3 Unsettling Truths About Sales Force Turnover

Sales force turnover is the dark matter of your annual bottom line. Even if you’re hands-on and involved in everything, it’s hard to measure the extent of this impact – or to know who is measuring it. HR sends you to sales, sales sends you to HR, an exasperated HR sends you to the Executive Committee. While this cycle repeats, here are some key figures:

Fact: A single instance of turnover impacts sales productivity for up to 2 years afterward.

Fact: A lost salesperson can cost 1.5 to 2 times their annual salary.

Fact: Sales force turnover is at a 5-year high – and still rising.

Even with glowing statistics, fingers are pointed, progress stagnates, and team members are at odds. This is because turnover isn’t a budget line item. Buried and dispersed across departments, management is responsible for it. Here are 3 actionable insights to turn identification into restructuring:

1. Who You Lose Is More Important Than How Many You Lose

Before acting, ask yourself: who is leaving? Is it your top performers or your underperformers? Not all turnovers are equal. High turnover among your underperformers indicates a need to re-evaluate your selection and training processes. High turnover among your top performers means your company is losing its best to the competition.

Both scenarios can make a leader sweat. But the second is the worst. You are reduced to a funnel that recruits the best salespeople for your rivals. Chances are these employees generate 80 percent of sales. If you think losing your greatest talents is not just the tip of the iceberg, think again. They will take some of your clients with them, because sales rep turnover is client turnover. You encouraged them to close sales; now encourage them to stay.

2. General Turnover ≠ Sales Turnover

Your business depends on selling your product or service. So why is sales department turnover held to a lower standard than in other departments? If 15 percent of your engineers resigned, the executive committee would call an emergency meeting and heads would roll. The same crisis in the sales department will receive a mere sigh.

Employee retention efforts cannot tolerate departmental exceptions. Take responsibility at the top (sales leader, CEO), learn what motivates and discourages your team on the ground, and act. Fix the system and you will fix retention.

Discover our white paper to effectively engage and retain your sales force.

3. Investing in Automation Is Not the Same as Investing in a Person

Robotics and artificial intelligence have done wonders for streamlining business operations. Setting aside the debate about employee displacement: you still have a lot of humans left. Many of them are stuck using equipment and methods that predate smartphones. Unfocused trial and error, trapped between complicated spreadsheets and – you guessed it – turnover.

Modern salespeople need modern thinking. Modern thinking requires modern solutions. Digital coaches, gamified goals, microlearning, and standardized best practice sharing are the future. Partnering with a sales accelerator combines technology and the human touch to achieve all your goals. Watch your productivity skyrocket and your turnover drop. Because when sales teams succeed, they stay.

Other articles that might interest you:

• Sales Performance: What Profiles to Recruit and How to Evaluate Them? (1/3)
• Sales performance: What Profiles to Recruit and How to Identify Them? (2/3)
• Sales Performance: What Profiles to Recruit and How to Choose Them? (3/3)