Executive search business development: how to win new retained clients
Updated By the SalesOne research team9 min read
The short answer
Executive search business development means being known to a company before it needs a leader. Searches start with dated events: an executive leaves, a new CEO rebuilds the team, a private-equity owner arrives, or a new plant needs a leader. Firms that watch for those events can reach the decision maker while the search is still being shaped.
How do executive search firms get clients?
Executive search firms get clients from repeat clients, placed candidates who later hire, referrals from boards and investors, and outreach timed to a leadership change. Repeat work grows as firms mature: Recruiterflow’s Economics of Recruiting data, cited in a Jun 8, 2026 article, shows revenue from existing clients rising from 46% to 68% of total revenue as firms scale.
Each new client is worth a lot. The same article, citing SHRM (2025), puts retained executive search fees at 25–35% of first-year total compensation, with minimum engagement fees around $80,000 at established firms. A firm needs only a few new clients a year, but it needs the right ones, at the right moment.
| Source | Works when | Stalls when |
|---|---|---|
| Repeat clients | The client keeps growing and your sponsor stays | The sponsor leaves, or the client builds an internal team |
| Placed candidates who later hire | You stay in touch after the placement | Nobody tracks where placements go next |
| Boards, investors and advisers | They see leadership gaps before anyone else | They have their own preferred firms |
| Events and published views | They speak to a problem a CEO or board has now | They are general market commentary |
| Research-led outreach | It names a dated leadership change and reaches the person who will hire | It is a list of recent placements sent to everyone |
Which events create an executive search?
Executive searches start with events that leave a public trace: departures, arrivals, new owners, new sites and restructuring. Gartner’s B2B buying journey page (archived Sep 25, 2026; no sample stated) says that “99% of B2B purchases are driven by organizational changes”, and a search is about as change-driven as a purchase gets.
| Event | The search it tends to create | Where it shows up |
|---|---|---|
| An executive leaves or retires | A replacement, often under time pressure | Press releases, filings, leadership pages |
| A new CEO arrives | A rebuilt leadership team in the first year | Press releases; see companies with a new CEO or CFO |
| A private-equity owner arrives | A new CFO, COO or operating leaders for the value-creation plan | Deal announcements; see companies with a new private-equity owner |
| A new plant, site or market | A plant manager, general manager or regional leader | State and company announcements; see the new manufacturing plants tracker |
| Funding or fast growth | First-time leaders for functions the founders ran | Funding news, hiring surges |
| Restructuring or a turnaround | Interim and permanent leaders with a specific record | Results, filings, press |
More on these and other events is in the people signals guide. Each has a window: the first months after a new CEO or a new owner are when most leadership changes are decided.
How do recruitment agencies get clients?
Recruitment agencies get clients the same way search firms do, with one difference: contingency agencies win many smaller roles, so they need more companies and faster timing. Hiring signals are their main source. A company posting roles it cannot fill, opening a new site or growing quickly is a likely client.
- Pick a lane: an industry and a type of role where your network is deep. A deep network in one lane is easier to sell than a broad one.
- Watch hiring and growth signals: new sites, funding, roles open for a long time, a new head of HR or talent.
- Reach the hiring manager, not only HR, with candidates or market knowledge relevant to the role.
- Keep in touch with placed candidates. Today’s placement is often tomorrow’s hiring manager.
- Ask happy clients for referrals by situation: “who else is opening a plant this year?”
For retained executive search, volume matters less than timing and access. The rest of this guide focuses on that.
Who should a search firm contact?
A search firm should contact the person who will own the hire: usually the CEO for leadership-team roles, the board chair or lead investor for CEO searches, and the COO or a general manager for plant and operations leaders. The chief HR officer is often a partner in the process and sometimes the buyer.
Map more than one person. In private-equity-owned companies, the operating partner at the fund is often as important as the CEO. The buying committee guide shows how to map the people around a decision from public sources.
How should a search firm write to a new client?
A search firm should write with one dated event, the leadership question it raises, one useful offer and one easy question. Discretion matters more than in any other outreach: never imply that you know about a departure or a plan that has not been made public.
A sample email from a search firm
Fictional sample. Halvorsen Castings is a fictional manufacturer in Toledo, Ohio. It named Ruth Adeyemi as COO on Aug 25, 2026, and a county permit dated Sep 12, 2026 approves a 140,000 sq ft foundry expansion in Dayton. The sender is a partner at a fictional executive search firm.
Subject: Leading the Dayton plant. Hi Ruth, congratulations on the COO role. With the Dayton foundry permit approved on Sep 12, the plant will need its leadership team in place well before production. In our work with Midwest metals companies, the hardest seat to fill for a new site is often the plant manager who has run a ramp-up before, and the search takes longest when it starts late. We keep a short market map of foundry and metals plant leaders in the region; I would be glad to share it. Is Dayton’s leadership on your list for this year? Priya Shah, Partner. [Firm name], [street address, city, state ZIP]. If this isn’t relevant, just reply and I won’t follow up.
Fictional sample: company, people and firm are fictional.
- Subject: names her site, not your firm.
- Opening: two public, dated facts, the new role and the permit.
- Point of view: a pattern from similar searches, stated as experience, never as a claim about her team.
- Offer: a market map, useful whether or not she hires a firm.
- Question: easy to answer, and a “not this year” is still useful.
Commercial email is regulated in the US; check your program with your own counsel.
How does SalesOne help executive search firms?
SalesOne does the research half of business development, and the firm’s partners keep the relationships. SalesOne’s S1 deep research agents search the firm’s market for the leadership changes, ownership changes and new sites that create searches, accept or reject each company against the firm’s profile with the reason, identify who will own the hire and draft a point of view. A person approves every message before it is sent, and every approval is recorded with who gave it. Current clients and any company the firm cannot approach go on an exclusion list that S1 agents never research. See how SalesOne works for professional services firms.