Tillicoultry Quarries
Recruiting a Commercial Sales Manager to grow the specialist mortars and renders division following a business acquisition.
Client Overview
Tillicoultry Quarries is a family-owned construction materials business established in 1931, operating 31 sites across Scotland, the North East of England and East Anglia. The business supplies aggregates, asphalt, ready-mixed concrete, sand and gravel, cement and sports sand to the construction and infrastructure sectors. Following its acquisition of Hugh King & Co — a specialist dry mortar and render manufacturer based in Kilwinning — the group added a dedicated mortars and renders capability to its portfolio, producing masonry mortars, decorative mineral renders, natural stone adhesives, bedding mortars and concrete repair products for contractors, merchants and housebuilders across the UK. The mortars and renders division operates from a state-of-the-art dry powder facility at Hullerhill and supplies both bagged and silo product to customers ranging from small building contractors to major housebuilders and infrastructure programmes.
The Brief
Following the acquisition of Hugh King & Co, Tillicoultry Quarries needed a Commercial Sales Manager to take ownership of the mortars and renders sales operation and grow it as a distinct profit centre within the wider group. The role required someone who could develop the existing customer base — merchants, contractors and housebuilders — while identifying new specification and project opportunities. Critically, this was a highly visible position within a business that placed significant importance on cultural fit and the values its people brought to the job, not just their technical credentials.
The Challenge
Tillicoultry Quarries had been searching for the right candidate independently and had drawn a blank. The difficulty was a familiar one in construction products sales: candidates with deep technical knowledge of mortars and renders tended to come from manufacturer backgrounds where they had been supported by established brand equity and marketing infrastructure. Many lacked the commercial drive and self-starting ambition needed to develop a relatively new route to market from the ground up. Equally, candidates with strong new-business instincts often lacked the product depth and specification credibility the role demanded.
A further complexity was the remuneration structure. Tillicoultry Quarries offered an attractive overall package but without a traditional sales commission or bonus component — a model that immediately filters out a significant portion of the market's most commercially motivated candidates. Sales Recruit UK worked with the business to reframe how the opportunity was positioned in order to attract candidates who were motivated by the scope of the role and the platform it offered, rather than those who were purely incentive-driven.
What Sales Recruit UK Did
Rather than limiting the search to candidates with direct mortars and renders experience, Sales Recruit UK defined the minimum technical threshold required and broadened the brief to include candidates from closely aligned construction products sectors — dry mix, bagged materials, specialist aggregates — who had the route-to-market knowledge to transition quickly and the personal attributes to take ownership of a visible commercial role. The SRUK Fit Score process evaluated each candidate across sector knowledge, commercial track record, new-business capability, cultural alignment with a family-owned business, and motivational fit with a non-commission structure. Candidates who scored well on drive and ambition but were carrying an expectation of variable pay were filtered out at shortlist stage.
The Outcome
Sales Recruit UK placed a Commercial Sales Manager who has remained in the role for over two years. In that time his remit has expanded beyond the original mortars and renders brief to encompass commercial responsibilities across other parts of the Tillicoultry Quarries business — a clear signal that the placement delivered both on the immediate need and on the longer-term potential the business was looking for.