To meet today’s sales challenges, it’s critical to recruit and retain highly qualified and motivated salespeople. Retaining a solid sales team requires paying attention to what is important to each sales person. Salespeople leave their jobs for a number of reasons, based on where they are in their career. For some, earning power is more important, for others professional growth and for others it’s about pride in building a solid customer base that’s referenceable. Corporate cultute and a competitive product are other key components to retaining an experience and effective sales team.
All companies and sales team experience challenges in setting and meeting sales quota. Quota performance is driven by efficiently building a sales strategy that incorporates many tasks that lead up to a sale. These performance metrics are measured through things like the number of prospect phone call made, the number of sales presentations, the number of proposals submitted to prospects and then the number and value of sales made, and are generally reviewed monthly. Salespeople are driven and judged by meeting a specific sales quota. So not making the defined number in the areas above results in not meeting quota. Not meeting quota results in either the sales person leaving because they aren’t selling or the company letting them go for the same reason.
It has been shown that employee engagement improves morale in the workplace. Providing a culture that brings great employees into your business and makes them want to stay and perform their best is as important as providing a great product to your customers. On average, only 37% of individual and team quotas were met in 2021. One of the biggest challenges is the lack of strategic sales planning, performance and strategy coordination.
The median salary for a sales rep in the U.S. is $55,000. In a 2019 employee engagement report, 43% of sales reps say they would be willing to leave their organization for just a 10% salary increase. Companies that offer an attractive company culture, provide ongoing training, maintain good products and customer service and provide a good compensation package will attract the best salespeople. Being aware of the industry standards in compensation, keeping up with the competitive landscape, incorporating a strategic and on-going training program, building a solid reputation through excellent customer service and ensuring a healthy corporate culture will help retain those successful salespeople.
The average turnover rate is 20%, with this number being 30.7% for retail and e-commerce. This is an unusual time in the U.S. workforce with 18.9 million Americans exiting the labor market or changing occupations. With sales cycles lengthening, gaining access to “buying” audiences, known as they decision makers, having access to distinct differentiating factors that bring value to a client and the economic challenges that exist for every business, being in sales is more difficult now than ever before.
Strategic virtual training programs that focus on each challenge will help ensure your sales teams are fully prepared to meet and effectively discuss the various push backs that are inherent is sales. With more than 40% of salespeople not targeting the right audience and the fact that it takes an average of 8 interactions with a prospect to gain a meeting, it’s easy to understand why salespeople become frustrated. On-going training and sales strategies can help break through these barriers.
