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Fast recruitment for fast-moving sales: Riverstate finds store manager in just 2 weeks.
Good sales is more than just being able to sell well. It requires clear goals, measurable results, close customer contact, and a deep understanding of the products being brought to people. Success in sales is therefore not a coincidence – but planning it requires a lot of time, expertise, and personnel. These resources are limited in most companies, which is why more and more companies are outsourcing their sales to external partners. This is where sell:active comes in. sell:active is a sales agency based in Bochum that helps clients sell successfully. “We are the perfect partner for companies looking to outsource their sales,” explains Maximilian Schimann, Head of Sales at sell:active. “This ranges from small sales campaigns lasting just a few days to long-term partnerships.” One of sell:active’s specialties is shop-in-shop systems: Customers rent space in department stores or shopping centers, which sell:active operates as points of sale with its own staff. However, sell:active also manages entire brick-and-mortar stores, for example, for the energy company Vattenfall, for which sell:active currently operates several stores in Berlin and Hamburg. “Our clients only need to secure the space; we take care of the rest,” explains Schimann. “We map the entire personnel cycle, track successes, and handle all operational and promotional measures.”
sell:active therefore always has a high demand for reliable talent who not only have to meet its own requirements, but also those of clients like Vattenfall. The problem: Schimann and his team noticed that it was becoming increasingly difficult to find suitable candidates over time. The sales-oriented nature of the projects, which are paid based on performance through a commission model, is another hurdle: While there are potentially high salaries, the risk is also greater than with other jobs. This deters many talented individuals, narrowing the target audience.
“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find capable and motivated people, and when you’ve been around as long as we have, after a while you find yourself fishing in the same pool,” says Schimann. “We often found talented individuals who were top-notch salespeople but simply not reliable enough, which ultimately created more work for us. We were looking for someone to help us reach people who had both. That’s what brought us to Riverstate.”
Why Riverstate? Because the Riverstate team brought the right mix of experience, industry expertise, and agility to provide a long-term partner—not a one-time service provider.
“We didn’t want a large service provider whose culture might not be a good fit for us, but rather a partner who was as agile and personable as we are,” says Schimann. “That was exactly the impression I had with Riverstate from the very beginning. This has since grown into a truly good partnership that has now expanded into many areas.”
The search began with the search for a store manager for a Vattenfall brick-and-mortar store in Hamburg. “The fact that we actually had very few restrictions for the job or required specific specializations made the search even more difficult in some ways,” says Schimann. “Everyone was welcome, as long as the person fit with us and the Vattenfall brand. Riverstate listened to us and did a great job narrowing down the target group to present us with truly suitable candidates.”
The necessary preparatory work for this selection took place on Riverstate’s setup day, where the recruiting team familiarized themselves with the company and the requirements for the store management position in a joint workshop with sell:active. Time constraints were also discussed: “We generally never have much time to fill a position, but with the store management position, we really couldn’t afford the risk of not having anyone available by the deadline,” says Schimann.
In the end, things really moved quickly: Exactly one week after the joint setup day, the first candidates were introduced. Less than two weeks after the project launch, Schimann and his team had found a new store manager who met all the requirements and was able to take over the Vattenfall store on time.
Finding talent for client projects is one thing, but filling internal positions is also a major challenge for sell:active. Project work in a smaller agency requires flexible, multi-talented individuals who can confidently handle changing requirements and looming deadlines. To fill a vacant position in the internal sell:active team, Schimann turned to Riverstate again, hoping to repeat the rapid success of the last search.
The internal position also didn’t follow a precise job description, which made interpersonal skills all the more important. However, Schimann and his team also had a few specific professional requirements: “I didn’t have a precise job description in mind, but simply explained to Riverstate what kind of person we were looking for. We wanted someone with expertise in the online sector who could also shape things themselves – a combination that’s not particularly easy to find. And here, too, we quickly found a highly motivated person in Riverstate whose skills have helped us a great deal in a short space of time.”
Agency life constantly brings new challenges, and the next projects at sell:active are already in the pipeline. The next generation of Vattenfall stores is already in the works, and in the search for suitable sales specialists, the sell:active team is once again relying on the proven support of Riverstate.
As sales outsourcing professionals, Schimann and his team have a good sense of which projects exceed their internal capacity and when it’s time to bring a partner on board. When it comes to quickly filling key positions, Riverstate is the partner of choice for sell:active:
“I know how good the work Riverstate delivers is, and how difficult it would be to replicate that quality internally for the same price,” says Schimann. “As long as we have clients looking for staff, we will continue to work with Riverstate.”
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