evidence to request, interview questions and how to read tenure.
Current base ranges for BDMs, account managers, spec managers and sales leaders in Australian building products.
The most common revenue leak in Australian building products sales, and why the diagnosis is almost always upstream of the rep.
How to run a quiet, well controlled job search in Australian building products sales. Timing, target lists, recruiter permissions, counter-offers and clean exits, without burning a single bridge.
Where lighting sales talent is moving in 2026, what companies are hiring for, and what it pays.
What's your car allowance actually worth after tax? Free calculators for candidates and hiring managers in field sales. Covers running costs, FBT, HECS, and how to build a competitive package.
Hiring playbook for the hardest specification-led talent market in building products. Five-layer chain, three mis-hire archetypes, six interview questions, and what salary guides miss.
Flat sales are not always a rep problem. A practical diagnostic for Australian building products sales leaders on when installer capacity is the real constraint, and what suppliers can do about it.
The applicant pool and the best-candidate pool are rarely the same set. Why the strongest hires come from the passive market.
The mistakes that cost sales candidates offers, from the recruiter who hears the client debrief after every one.
The three numbers behind a new sales role: true year-one cost, breakeven month, and maturity return. Plus the one-page business case that gets signed off.
How to set KPIs and a bonus for a specification manager. Meeting ramps, CPD targets, specs banded by project value, and the 10 to 15% year-one quantum.
How to set KPIs and a bonus for an account manager. Retention gates, share of wallet, margin weighting, and why AMs shouldn't be paid like hunters.
What a counter-offer really buys, who it buys it for, and how to handle one without burning anything down.
When to resign, what to say, and how to work your notice. The exit playbook for a small industry.
Your notice period decides your search timing, your start date, and how your last month plays out. Plan around it properly.
Judgements form long before results do. The month-by-month plan for your first 90 days in a new territory.
Twenty minutes of proper briefing saves weeks of wasted search. What a recruiter actually needs from you.
Contingent, exclusive and retained buy you three different searches. How to match the model to the role.
A sales role open past 90 days is sending signals to candidates whether you like it or not. The four causes of a stale search and how to reset one.
Specification manager, BDM, account manager: three different jobs with three different sales cycles. Here's what actually separates them, and what each one is worth.
A strong trade counter rep and a strong field BDM aren't the same hire. Here's the mis-hire trap in hardware sales recruitment, and how to avoid it.
Eight practical retention levers for Australian building products sales teams, from comp clarity and territory decisions to stay interviews and service load, with a diagnostic table and role-by-role guidance.
What it really costs to lose a proven building products salesperson in Australia, why recovery runs harder in specification-led markets, and when a counter-offer actually works.
Specification Manager and BDM are two different jobs, with different buyers, cycles, KPIs and pay. The Australian building products guide to working out which sales seat you actually need before you write the brief.
How to tell a State Manager brief from a National Sales Manager brief before you hire. A role-scoping framework, three mis-hire patterns and a promote-or-hire test.
What Australian building products sales reps should know about non-competes now, the proposed 2027 reform, what survives it, and what to check before you move.
Australia has $242 billion in public civil works on the books and a thinning pool of sales reps who can defend a specification at Tier 1 tender. The hiring playbook for 2026.
Sales Manager, State, National, Director or GM Sales. What each role actually decides, and what it costs when the title and the scope disagree.
A single national band per title tells you almost nothing. The seven scope variables that decide what a sales leader costs.
Another layer of management, a different shape, or neither? Route to market, span of control and reporting lines in an Australian building products sales team.
One job title, three different jobs. A role-scoping guide for Australian employers hiring lighting sales reps: trade and wholesale, specification and design-led, or specification to delivery.