Patersons Quarries
Placing the first Area Sales Manager for Patersons Quarries' new concrete facing brick operation in Scotland — a greenfield commercial role requiring sector expertise and entrepreneurial drive in a limited talent pool.
Client Overview
Patersons Quarries is a Scottish quarrying and construction materials business supplying aggregates, ready-mixed concrete and associated products to the construction and infrastructure sectors across Scotland. The business operates multiple quarry and production sites, with a strong position in the Scottish construction materials market built on product quality, reliable supply and long-standing customer relationships with contractors, local authorities and building companies. The development of a purpose-built Concrete Facing Brick facility represented a significant new product investment and an expansion of the business into a new specification-led product category.
The Brief
With a purpose-built Concrete Facing Brick factory newly operational, Patersons Quarries needed an Area Sales Manager to build the commercial operation from scratch across Scotland. The role was comprehensive in its scope — developing the full range of customer relationships required to establish a new facing brick product in the market, including brick merchants, builders merchants, architects, housebuilders, main contractors, local authorities and housing associations. The person also had responsibility for developing the product range and supporting the creation of sales and marketing materials for the new division.
The Challenge
Concrete facing brick is a specialist construction products category with a limited pool of candidates who have both the relevant product knowledge and the established customer relationships to be effective from day one. The Scottish market for facing bricks is dominated by a small number of well-established manufacturers and distributors, meaning the candidates most familiar with the product and the customer base were already employed in senior positions and would need a compelling reason to move. The greenfield nature of the role — building a sales operation and product range from scratch — also required an entrepreneurial mindset that many experienced construction products salespeople, comfortable in established businesses with existing support structures, would struggle to bring.
What Sales Recruit UK Did
Sales Recruit UK targeted candidates from the facing brick, concrete product and specification-led construction materials sectors with established relationships across the Scottish market. The SRUK Fit Score process assessed candidates across facing brick and construction products sector knowledge, customer relationship depth across the architect, merchant, housebuilder and contractor channels, specification sales capability and the entrepreneurial self-sufficiency needed to build a new commercial operation with limited support infrastructure. Motivation to take on a genuinely greenfield challenge was weighted heavily in the assessment.
The Outcome
Patersons Quarries appointed an Area Sales Manager with the sector knowledge, customer relationships and entrepreneurial drive the role demanded. The placement gave the new Concrete Facing Brick division its commercial foundation — a credible, connected sales presence capable of opening the right doors across the architect, merchant and contractor channels needed to establish a new facing brick brand in the Scottish market.