HazardCo, New Zealand's leading digital health and safety platform for construction, was growing fast — expanding from NZ into Australia and the UK with 10,000+ businesses on their platform. But growth was exposing a familiar problem: finding and retaining the right go-to-market talent. They came to Pointer to fix sales recruitment. Through that engagement, we identified a bigger opportunity: building an enablement program across their entire revenue organisation. Pointer's accountability-based training program was rolled out to field sales, BDMs, inside sales, and customer success — delivering 200+ individual certifications, increasing retention, surfacing internal promotion candidates, and providing consistency through four different sales leaders.
The Key Question
How does a fast-growing international SaaS company build a professional development program that scales across multiple go-to-market functions — and stays consistent even when leadership changes?
About HazardCo
HazardCo is a digital health and safety management platform built for the construction industry. Founded in 2007 at a dining table in Pauatahanui, New Zealand, the company has grown into the market leader — used on 1 in 3 residential construction sites in New Zealand, trusted by over 10,000 businesses, and serving 150,000+ users across New Zealand, Australia, and the UK.
Their platform replaces paper-based safety processes with a mobile app, on-site scan boards, and a centralised hub — making compliance simple for builders and tradies who don't have time for paperwork. The leadership team includes former executives from Xero, Trade Me, Spark, and ANZ, backed by NZ Equity Partners.
HazardCo was not a company in trouble. They were a company planning ahead.
The Situation
HazardCo's growth trajectory was strong. They had expanded into Australia in 2020, were preparing for the UK launch, and their customer base was growing steadily. But with that growth came pressure on the go-to-market team — and one consistent problem kept surfacing: finding and retaining the right sales talent.
The company's sales leadership team came to Pointer with a recruitment brief. They needed better talent, faster, in a competitive market where good salespeople have options.
The Challenge
The recruitment problem was real, but it was a symptom. The deeper challenge was what happened after the hire.
HazardCo's go-to-market team spanned multiple functions — field sales, business development managers, inside sales, and customer success. Each function had different skill requirements, different daily workflows, and different definitions of what "good" looked like. But they shared the same gaps:
This is not unusual. Most scaling SaaS companies treat enablement as something that happens in the first two weeks of onboarding — if at all. The ongoing professional development of the team is left to individual managers, whose quality and commitment varies wildly.
The Solution
Phase 1: Fixing Recruitment
We started where HazardCo asked us to start — recruitment. We worked with their sales leadership team to overhaul how they sourced, assessed, and selected go-to-market talent. The focus was on speed and quality: making sure HazardCo wasn't losing good candidates to slower processes or misaligned briefs.
This work delivered immediate results. But it also gave us visibility into the team — how they operated, where the gaps were, and what was happening after new hires landed.
Phase 2: Identifying the Enablement Opportunity
While training the reps we had placed, we identified something bigger. The new hires were ramping well because they had structured support. But the existing team — many of whom were strong performers — had never received that same level of investment.
We brought this to HazardCo's leadership: the opportunity wasn't just training the people we placed. It was building an enablement program for the entire go-to-market team.
HazardCo agreed.
Phase 3: Rolling Out the Full Enablement Program
We deployed Pointer's accountability-based skill validation program across HazardCo's entire revenue organisation:
The program is not a content library. It is not a series of webinars. It is a structured certification system where every participant must demonstrate competency — not just attend a session. Skills are validated through practical assessments, role-plays, and real-world application. If you can't do it, you don't pass. If you can, you earn a certification that means something.
Each function received training tailored to their specific workflows and challenges, but built on a shared foundation of professional selling skills — discovery, qualification, objection handling, pipeline management, and commercial acumen.
The Consistency Factor: Four Sales Leaders, One Program
One of the most valuable — and unexpected — benefits of the program was what it provided through leadership transitions.
Over the course of our engagement, HazardCo cycled through four different sales leaders. In most organisations, this would mean four different approaches to training, four different expectations for how reps develop, and a constant reset of whatever progress had been made.
With Pointer's program in place, the enablement framework was independent of any single manager. New leaders inherited a team with validated skills, clear certification records, and a development pathway already in motion. They didn't have to build from scratch. They could focus on strategy and execution from day one, knowing the team's professional development was already handled.
This is the difference between enablement as a manager's side project and enablement as organisational infrastructure.
The Results
| Metric | Detail |
|---|---|
| Certifications achieved | 200+ across sales and customer success |
| Functions covered | Field sales, BDMs, inside sales, customer success |
| Sales leaders during engagement | 4 — with consistent enablement throughout |
| Retention impact | Increased — team members cite professional development as key driver |
| Internal promotions | Program surfaced candidates for promotion who may have been overlooked |
| Individual feedback | Outstanding — reps describe the program as motivating and career-enhancing |
| Leadership assessment | Program described as invaluable to the go-to-market team |
The numbers matter, but the qualitative outcomes matter more:
Why This Matters for Scaling GTM Teams
Most companies invest heavily in hiring and almost nothing in what happens next. The assumption is that good people will figure it out. Some do. Many don't — and the ones who don't aren't always the ones you'd expect.
The pattern we see repeatedly:
HazardCo broke this pattern by investing in a structured, ongoing enablement program that was independent of any single leader and applied consistently across the organisation. The result was a go-to-market team that was more skilled, more engaged, and more likely to stay.