Performance Communications
Bringing objectivity and evidence to one of the hardest decisions a founder makes.
Performance Communications
Performance Communications is a UK PR and marketing agency specialising in the automotive and motorcycle sectors. Founded by two directors who have worked together for many years, the business has built a strong reputation and a close-knit team around a shared culture and a clear point of view.
We have worked with Performance Communications since January 2018, supporting them through many stages of growth. By 2023, the co-founders were thinking seriously about the future: how to step back from the business they had built, and how to do it in a way that was fair, rigorous, and gave the whole team confidence in what came next.
Why did Performance Communications approach us?
The co-founders had an instinct about who in their nine-person team might be capable of stepping up to MD level. But that instinct had never been tested, and they were determined not to let a decision this significant rest on gut feeling alone.
They needed an objective process that would surface real evidence, not simply confirm what they already thought. They also needed someone who understood the human dimension of the work: a flat structure, a long-standing team, and real risk of disengagement if the process was handled poorly. Getting this wrong would have meant losing people who had helped build the business.
Having worked with us for several years, they trusted us to hold the process fairly and to have the harder conversations the evidence made necessary.
How we worked with Performance Communications
We began by designing an assessment framework that would feel credible to every person going through it. Performance Communications already used the Xcellence framework for development. Rather than replacing it, we built on it, creating a process where each candidate completed a self-assessment and the co-founders independently assessed each person against the same criteria.
We produced a management report mapping where the founders and each individual were aligned and, critically, where they were not. Those gaps became the basis for structured, honest conversations rather than assumptions. We then overlaid the 9-box grid to benchmark performance and potential across the whole group, bringing candidates in and out of scope in a way that was evidenced rather than instinctive.
We mapped each person against their stated career ambitions and the requirements of the MD role, and produced a succession org chart showing the founders exactly where viable successors existed, where the gaps were, and what action was needed in each case.
The two strongest candidates were each asked to develop their own proposal for how they would lead the business forward. That was the real test of readiness. We also identified an external coach to support their development and worked alongside the founders on the communication and engagement work that kept the wider team informed and invested throughout.
The outcome that generated the most discussion was the ruling out of two candidates for a key Head of Brand role, based on performance and potential data. The founders had not previously considered this angle. Rather than pushing back, they used it as a prompt to examine how important those roles actually were to the future of the business. Without the data, that conversation does not happen.
“It hadn’t occurred to us… but perhaps it brings into focus how important those roles are, or aren’t, in the grand scheme… and whether candidates can improve sufficiently.”
Performance Communications Leadership Team
The Result
This was a twenty-four month programme, paced deliberately to align with Performance Communications' internal review cycles and the founders' own timeline for stepping back. The co-founders now have clarity grounded in evidence: two people with genuine MD potential identified, and a decision made not to begin an external search.
An external MD search would typically have cost 20–30% of first-year salary in fees alone, before accounting for the disruption an unknown hire brings. Research consistently shows internal successors outperform external hires by 4.4% versus 0.5% against market benchmarks, with external hires fired 25% more often. In a founder-led SME, where cultural fit and institutional knowledge matter more than they do in a large corporate, those dynamics apply with even greater force.
Succession planning has shifted from an informal exercise based on instinct to a structured, evidence-based process. The business knows who its future looks like, and those people are already being developed.
“The Fractional HR Department has been instrumental in helping us develop a robust process for leadership succession, giving us the confidence to involve the whole leadership team and make our selections against an objective evidence base. If you’re thinking about hiring a professional in-house, contact The Fractional HR Department before you do. You might find they provide a better approach; it certainly has been for us.”
Charlie Raincock, Co-Founder, Performance Communications