Handing Over a Sales Role Shouldn't Feel Like a Gamble. Here's Why It Doesn't With Us.

You only pay when your hire starts. Here's what working with us is really like, guarantees, honesty, and all.

By
Anthony Hughes
,
Head of Recruitment
of Coburg Banks
LinkedIn Profile
August 27, 2026

Most of the risk in a hire sits with you. You pay, you wait, and if the person doesn't work out you're back where you started, poorer and further behind.

We can't take all of that away, and nobody can. What we can do is make sure you never pay for a search that hasn't produced anybody, and that a hire going wrong early doesn't cost you twice. Here's how that works when you give us a sales role.

You only pay when your hire actually starts.
No retainer, no upfront fee, nothing at all until the right person is sitting at their desk. If we don't find them, we don't get paid. Same on every role, the straightforward ones and the ones that take us months.

If it goes wrong early, putting it right is our problem.
Every placement comes with a three-month replacement and rebate guarantee. It's worth being clear about what that saves you, because a hire who leaves after six weeks has already cost you real money. Their salary for those weeks. The time your managers spent settling them in. And the vacancy sitting there again afterwards, still not doing the job you needed doing. Add a recruitment fee on top of all that and you've paid for the same hire twice. The guarantee exists so that the second bill never arrives.

The fee we quote is the fee you pay.
Agreed upfront, before we start. This is one worth asking every agency you speak to, because most quote a percentage of salary. Which means the fee climbs at exactly the moment you stretch the offer to land the person you actually want, which is a strange thing to be punished for. Ours doesn't move. No creeping percentages, and no surprise when the invoice turns up.

Why we can afford to work this way

Because it usually comes off. Across our business:

  • 79% of the roles we take on, we fill
  • 95% of the people we place are still there 18 months later
  • 92% of our clients come back to us for their next hire

Those cover every division and every kind of role, the easy ones and the awkward ones together, rather than one team having a good quarter.

The part that matters more than any guarantee

We'll tell you the truth, including when the truth costs us money.

A commercial energy business in the Midlands came to us after two sales hires from other agencies hadn't stuck. The easy move was to send more CVs and let them roll the dice again. What we said instead was that we didn't think the people had been the problem, and that their commission structure was. They changed it, and the person we placed after that hit her annual target in three months.

That conversation earned us nothing extra. If anything it cost us, because fixing the real problem meant they needed fewer hires from us, not more. But it was still the right thing to say.

And that's what you're actually buying. Not a database of CVs. You're buying judgement, and somebody who'll tell you what they honestly think even when it isn't what you were hoping to hear.

The next step costs you nothing

Tell us about the role. One conversation, no obligation. Worst case, you come off the call with a clearer idea of what you're actually looking for, whether you use us or not.

Got a sales role on your desk? Tell us about it here. No fee unless it works out.

Coburg Banks Sales Recruitment

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