Interiors
I place the sales people who sell flooring, tiles, kitchens, joinery, surfaces and finishes, across every route those products take to market.
Interiors covers the products that go inside the building envelope. Flooring, tiles and stone, joinery, kitchens and bathrooms, wall linings and ceilings, furniture and furnishings. I recruit the sales people who sell them, across every route those products take to market.
Some interiors products sell through specification, where the win happens at the design stage. Others sell through trade counters, distributors, builders or direct to the end user. They are different jobs and they need different people. Getting that distinction right at brief stage is most of the hire.
Further reading: Spec Manager vs BDM in building products, specification leakage and how it kills margin, why your best A&D reps are leaving and the cost of a bad hire. Hiring now? Let's talk.
Interiors is one of the broadest categories in building products, and one of the most competitive for talent. Every flooring company, tile brand, kitchen manufacturer, appliance brand and bathroom supplier is fighting for the same pool of relationship-driven salespeople who understand the A&D specification process.
I know this market end to end. Not just the headline brands, but the appliance manufacturers, the bathroom suppliers, and the wholesalers and merchants who move their product through the channel. I know who they are, how they sell, and where their best people sit. That is the difference between a recruiter who can name a few companies and one who has actually mapped the channel.
The difference between a good hire and a bad one in this space often comes down to how well someone navigates the design community. The best interior product salespeople aren't just order-takers. They're relationship builders who can walk into an architect's studio, earn trust, get specified, and then follow that specification through to installation without losing the project to a competitor's substitution.
I've placed across every corner of this market. The roles range from junior reps calling on retailers to senior specification managers running national A&D programs.
I recruit interiors sales roles across Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Related reading: hiring flooring and tile sales reps and why your best A&D reps are leaving.
Melbourne interiors runs off the same design precincts as the wider A&D market, Richmond, Cremorne, Collingwood and Fitzroy for the studios and the showrooms that serve them. The product side sits somewhere else entirely. Flooring, surfaces and joinery sell through trade and retail showrooms across the outer suburbs, and the larger suppliers hold stock and staff out of industrial pockets like Hallam and Dandenong. Plenty of suppliers never see a design studio at all and sell straight to local trade, retailers and wholesalers in their own category.
Sydney follows the same shape. Studios in Surry Hills, Chippendale and Alexandria, the showroom belt running Alexandria through to Waterloo, and behind it a trade and retail layer that reaches well past the inner suburbs and out to the western industrial belt. A Sydney interiors rep is often selling to three different buyers, the specifier, the retailer and the builder, and the territory usually gets drawn around whichever one carries the volume.
Brisbane concentrates around James Street, Fortitude Valley and Newstead for the studios and the Build and Design Centre in South Brisbane for the showrooms. Trade and retail runs north through Geebung and Virginia and south down the M1 toward the Gold Coast. The category point matters more here than anywhere: a Brisbane interiors rep with one strong wholesale or retail network in their own product is worth more than a broader one without it, which is part of the shortage the Queensland market page describes.
Start with the route to market, not the product. Some interiors products are won at design stage, through the architectural and design channel, where the specification runs through architects, designers and the client's in-house coordination teams over months. Others are won at a trade counter, through a distributor, with a builder, or straight with the end user, where the cycle is fast and transactional. Those are different sales animals, and hiring the wrong one for the route is an expensive mistake.
The strongest interiors sales people share a few things regardless of route. An eye for the product and the space, the drive to chase a specification or an order through to purchase, and a relationship instinct that holds the specifier, the merchant and the builder at the same time. Backgrounds vary. Some come out of interior design and found they were better at winning the work than drawing it. Some came up through retail, trade or merchant sales. That blend is what I screen for, and it is hard to find by reading a CV. See also why your best A&D reps are leaving and the cost of a bad hire.
Ranges shift depending on whether the role leans retail/wholesale or A&D specification. The spec side typically pays more.
Sales Rep / Account Manager
$80k to $110k base + car + super
BDM / Specification Manager
$100k to $135k base + car + super
Key Account Manager
$110k to $140k base + car + super
State Sales Manager
$130k to $160k base + car + super
National Sales Manager
$150k to $190k+ base + car + super
A full breakdown of the Australian interiors market. Who the key players are across flooring, tiles, joinery, plasterboard, ceilings, furniture and bathrooms. How products get specified and sold. What sales roles look like day to day. Where the growth is. And why good people are hard to find.
Read the full industry profileDeep dives into sales roles, key players and market trends across the sectors I recruit in.
Interiors
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Whether you're a manufacturer looking for someone who can open doors in the design community, or a candidate who knows the difference between a CPD presentation and a sales pitch, keen to chat.