# Chris Kenny

Chris Kenny recruits sales professionals for companies in the US packaging industry, from sales representatives to chief commercial officers. Kenny says the work is through their own business, OC Recruitment.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/chris-kenny/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/packagingsalesrecruiter
- Topics: leadership, sales, recruiting, sales-leadership, candidate-experience, employee-retention
- Based on 24 dated posts, latest 2026-09-14

## Summary

Recruiting US packaging sales professionals and advising employers on hiring for those roles.

- Best for: A US packaging manufacturer or converter seeking a senior sales leadership search.
- Not for: Software or services brands seeking sponsored LinkedIn demand generation outside packaging.
- Check first: Confirm available partnership formats, rates, and recent LinkedIn audience analytics.

### Takeaways

- Specialist recruiting beats generalist agencies, and the proof is naming names.
- Packaging sales hires fail on context, not ability.
- Start hiring before the vacancy, not after the numbers dip.

## Main ideas

- **Specialist recruiting beats generalist agencies—and the proof is naming names**: Kenny argues that the business does one thing: place salespeople in US packaging, from sales representative to chief commercial officer. The overlap of “sales” and “packaging” is the point, rather than either one alone. The claimed advantage is market knowledge: knowing who the strong sales leaders in US packaging are without looking them up, and distinguishing someone who can move commodity corrugate from someone who can defend margin in a large customer’s procurement office. They also contrast a “posting strategy”—advertising a role and waiting—with targeted searches for employed candidates who are delivering elsewhere, on the grounds that the strongest candidates are not applying to job ads. In one introduction post, they advise employers to judge the consultant rather than the company brand, because reputation, in their framing, sits with the individual rather than the agency logo.
- **Packaging sales hires fail on context, not ability**: Kenny argues that a strong seller can walk into a new packaging role and stall within months—not because they cannot sell, but because the selling environment has changed. They contrast short sales cycles with 12-to-18-month buying processes, selling innovation with selling parity, and working with marketing support with carrying the full load alone. Packaging is unforgiving, they say, because customer switching costs are low, procurement runs the buying process and price pressure never fully goes away. For employers, their conclusion is that past performance means little without understanding the conditions someone sold in; “top performer” is meaningless without that context.
- **Start hiring before the vacancy, not after the numbers dip**: Kenny argues that most companies hire salespeople only after a revenue problem appears. The resulting sequence—pipeline drops, panic, job posted, long interview process, then a ramp period—costs roughly six months of lost revenue before the new hire has a chance to fix anything. The alternative is to build bench strength in advance: map competitors’ strongest performers, meet good candidates when there is no open role, keep shortlists warm and move quickly when a seat opens. Their argument is about planning, not recruitment technique: if sales hiring starts only when numbers fall, the real problem is planning.
- **Pipeline reviews expose a truth problem, not a lead problem**: Kenny argues that most sales organisations do not have a lead problem but a truth problem. They describe a VP of Sales introducing a weekly cadence, with the CRM kept current and the pipeline reviewed in front of peers. People became uncomfortable, Kenny says, not because the market had moved but because the story had changed. In private, a representative can hide behind “I’m working it” or “relationships take time”; in public, one shows momentum and next steps while another shows a spreadsheet. Kenny presents this as accountability rather than humiliation, and ties it specifically to packaging, where territory and freight economics are real. Representatives coasting on legacy business are costly while capacity sits open.
- **Silence during a hiring process costs candidates who were never going to say no**: Kenny argues that silence kills more placements than a bad offer, and that when speed is not possible, communication is the substitute. Their instruction is specific: if there is a delay between stages, tell the candidate, give them a timeframe and explain why. Without information, candidates fill the gap with their worst assumptions. Excitement from a first interview drains away, and the next conversation becomes a re-sell to someone who has already half moved on. Some withdraw from roles that were never wrong for them simply because nobody kept them informed. Kenny’s underlying claim is that initial enthusiasm is the hardest thing to rebuild and the cheapest thing to preserve.
- **Retention: smaller employers should compete on curiosity, not salary**: Kenny argues that when people stay at one company for 15 to 30 years, money is almost never the reason. The answer they hear most often is some version of getting to try new things without having to leave—not necessarily a promotion, sometimes a sideways move from sales into operations or procurement. Larger companies find this easier because they have divisions to move people through. Their uncomfortable conclusion for smaller businesses: they lose good salespeople around the third year to boredom and call it the market. Since they cannot win a pay fight, they should compete by giving people a reason to stay curious.
- **The reference that counts comes from the person who hired and managed them**: Kenny argues that a credible reference comes from someone who put their own reputation on the line by bringing a person in, watched them deliver and still recommends them unprompted. A colleague being polite does not count. Kenny describes the network as the substance of the service, arguing that the best packaging salespeople rarely reach the open market. A recommendation from a VP who previously hired the person is therefore a short window, not a standing opportunity. In a related post, Kenny describes contacting people who had previously asked to be kept in mind—the same idea in practice: maintain relationships before they are needed.

## Work to read

- ["Who I am and who I can help" — a short self-introduction](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/packagingsalesrecruiter_had-a-ton-of-new-connections-and-followers-activity-7492686289218174976-iGjH)
- ["Most packaging sales hires don't fail on ability — they fail on context"](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/packagingsalesrecruiter_most-packaging-sales-hires-dont-fail-on-activity-7416554569498943488-tW42)
- [Three things companies that land top sales talent do differently](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/packagingsalesrecruiter_if-youre-a-packaging-company-struggling-activity-7382420737787207680-itBW)
- ["Most sales orgs don't have a lead problem. They have a truth problem."](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/packagingsalesrecruiter_most-sales-orgs-dont-have-a-lead-problem-activity-7430684879815749632-ZSgN)
- [Hire before the revenue problem shows up](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/packagingsalesrecruiter_most-companies-still-hire-salespeople-after-activity-7429249978025435136--kvB)
- ["Silence kills more placements than a bad offer ever will."](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/packagingsalesrecruiter_silence-kills-more-placements-than-a-bad-activity-7501706788690452481-HBCh)
- [A VP of Sales introduces a salesperson they hired before](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/packagingsalesrecruiter_a-vp-of-sales-reached-out-to-me-recently-activity-7504276110893834240-_icG)
- [Two years, one referral, and an accepted offer](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/packagingsalesrecruiter_two-years-ago-a-connection-of-mine-referred-activity-7435751965336293376-q1-J)
- [The candidate a company passed on, thirty days before a competitor hired them](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/packagingsalesrecruiter_a-senior-hr-leader-said-something-to-me-today-activity-7443030326806757376-XF-A)

## Brand relationships

- **OC Recruitment** (owned_business)

## Partnerships

Kenny's LinkedIn posts focus on recruiting and sales-market commentary: candidate introductions, hiring advice for packaging companies, and explanations of how OC Recruitment works. They do not mention sponsorship, brand-partnership or paid-collaboration formats, and publish no rate card, media kit, sponsored-post policy, audience-deliverable list or partnership contact route. The partnership link is omitted and the formats list is empty. Ask Kenny for available partnership formats, rates and a contact route.

## Alternatives

- Mike Philie: Consider Philie if the senior sales hire is part of a broader effort to improve sales operations. The posts discuss customer concentration, stalled pipelines, slow quoting and weak accountability in printing companies. That work may help a manufacturer diagnose what the role needs to change before opening a search.
- Vas Georgiou: Consider Georgiou if the company is hiring across sectors such as cybersecurity, technology, law, financial services or healthcare and wants a recruiter whose posts describe specialist headhunting and attention to team context. The posts also address the hiring experience from an HR perspective.
- Oscar Bennetts: Consider Bennetts if the need shifts toward commercial leadership hiring in the data-centre supply chain. The posts discuss passive candidates, leadership quality and placing people in roles suited to the business's needs.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/