Businesses depend on the performance of their sales professionals to remain viable and succeed, however attracting and retaining top-performing salespeople is notoriously difficult.
Consider the following stats:
+ Annual employee turnover for sales professionals has been estimated at 27% per year; twice the rate of the overall labour force[1].
+ It takes 71% of companies 6 months or longer to onboard new sales reps, and 33% of companies take 9 months or more[2]. This is a huge time investment given the high risk of turnover
+ Sales professionals are the most likely to change jobs/companies out of any occupation in Australia[3]
It is ironic that, for a role whose purpose is to increase a business’s revenue, the process of hiring a sales professional can potentially end up costing a business more than it delivers.
Each sales professional that leaves your company costs not only the initial salary investment, but also lost connections, experience, and time.
If you are experiencing high levels of turnover in your sales department, have you considered that your recruitment process may be the issue?
Many companies will rely on the outdated interview-reference check method of selecting their sales professionals. They will assume that whoever puts on the best performance during the interview process will bring in most clients.
I also come across many hiring managers who look for stereotypical attributes that they think will define a successful salesperson. For example, many assume that the eternal optimist will bring in the most sales when in reality, nearly two-thirds of top-performing salespeople have been found to exhibit pessimistic personality tendencies which enable them to better qualify and ask tougher questions of the prospect[4].
In a profession where turnover is so high, and the role is vital to your business success, it is, therefore, essential to optimise your recruitment process to ensure:
- You know exactly what type of sales professional and sales style will bring in new business
- You are aware of each applicant’s behavioural traits and sales style
- You can reliably identify and recruit the top applicant for the position
Doing so will deliver higher sales performance and reduce your likelihood of employee turnover, as employees who are more suited to a job role are more likely to succeed and therefore more likely to stay with the company.
Peoplogica provides profiling tools which enable you to do exactly that. Our tools are validated and proven to improve your success rate of selecting top-performing salespeople. They are used by companies of all sizes, from all industries, to reliably provide a dramatic improvement to their sales performance.
If you are experiencing high levels of turnover in your sales department; if your existing sales professionals aren’t delivering to your expectation; or if you are recruiting and want to make sure you make the right choice for your business, please reach out to Michael at Michael@peoplogica.com and we can show you a better way of delivering sales performance.
[1] https://hbr.org/2017/07/how-to-predict-turnover-on-your-sales-team
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecomaford/2016/06/18/how-leaders-can-engage-retain-top-sales-talent/?sh=670409325cbb
[3] https://www.aigrouptalent.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Ai-Group-factsheet-Labour-Turnover-in-2019.pdf
[4] https://hbr.org/2015/03/what-separates-the-strongest-salespeople-from-the-weakest
Written by Michael Mancinone
