The commercial purpose
A team build exists to make a revenue plan achievable. Filling five vacancies one at a time produces five individuals; sequencing them produces a function that can hit a number.
Service
Team builds
Several connected hires planned and sequenced together, so what you end up with works as a unit rather than a set of individually filled vacancies.
When a team build is the right call
- A funded technology, SaaS, AI or deep tech business with a revenue plan that needs several hires.
- Entering a new market, segment or product line.
- Launching a GTM function that does not exist yet.
- Rebuilding an underperforming sales organisation without stalling revenue.
- Moving from founder-led selling to something repeatable.
- Hiring several salespeople simultaneously and needing a consistent bar across all of them.
How we sequence it
- Agree the revenue model and the headcount it actually implies, which is often fewer people than the plan assumes.
- Decide the order: leadership, closers and pipeline builders rarely land best all at once.
- Design one assessment framework so the bar is the same for every seat.
- Stagger start dates around onboarding, enablement and management capacity.
- Build in a comparison point — two hires into the same seat tell you far more than one.
How it is structured
Team builds are run as a project with a committed, usually exclusive engagement, because sequencing only works if one party owns the whole plan. Commercials reflect the number of seats and the timeline, and are agreed in writing at the outset.
Shapes we build
What a team build usually looks like
These are the structures we are set up for. The right one depends on where your revenue constraint actually sits.
Building an SDR function
A first outbound pod with consistent assessment, so you can tell whether a slow start is the people or the message.
SDR plus AE structure
Pipeline builders and closers hired against each other deliberately, with handover quality assessed on both sides.
Launching a UK sales team
For overseas businesses opening a UK function, where the first two hires define the market's impression of you.
Building an international sales function
Sequenced hiring across markets, with honest advice on where local presence genuinely matters and where it does not.
The first commercial leadership team
Moving founder-led selling into a system, usually with a leader before more sellers.
Rebuilding an underperforming function
Replacing a layer of a sales organisation without stalling revenue while you do it.
Hiring a team around a new Sales Leader
The leader helps set the bar, and we run consistent assessment underneath them.
These describe what we are built to do. Where you want evidence of comparable projects, ask us on a call — we will not publish case studies we cannot stand behind.
One standard
The same five stages across every seat
Consistent assessment is what makes a team build comparable. When one hire underperforms you can see whether the profile was wrong or the environment was.
Stage 1: Experience and evidence
What has this person actually done?
We get specific about the numbers and the environment behind them, in the same format for every candidate, so you can compare people rather than compare CVs.
Past performance is evidence, not a forecast. A strong number in a business with exceptional inbound tells you very little about a cold market, and we say so.
Includes
Quota, attainment and how it moved across the last three periods · Average deal value and sales cycle length · Market, customer type and the ICP they actually sold into · New business versus account growth, outbound versus inbound
Stage 2: How they sell
What happens when this person has to actually sell?
We take them through real situations rather than competency questions, because selling is a behaviour and you can hear it.
Includes
Discovery: the questions they ask and the order they ask them in · Listening ratio, and whether they follow the thread or return to a script · Prospecting method and how they choose who to approach · Building rapport without performing
Stage 3: Modern GTM capability
Can this person operate inside a modern revenue team?
Technology should give a seller more time in front of buyers. We check they understand that, and that they use it with judgement rather than for volume.
Nobody needs experience of every platform, and we do not screen on a tool list. The principle is simpler: a strong modern seller can explain how technology makes them more effective, and where it makes them worse.
Includes
CRM discipline in Salesforce or HubSpot: clean pipeline, honest stages, useful notes · Conversation intelligence such as Gong, and what they changed after listening back · Sequencing and engagement platforms such as Outreach or Salesloft · Data and intelligence tools: Apollo, Lusha, Cognism, Clay, LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Stage 4: Mindset and motivation
Why does this person sell, and what happens when it gets hard?
This is the stage most processes skip and the one that most often explains a failed hire. It is a proper conversation, not a personality questionnaire.
The goal is meaningful human understanding, not a psychometric score. We report what we heard and where we are unsure.
Includes
Why they chose sales, and whether they actually enjoy selling · What motivates them beyond the commission plan · Ambition: what they want to be doing in three years, and how realistic it is · Resilience and how they describe a bad quarter
Stage 5: Human and cultural fit
Where is this person most likely to thrive?
We are not looking for people who all sound the same. We are working out which environment brings the best out of this particular person, and whether that is yours.
Cultural fit is not a code word for people who resemble the existing team. Used properly it is the difference between a good hire and a good hire in the wrong place.
Includes
Communication style, and how it lands with your buyer · Personality and values, described honestly rather than flatteringly · The working environment they perform best in · The management style that gets the most out of them
Common questions
Team building, answered
- How do you build a high-performing GTM team?
- Start from the revenue model, not the org chart. Work out where the constraint actually is — reach, conversion or retention — then hire against that first. Install one assessment standard across every seat, sequence starts around onboarding capacity, and hire a leader before you hire the fourth or fifth seller.
- How should a startup hire its first commercial team?
- Prove the motion before delegating it. If demand exists and closing is the bottleneck, hire a full-cycle AE who has sold at your deal size. If the message works but nobody is being reached, hire outbound support and keep the founder closing. Where budget allows, hire two rather than one, so you can tell whether a slow start is the person or the proposition.
- Have you done this before?
- The team behind Adroit has run multi-hire commercial projects through Humand Talent, and Adroit is built for this work specifically. We are not going to publish a case study we cannot evidence — ask us on a call and we will talk you through comparable work honestly.
- Can you lift and shift an existing team?
- Where it is lawful and ethical, yes — approaching a group who have worked together is a legitimate route to a functioning team quickly. We will not act where there are restrictive covenants we would be encouraging someone to breach, and we will tell you where the line is.
Other ways we work
If this is not the shape of your hire
The three services overlap on assessment and differ on scope. If you started in the wrong place, move sideways.
One hire at a time
Permanent recruitment
You are adding to or replacing a seat in a motion that already works, and the profile matters more than speed.
Hire GTM talentOne leadership mandate
Executive search
The hire changes the shape of the revenue function, the market has to be mapped properly, or an incumbent is still in seat.
Start an executive search
Building a team rather than filling a seat?
Tell us the plan and the timeline. We will tell you the order we would hire in, and where we think the plan is optimistic.