For a long time running, turnover has been one of the dirtiest words in field sales. What is turnover’s unfortunate endgame? Attrition. Due to this, sales teams are scrambling to figure out how to keep their game up. As you already know, turnover in sales is much worse than in other professional fields. When a field sales rep walks out of the office, they take more than the plants from their desk. They walk out of the office with client contact information and valuable relationships that take time for a replacement to rebuild. By breaking down the life cycle of the sales rep, we’re able to better understand what is going wrong! Included are a myriad of questions for reflection.
Being a leader in field sales means developing people daily, not just being in charge.
The Field Sales Rep is Born
Professionals argue that salespeople are taught, but you should be aware of how much teaching you can handle. Is the hiring manager of the sales department looking for precise qualifications? When your team is hiring a new rep, do they ask WHY they want the job? If this doesn’t get fulfilled they will probably leave. Other relevant questions include: What do you expect from this position? What motivates you? HOW LONG do you plan on keeping this job? Due to the rapid nature of turnover in field sales, it is easy to get bogged down by constantly finding new hires, but don’t start throwing people onto the team. Today it will save you 5 minutes, but tomorrow it will cost you much more.
The Race Begins
For starters, being a sales rep takes a toll. Finding the charisma and determination to be self-motivated every day takes serious effort. If your team doesn’t feel like it is worth what they are getting out of it -whether that is compensation or experience- they may start thinking about finding another position. Another issue within keeping reps around is making sure that they don’t leave due to hearing about a better offer somewhere else.
Maturity
So your new hire decided to stick around? Cool. What process is helping that rep to keep their edge up? Daily, are they feeling stronger in their skills and abilities or are they just edging closer to the point of throwing their smart phone into a creek? As a team, are you trying to understand each other on a deeper level? When your employee walks away, he/she should not just be walking away from a job or salary, but from people that they have invested in and that have invested in him/her. Providing your employees with something that money can’t buy is essential to combating turnover.
The Inevitable End: Turnover
Invariably, your beloved reps will switch jobs one day. Yes, even the one that lets you win at golf. When this happens, did you see it coming? Did you know that their needs weren’t being fulfilled? Do you find out the REAL REASON why he/she is leaving to avoid history repeating itself or do you purchase another ticket on the cyclical road to insanity?
Preventing Attrition
If turnover is so devastatingly terrible in sales, (which it definitely is), why do we not apply the same analytical and statistical strategies that we use in customer retention? Hiring reps may not be explicitly generating revenue, but learning how to manage them, in the long run, impacts the entirety of your sales department.
Outfield, a mobile field sales CRM app, can supplement your turnover process by keeping contact data from people exiting the company and enabling new hires to have access to it.
Take a look at our video, and let us know what you think:
