The most common gripes that salespeople share with me about their current employers, concern lack of career opportunity and skills development. That often, what they were told would happen in the interview, doesn’t play out, and as a result, they disengage and want to move on.
Weak, underperforming salespeople, the excuse makers with lousy attitudes, should be moved out straightaway, but businesses must have the best environment for all if they’re going to attract, and crucially, retain strong sales staff.
Our research shows that just 6% of salespeople are elite, with a further 20% being good performers for their employers. The other ¾ struggle to make their numbers.
So, what does this tells us?
Quite simply, that it’s hard enough to find good sales staff in the first place, so it surely makes great sense that every effort must be made to keep them.
According to IBM’s 2014 report, The Value of Training, “Employees who don’t feel they can achieve their career goals with their current employer are 12 times more likely to consider leaving. With new employees, this number skyrockets to about 30 times more likely.”
The cost of replacing a sales person is upwards of $120,000, so there’s every reason to make sure that you have an ongoing development program for them in place. But, my experience shows that whilst most organisations happily splash out on recruiting costs, some baulk at the idea of spending any money to train their salespeople. Then they wonder why the good ones leave them.
A real standout for me, is that the strong salespeople I talk with, are always the ones who get most excited by the promise of being coached and developing their skills. It’s a key decider for them to join one potential employer over another. My findings are supported by The Computing Technology Industry Association, who report “62% of employees say that professional development contributes to their job satisfaction.”
So, I encourage you to take a long look at exactly what your business is doing right now to ensure the development of your sales team. What current, ongoing programs do you have in place? Do your sales managers know how to coach? Have they ever been trained in sales management? Most haven’t. How much time are they spending on coaching, training and mentoring their salespeople? (Hint, it should be about 75% of their time).
As CEO, the buck stops with you, so don’t make the mistake of passing this crucial matter onto your sales manager. Instead run with it yourself, and build a successful sales organisation through effective and ongoing development of your sales staff.
Finally, a request to all my readers.
I am committed to writing regular “Food for Thought” articles, so I may share with you my ideas on how you can build a strong sales organisation and grow revenue. If you have any challenges or successes you would like to share with me, I would love to hear from you.
You can contact me directly on 0416 115 266 or email me at
