From the field
Written by a recruiter who specialises in this sector, not a content team. Market-specific, direct, and useful.
Where to start if you want to move from internal sales, estimating, the trade counter or the tools into field sales, what it pays, and how to prove you're ready.
Contractors and subcontractors don't all play the same buying role. Who selects, approves, orders and installs the product, and what to test when you hire for it.
Most reference checks confirm a decision already made. Structure, discipline and one well-placed probe fix that.
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.
Australia is running two building codes at once. Where code knowledge matters by sector, what a wrong call costs, and how to screen for it when 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.
How to scope, assess and hire a State Sales Manager in Australian building products. A five-question brief check, a fair work sample and the evidence to collect at each stage.
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 building products sales reps around a job change: what to prepare privately, what to change on day one and how to follow through in the first week.
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.
Competitive pay gets an A&D sales rep to the table. What decides whether they join or stay is role design: autonomy in the field, a product they are proud of, clear showroom boundaries, the right support, and a visible growth path.
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.
How Australia's interiors market sells, how sales titles shift by business model, and what hiring managers and candidates should check, from a specialist building products recruiter.
A plain-language map of the Australian building envelope market: product categories, how they get specified and sold, what the sales roles involve, and what that means for hiring briefs and career moves.
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.
How the Australian lighting market works: the specification and trade channels, who influences and buys, the sales roles involved, and what hiring managers and reps need to know.
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 a building products salesperson should use LinkedIn when looking, quietly or openly: Open to Work, what recruiters can actually see, your network, and how to reach out well.
How building products salespeople can tell a real signal from feed activity, when to move a LinkedIn conversation to a call, email or video, and how to ask without pushing.
How building products salespeople can comment on LinkedIn deliberately: which discussions to join, what a useful comment adds, and how to keep the time under control.
How building products salespeople can use LinkedIn visibility to make a later phone call less cold, and the honest line between recognising a name and real interest.
Practical LinkedIn post ideas for building products salespeople, drawn from projects, customer problems and everyday sales work, plus what to skip and the permission checks to run first.
What a building products salesperson should show on LinkedIn: the products, customers, channel, territory and proof that make both a buyer and a recruiter take you seriously.
My first-hand account of cleaning up my LinkedIn network, what it cost, who to keep, and the keep / unfollow / remove call to make before you delete anyone.
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.
What specification leakage is, where a specified product gets substituted across the project stages, and the rep capabilities that help defend it.
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.
How to define, assess and support a specification-led architectural lighting sales hire in Australia. Role variants, the specification chain and a six-question interview rubric.
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.