Sales & Business Development Recruiters — VP and Director
The hire everyone measures and nobody wants to get wrong twice. Clover Search Group is an owner-led direct hire recruiting firm in Lodi, California.
Book a Hiring ConsultationClover Search Group is an owner-led direct hire recruiting firm in Lodi, California, and sales and business development is one of the six practice areas we run — the one listed as Sales & Business Development on our employers page. We place commercial leaders and the people who carry a number for employers across the Central Valley, the Sacramento corridor and the inland Bay Area. Brooklyn and Aidan Kearney own the firm and run the searches themselves.
Searchers type business development executive search, sales headhunters, or a recruiting agency for a VP of Sales, and all three land in the same place. We are a direct hire recruiting firm: every seat below is a permanent one on your payroll.
Commercial hiring out here is not the same animal it is in a metro. A regional sales manager for a food processor is selling to buyers who have known the incumbent for fifteen years. A business development director for a builder is selling to owners, not procurement portals. Those are relationship territories, and the only way to fill them is to go and talk to the people already in them.
The commercial roles we recruit.
Grouped by level, because the level changes the search entirely. A territory seat is a market search. A VP of Sales is eight careful phone calls to people who are doing well where they are.
Leadership. The seats that own the number and the plan behind it.
Manager. The layer that runs a region, a channel or a category and coaches the people in it.
Individual contributor. Quota-carrying professionals who own a number.
Two briefs come across this desk more than any other. The first is a manufacturer or processor whose founder has been the sales function for twenty years and now needs somebody to be it instead — which is a hire about trust and handover, not about a CRM. The second is a company that sells well locally and wants a territory opened somewhere it has no name yet, where the right candidate is usually already working for a competitor and already knows every buyer worth knowing.
We screen for what actually happened, not what was claimed. That means asking who the accounts were, what the cycle looked like, what was inherited and what was built, and then checking it with people who were there. Reference calls on a sales hire are the part of the search that most firms skip and the part that most often changes the recommendation.
Where the commercial work is.
Modesto and the 99 corridor. Food and beverage processing at scale, ag manufacturing and the equipment and packaging businesses that sell into them. Commercial seats here are technical: the buyer knows the product better than the seller does unless the seller has run a plant or worked a harvest, and the shortlist has to reflect that.
Stockton. Distribution, logistics and port-adjacent industry, which means selling capacity, lanes and service levels rather than a product. It is also the most competitive commercial market in the county, because a seller here is inside comfortable driving distance of the Bay Area and knows it.
Sacramento. Professional services, technology and the vendors who sell into public agencies — a longer cycle, a procurement process, and a different kind of patience. Sacramento candidates often have public-sector selling experience that nobody else in the corridor has, and it is worth a lot in the right seat.
Those three are where it concentrates, not where it stops. See every market we cover for the rest of the map.
A search runs like a road you know.
Four stops between the first call and a signed offer — no black box, no surprises. The long version, with the road art, is on the employers page.
Intake
For a commercial seat we want the comp plan, the territory, the accounts that come with it and an honest answer about what the last person was up against. We come to you before we start. Recruiting begins when the engagement letter is signed. Not before.
Sourcing
Owner-led outreach across the corridors, not job-board scraping. Phone first — inboxes are noise, and a call gets a real conversation. The people worth hiring usually aren’t looking. They still pick up.
The shortlist
A handful of vetted, genuinely interested candidates — days, not weeks. A phone screen, then a video or in-person interview. Reference checks run by Aidan personally.
The placement
We stay in it through the offer, the move and the first 90 days. Every hire is guaranteed for 90 days, and we check in with both sides after the start date to make sure it is actually working.
What these seats pay. No numbers on this page — a sales range without its base-to-variable split is worse than no range at all. The 2026 Central Valley Salary Guide carries BLS-sourced ranges across five areas; the Sales & Business Development tables are the place to start, and we will talk through the variable half on the call. The full fee and engagement picture is on the employers page.
Questions about sales searches.
What does a sales leadership search cost?
Most searches run contingent: one fee, owed only when the seller you hired starts, with a 90-day replacement guarantee behind the placement. On a commissioned seat the basis is realistic first-year earnings rather than base alone, and we agree that basis in writing at intake so nobody is surprised at invoice time. Retained engagements are structured differently, with part of the fee paid up front.
Contingent or retained for a VP of Sales?
A VP of Sales, a chief revenue officer or a first commercial leader is usually retained or exclusive, because the people who can do it are employed, well paid and not answering job ads. Territory managers, account executives and regional sales managers run contingent. The line moves with the role, not with the title on the org chart.
How long does a sales search take?
We do not publish an average. Sales searches are usually quicker to shortlist than operations searches and slower to close, because strong sellers negotiate and because a good one is often three weeks from a commission payout they will not walk away from. We tell you that at intake instead of letting it surprise you in week six.
What happens if the hire does not work out?
Every hire is guaranteed for 90 days. If it comes apart inside that window, we run the search again. Ninety days is not a full sales cycle in most of these markets, so we also check in with both sides after the start date — ramp problems show up as activity long before they show up as revenue.
Do you do executive search for business development leadership?
Yes. VP of Sales, VP of Business Development and chief revenue officer work runs as retained or exclusive executive search, with part of the fee paid up front and a defined shortlist date. Director and manager seats run contingent on the same discipline. Every one of them is direct hire — your employee, on your comp plan.
Not looking? Let’s talk anyway.
The best sellers in this corridor are having a good year somewhere and are not on a job board. That is exactly who we call. There is no cost to candidates, ever, the conversation is confidential, and nothing moves without your say-so — which matters when your employer would recognise your accounts on a shortlist. More for candidates →
We call. You hire.
Ready to make your next hire?
Fifteen minutes on the phone — the seat, the territory, and whether we’re the right fit. No pitch deck.
Book a Hiring Consultation