The company
The Royal Apollo Group is a global leader in material handling and automation, known for its spiral conveyors, bucket elevators and baling systems. A sixth-generation family business, Apollo supplies industries from logistics and e-commerce to food and beverage in more than 176 countries. To support continued growth, the group needed a Sales Manager to own the DACH region.
The challenge
One person, three countries, and a product that has to be sold to integrators, OEMs and end users at the same time. The role runs DACH alone - regional strategy, quotations, margin negotiation and order handover - while staying technical enough to brief Sales Engineers on spiral conveyors and vertical transport. That combination of hunter and account manager, fluent in German and English, with real exposure to warehousing and e-commerce, is a narrow profile. Anyone who has it is already performing somewhere and has no reason to answer an advert.
Our approach
We mapped the DACH market across material handling, intralogistics and vertical transport - integrators, OEMs, conveyor builders and warehouse-automation suppliers - and sourced and screened 579 profiles against the brief. Every candidate was approached directly rather than invited to apply. The first introduction reached Apollo nine working days after kick-off, and the shortlist was entirely passive: nobody on it was looking for a new role when we called.
The result
Apollo had its first candidate nine working days after kick-off, drawn from 579 profiles screened across the DACH region - a shortlist made up entirely of passive candidates reached by direct approach.
