Pella by Horne is one of the largest branches of Pella, one of the most recognizable window & door brands in the building materials industry. Based in Grand Rapids, MI, their team leads all others in both efficiency and profitability, driven by an incredible team and aggressive sales goals. 

After internally promoting another employee, they needed to backfill a Sales Manager role that would oversee sales and business development growth in West Michigan. It would be a critical hire, as this has historically been a pivotal role for the company’s sales team. This person needed to be an innovative and collaborative leader who could step into the territory and use their sales finesse to expand profitability in the region. 

Their internal teams spent some time scouring the talent market, but they have incredibly high standards. They weren’t willing to compromise on getting the best of the best, and they wanted to make sure they found it. That’s when they brought us in, tasking us with diving into every possible avenue to find the perfect candidate. 

First and foremost, they needed someone with a lot of experience managing and growing a team. This role manages a small team of sales reps, the biggest being in Grand Rapids, where they’re headquartered, and Traverse City, approximately a two-hour drive north. Despite the distance between the teams, they’re an incredibly collaborative group that prioritizes supporting each other. 

They had another qualifier: this was not a pencil-pusher role. The Sales Manager would be expected to be both a strategist behind a computer and out in the field with their team. They’d spend their time nurturing relationships directly with area builders but couldn’t lose sight of the greater strategic vision, for them and their team. 

While we found and sent many potential candidates, a large number were weeded out early in the process. Like some graduate programs put students through specific classes to “weed out” bad fits, Pella by Horne uses a proprietary assessment to help identify candidates more likely to be successful in their environments. This assessment happens earlier in the interview process, and for this search about half the candidates were deemed potential good fits. 

As the interview process went on, the Pella by Horne team continued homing in their selection down to three final candidates before ultimately determining the right candidate to hire.

Our recruiters noted how much they liked the candidate Pella by Horne hired from the very first call with her. While she had just under two years of experience in the window space, she brought the unique perspective of B2C sales experience and an interest in diving into the B2B space. She’d recently been laid off, despite a history of excellent sales team performance, and was eager to lead another sales team to success.

Her leadership experience spanned many business functions. She’d overseen sales, operations, customer service, office management, and even accounting simultaneously while handling the P&L. She brought a consistent history of meeting and exceeding her quarterly and annual sales goals and was comfortable both traveling with other reps for meetings and being in-office managing internal employees.

All that experience mixed with her excellent communication skills and self-motivated, goal-oriented personality to establish her as the perfect candidate the Pella by Horne team needed.

In the years she’s served in this role, she’s done an incredible job managing and growing the team across West Michigan. We’ve worked with the Pella by Horne team on several other searches, including placing a high-performing Construction Manager and an expansionary role for a General Manager of Fulfillment. And, while they’re incredibly adept at filling most of their own roles, their hiring team knows they always have us in their back pocket to assist with difficult searches they may run into.

Experience a faster, smarter, smoother search.

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