More than twelve years at one company, and then the biggest sales job in it. That's Steve Wishart's route to chief revenue officer at TransUnion's UK business, effective 1 October.

Like most recruiters, I read appointment news for the story underneath, not the headline. In FF News's report on TransUnion UK's new leadership team, that story sits in the other three names. Four senior appointments in about a month, and only one of them looks like an insider.

The other three arrived a week apart. Ashley Hart took over as chief operating officer on 7 September. Catherine Diamond became chief human resources officer a week later, and Mahesh Bharadhwaj started as chief data and analytics officer on 21 September. Their careers run through Monzo, TSB, Flutter, Tandem Bank, Lloyds, Jaja Finance and Barclaycard, among others.

Then there's Wishart.

Wishart has been at TransUnion for over twelve years, most recently as director of sales for financial services, and spent earlier years at Morgan Stanley and MBNA. The new role covers the UK sales and sales specialist teams, and Wishart brings a background in fraud prevention and wider financial services.

I'm not suggesting anyone planned it as a pattern. But three seats went to people whose careers were built elsewhere, and the sales seat went to someone who knew the business inside out. And it's a tidy picture of a choice every company with a sales team ends up making, usually at short notice.

Why do companies promote from within for sales leadership?

Companies promote from within for sales leadership because the job leans on knowledge that takes years to pick up. Which customers are loyal. How big a deal really is, and how product reacts when a big prospect asks for something odd. Someone who has spent a decade inside already knows all of it, and the people they'll now manage already trust them.

There's a quieter benefit too.

The rest of the sales team can see that the top job is reachable from where they sit. Over time that helps with keeping good people. And good salespeople always have options.

What does an outside hire bring that an insider can't?

A fresh set of comparisons. Someone who has run sales elsewhere has seen what a different commission structure does to a team's behaviour. They aren't carrying the history of every awkward decision made in the building. The cost is time, because they learn your customers while being judged on the number.

Neither route is better, and each fixes a different problem.

Promotion suits a business whose sales engine mostly works and needs steady hands. But an outside appointment suits one that needs the engine rebuilt. It also suits a business with nobody inside who could do the job.

How do you know whether your own sales manager is ready for the top job?

Look at what they've done beyond hitting their own number. Have they hired well, turned round a weak team, kept a large customer through a bad patch, and told the managing director something unwelcome? Strong sellers often get promoted because they sell, and leading a sales team is a different job.

I'd ask them to talk through next year's plan for the whole team, not just their own patch.

Listen for who they'd hire, who they'd move and what they'd stop doing. Ask what they'd do about the person on the team everyone likes who isn't delivering. And watch how long they take to answer.

The last question tells you most.

Plenty of capable sales managers have never had to deal with it properly, because someone above them always did. They get very good at the number and never practise the conversation. And then the promotion arrives. Suddenly the conversation is the job.

Succession is a hiring problem long before anyone resigns

Every business with a sales team should have a view on succession planning for a sales director before it needs one. I don't mean a document in a drawer. But a clear idea will do: who could step up within six months, who couldn't, and which gap you'd have to fill from outside.

Most of the sales leadership briefs that reach us started as an internal promotion nobody was quite sure about, or a departure nobody saw coming. By the time we're called, the managing director has often spent weeks hoping it would sort itself out.

It rarely does.

The cost of that delay is easy to underestimate. Pipeline slows. The team starts wondering who's in charge. And your best salespeople take recruiter calls they'd otherwise have ignored.

What should you do if you need to look outside?

Start earlier than feels necessary. Senior sales searches take longer than most people expect, partly because the strongest candidates are in work and won't apply to an advert. They'll talk to someone who can explain the business and the role properly, and who can tell them what the first year looks like.

Be precise about the brief, because a leader and a builder are different people.

And a vague brief attracts a bit of both and satisfies neither. Then check the money against the market before you start. Our salary guides are a reasonable place to begin, because an offer set below what a proven sales leader can earn elsewhere will cost you the process before it's begun.

Plan the landing as well.

Whoever you appoint, from inside or out, needs a clear first ninety days. We've written about bringing a new person into a sales team, and most of it applies to a leader even more than a new starter.

Where does a specialist recruiter fit in?

A specialist sees the market from the other side of the table. We can tell you who is actually available at the level you need and what they'd expect to be paid. Some of them would want your job rather than just any job, and we'd know which. The candidates who aren't looking anywhere are the ones where this matters most.

We'll also give you a straight view on an internal candidate. Sometimes the best call is to promote the person you already have, and we'll say so. But other times a short, quiet look at the outside market is what makes the internal decision easier.

If you're thinking about a sales director or head of sales appointment, send us the brief and we'll give you a plain market read. We'll tell you what we'd tighten and what the market looks like for it.

No obligation, and no pressure to run a search if the right call is to promote.

Four seats at TransUnion, and one of them came from inside. If it had been your business, would you have split it the same way? I'd be curious what you'd say.