A commercial leader arriving in a company has a short window : roughly three months during which they can ask naive questions, challenge habits and build their legitimacy. After that, they become accountable for what exists. How those first weeks are run largely determines what happens over the following three years, and it is a subject we address systematically during a Head of Sales recruitment, because the placement does not end at contract signature.
In short
- In Belgium the trial clause has not existed since 1 January 2014 : you cannot “test” a commercial leader once they are in post.
- The first four weeks are for diagnosis, not reorganisation : pipeline, team and clients, in that order.
- Three decisions cannot wait : making the forecast reliable, defining the target client, clarifying who does what.
- Five workstreams structure the first year : sales process, data, variable pay, skills development, recruitment.
- Most failed transitions come from reorganising too fast, or from a founder who never let go of the function.
The Belgian specificity : no more trial period
Many companies still think of the first months as a reversible testing phase. That is no longer the case. Since the single employment status came into force, the trial clause has been abolished for contracts concluded from 1 January 2014, with a few exceptions such as student employment contracts and temporary agency work. A clause inserted anyway would have no effect.
The consequence is twofold. First, selection has to be more demanding upstream, because there is no safety net : it is one of the reasons we combine structured interviews, role-plays and driver analysis before presenting a candidate. Second, onboarding stops being an HR formality and becomes a risk management tool. A successful transition costs a few days of leadership time ; a failed one costs a severance payment, a destabilised team and a year of lost commercial ground.
Weeks 1 to 4 : diagnose before deciding
There is also a legal reason to prepare the ground carefully. Because the first months are not reversible, everything that would once have been settled by “we will see how it goes” now has to be settled in writing beforehand : the scope, the reporting line, the objectives and the resources. Companies that treat this as bureaucracy discover its usefulness the first time an expectation turns out to have been assumed rather than agreed.
The most common reflex in a newly appointed commercial leader is to show quickly that they are acting. That is precisely what to avoid. Three diagnoses deserve to be run in parallel before any visible change.
The pipeline
Go through the open deals one by one, with the salesperson who owns them, and ask three questions : who decides at the client, what is the next concrete step, and when was the last real exchange. The exercise takes a week and almost always reveals that a significant share of the reported pipeline does not exist. That finding is the newcomer’s first measurable contribution.
The team
An hour-long individual conversation with each salesperson, without an assessment grid and without immediate judgement. What matters is understanding how each person actually works, what they think of the offer, what stops them moving forward. The most useful information usually comes from joint client visits, not from meeting rooms.
The clients
Meet the five to ten largest accounts and, just as importantly, two or three recently lost clients. The latter teach more than the former. A new commercial leader has a rare window of candour : clients will tell a newcomer things they would not say to their usual contact.
The expert’s view
We support clients and candidates before, during and after the hire. Not out of courtesy – by design. The first three months of a sales or management hire shape what happens for the next three years. If onboarding fails, the placement is lost, regardless of how good the sourcing was. That’s why our support doesn’t stop at contract signing. It’s also why our clients come back : they aren’t signing for a recruitment, they’re signing for a long-term partnership.
Weeks 5 to 8 : the three decisions that cannot wait
- Make the forecast reliable. A company that cannot forecast its quarter can neither hire, nor invest, nor negotiate with its suppliers. Making the forecast credible requires objective stage criteria and update discipline, not an additional tool.
- Define the target client. “Every company with this need” is not a segment. Settling sector, size and purchase trigger concentrates the commercial effort and finally makes the message reusable.
- Clarify who does what. Account allocation, the boundary between opening and management, the role of pre-sales, the place of the founder or managing director on strategic deals. This point creates the most friction when it stays implicit.
The third decision is the most political, and it concerns the person who did the hiring. A Head of Sales whose boss keeps dealing directly with important clients without telling them will lose their authority within weeks. That split should be written down before arrival, as we recommend in our article on the right time to hire your first Head of Sales.
Weeks 9 to 12 : the first plan and the first visible decision
By the end of the first quarter the team is waiting for direction. The expected deliverable runs to a few pages : the diagnosis, the priority segments, the twelve-month objectives, the resources requested and the decisions taken. That document does not need to be exhaustive ; it needs to be decisive.
This is also the moment for the first visible arbitration : dropping an unprofitable segment, refusing a discount the company was used to granting, reassigning a poorly served account. An unpopular decision taken in the third month builds lasting credibility ; the same decision taken in the ninth month reads as punishment.
The five workstreams of the first year
| Workstream | Objective | Sign it is done |
|---|---|---|
| Sales process | Common stages, objective criteria to move forward | Two salespeople describe the same deal the same way |
| Data and tooling | An up-to-date pipeline, shared indicators | The quarterly forecast lands within 20 % |
| Variable pay | A plan aligned on margin and cycle length | Nobody disputes the calculation at year end |
| Skills development | A shared method base, field coaching | Deal reviews are about method, not excuses |
| Recruitment | A clear target profile and a repeatable process | The latest hire ramps up faster than the previous one |
These workstreams are not run simultaneously. The order that works best starts with process and data, because they condition everything else : without a reliable pipeline, neither the pay plan nor the hiring plan rests on anything solid. Variable pay comes next, ideally at the annual revision date ; the mechanisms available under Belgian law are detailed in our article on variable pay for commercial roles.
Four classic transition mistakes
Reorganising in the first month. Redrawing territories before understanding how accounts were built does lasting damage to client relationships, and often triggers departures.
Importing the previous employer’s methods wholesale. What worked in an organisation of two hundred salespeople does not transpose to a team of six. A leader who starts by deploying their former company’s tooling signals that they have not looked at this one.
Committing to a number before having the diagnosis. Promising a target at the first executive meeting to reassure people is tempting, and it is a trap. The right answer is : “I will give you a reliable forecast on day ninety”.
Deciding too late about a person. A salesperson visibly out of step with the mandate destabilises the whole team if the situation drags. With no trial period available, the alternative is not haste but objectification : a structured assessment distinguishes a competence problem, a driver problem and an organisational problem.
The thirty days before arrival
The transition starts before day one. In Belgium, notice periods for commercial executives are often counted in months, which leaves a window few companies use. Three simple actions change the quality of the start : sending the real commercial documents in advance – not the corporate deck, but the dashboards, the account plans and the last three pipeline reviews ; arranging an informal lunch with the team before the start date ; and putting the twelve-month scorecard in writing.
This period is also when the counter-offer risk sits. A high-performing commercial leader who resigns frequently receives a proposal from their current employer, sometimes with a promotion attached. Staying close during the notice period is not a courtesy : it is risk management, and it is one of the reasons we keep in contact with candidates until they actually take up the role.
One practical detail : if a capital incentive plan is part of the package, the documentation has to be handed over during this window. The Belgian stock option regime requires written acceptance within a set period after the offer, and the candidate needs time to consult their own adviser. We cover this in our article on structuring equity for a Head of Sales.
What the company director should do
The transition is not the newcomer’s business alone. Three things the director does change the outcome. Announcing the mandate clearly to the team, in the newcomer’s presence, rather than letting everyone guess the extent of their authority. Holding a weekly session through the first quarter, then spacing it out. And handing over strategic accounts on an announced timetable, not as things come up.
That last point deserves to be formalised where the company has major accounts. Transferring a relationship built over years takes method : joint introduction, documented history, commitments carried over. The same rules apply whether it is a leader or a Key Account Manager taking over an existing portfolio.
The team’s reaction, and how to read it
Every commercial team greets a new leader with a mix of hope and wariness, and the proportions vary by person. The top performer wonders whether their autonomy will survive. The person who has been struggling wonders whether their time is up. The one who applied for the job internally and did not get it is watching for the first mistake. None of this is unusual, and none of it is personal.
What matters is not to smooth those reactions over but to name them early, individually. A newcomer who says to the internal candidate, in the first fortnight, that they know about the application and want to talk about what happens next, removes months of ambiguity. A newcomer who avoids the subject inherits a quiet opponent with credibility in the team.
The same applies to the top performer. Confirming explicitly what will not change for them – their accounts, their autonomy, their way of working – buys the goodwill needed to change everything else. Sales teams accept a great deal of reorganisation provided they know, early, which part of their world is not up for negotiation.
Measuring success at six months
At six months, revenue says almost nothing : on long cycles it still reflects the predecessor’s work. Four indicators are more revealing. Forecast reliability, compared across two consecutive quarters. Pipeline quality, measured by the proportion of deals with a dated next step. Team stability, distinguishing departures suffered from departures decided. And the existence of a shared method, verifiable by listening to two salespeople describe the same deal.
These are exactly the indicators we track in our post-placement support, with a six-month replacement guarantee covering the scenario nobody wants. On assignments taken through to final placement, our success rate exceeds 75 %, and most difficult cases turn on this integration period rather than on the search itself.
That leaves the underlying question, the one that precedes everything else : does the mandate given match the role advertised? Someone hired as a Head of Sales but expected to act as a sales director will fail on workstreams that were never theirs. We set out that distinction in Head of Sales or Sales Director.
