Xero snags CCH veteran for national sales

If you read that headline and wondered if Howlett was having an unusually slow news day or that I am throwing (yet another) sop to a sponsor then you’d be wrong. On both counts.

Most PR people with whom I have regular contact know that I don’t read press releases. I still don’t know why I receive them despite my insistence that they represent digital trash. However, when a company gets inventive then curiosity occasionally gets the better of me. This time around, Gary Turner, UK MD Xero emailed saying: “scientifically speaking in a parallel universe there’s got to be least one instance of you that does [read press releases], in which case this is what we would have sent him today about us hiring CCHs’ UK sales director.” It made me smile.
So – Xero has hired Nick Longden, CCH’s sales director. The PR blurbs say:

“I am joining Xero at a very exciting time. The shift to cloud software is accelerating because it transforms the relationship between small businesses and their accountants, giving business owners much needed visibility of their financial affairs. It provides accountants with a framework for offering higher value services, rather than just meeting basic compliance and statutory filing deadlines.”

All pretty standard stuff though always good to hear reiterated. What’s much more important to me is that Xero has clearly achieved sufficient momentum to attract talent from the on-premise world. What’s more, the prospects Turner sold must be pretty compelling because there’s only one reason that sales people move – better compensation. And you can only pay better compensation than the competition if you enjoy a market space that is outgrowing the competition.

Enough said.