Sales turnover remains a persistent problem for many organizations. It’s costly to replace and continually onboard new salespeople — and it can be demoralizing to those left behind when good people leave the company. But as a sales leader, there are concrete steps you can take to turn it around if your company is experiencing high turnover.
Sales turnover remains a persistent problem for many organizations. It’s costly to replace and continually onboard new salespeople — and it can be demoralizing to those left behind when good people leave the company. But as a sales leader, there are concrete steps you can take to turn it around if your company is experiencing high turnover.
Make sure you and your team have a modern toolkit and a Sales Engagement Platform that lets you access content, communicate efficiently and analyze activities and progress toward goals. Provide your teams with the support and attention they need to perform at peak levels. And give them a sense of purpose and belonging, celebrating successes, and providing career development opportunities. When you address these three factors, you can eliminate some of the primary causes behind staff churn and keep your best people on board.
In nearly every discussion I have with senior sales executives, they mention one of their key challenges is onboarding new salespeople and customer success roles. Constantly having to re-hire and re-train teams is not only costly, but it also makes it harder to hit revenue targets and sales productivity goals.
If you drill down into the reasons for turnover when it comes to salespeople, three factors quickly emerge: a lack of modern tools for them to do their jobs effectively, not enough coaching and substandard sales cultures within organizations.
Outlined below are my top three factors along with a list of other factors to evaluate and consider:
- They don’t have coaches
Consistent coaching should be the number one priority for all front-line sales managers. Without the ability to coach in-field and with scenario-based approaches you lose your ability to address your teams’ weaknesses and accelerate their strengths, you are simply leaving too much on the table in terms of productivity, job satisfaction, and growth.
- Modern sales tools
Despite the growing investment in cloud-based sales tools, it’s still hard for salespeople to do their jobs effectively. More than 60 percent of sales organizations report that lack of proper tools lengthens the sales cycle. Access to the right content and messaging is a challenge — Forrester Research reports that 90 percent of sales organizations deem it difficult to find and use content. And with sales teams becoming increasingly more mobile, CSO Insights reports that 65 percent of salespeople don’t have full access to content from smartphones. Salespeople need more modern, sales-specific tools — and if they don’t get it at your company, they may start looking for greener pastures with your competitors that provide these solutions. One option is to invest in a Sales Engagement Platform that integrates content, communications, mobile and analytics together — a platform approach can be cost effective, and eliminates the need to manage disconnected point solutions
- Winning culture.
It may sound counterintuitive, but for today’s generation of salespeople it’s not all about money — they want to feel part of something bigger than themselves. They crave a more transparent organization that is upfront about objectives, and clear about learning and career paths. Sales leaders should address this by taking the time to celebrate successes and milestones along the way — not just when the team hits the quarterly numbers. Break goals down into smaller units and use sales enablement tools to track key metrics including the number of calls made, emails sent and engagement time with customers among others. And recognize employees when they meet or exceed those objectives. That will go a long way toward building a winning culture.
4. Understanding that data and insights is their secret weapon.
5. Do the sales folks have a playbook?
6. Do they get holistic feedback on a regular basis?
7. Is there a consistent team centered atmosphere?
8. Who are the salespersons sounding board and is the owner the right and best person for them?
9. Who’s inspiring them to be the best.
These are just some of the areas that should be reviewed and considered as you work to retain the right salespeople for your team or as you build up your team to be an effective asset for your company.