At the mention of the word sales, things like door to door salesman, stress, cold calling, commission, unstable career and even odd hours come to mind. Of late, hiring managers have been complaining that their sales team turnover is extremely high. The problem is real, everyone wants a solution.
As human resource professionals, the answers generally point to the direction of compensation, salary, ringgit and cents at the heart of it all. Bottom line is, still back to compensation but that’s not all it takes anymore. There’s more to the equation in reality. Coming from a sales background myself, coupled with extensive human capital and talent management experience, I have observed a very important factor which could potentially explain why sales people are hard to keep. There are generally 3 main hurdles to be overcome. The following explains.
Naturally those who walk the sales path are money driven, strong character individuals and those who stay in the field are usually those who has the staying power to do so. The role is definitely not for the faint hearted and weak willed. And also not for those who need stability and conventional way of work. The general characteristics of a sales person can be summed by observing their attitude which usually makes all the difference. Sometimes this can draw the line between hiring someone with or without experience as the person can be without experience but with a great attitude, they can still make the cut.
If this can be observed into the hiring process, consider hurdle one is down.
The second hurdle to be encountered is to keeping them, which is where the real challenge is.
In the capacity of a HR person, I’ll first revisit the entire process of on-boarding. An employee experience on the first week is paramount to his/ her future with the company. Ask yourselves these questions to check if you’re doing all you can to create a pleasant experience:
Did you give the new staff a warm welcome; introduce to the entire team, welcome breakfast or lunch, inclusion in all team activities. If there are cliques’ within the existing team, it would be a barrier to a new entrant. Did you break all barriers to entry before integrating a new person into the team?
Most people overlook the importance of team lunch or get together sessions. This may not be a party where people get drunk and bare it all. It’s a slow but natural process. Without expecting anyone to be someone they are not, study your team and understand each one’s personality. This will give you an idea of what type of events you can create to gel them together.
If you notice, all the above questions can be answered by one person - the hiring manager/ team leader. Whoever is going to lead the person makes all the difference. In my 8 years of career in sales, I have wanted to quit 8 times! But I stayed each time, only because of 1 main factor, my leader who was also my mentor and support. This kept me going every time it got tough. My leader would stand up for me, if I needed to take leave to just get away from it all, she was understanding enough to put her head on the line and when I got back, I’ll be in top form to perform again. Ask yourselves if this is the kind of a person you have been or have you been strictly adhering to the company hand book and completely ignoring the human needs of individuals in your team.
This is probably an Asian mentality – to work hard. Some injection of culture is needed in managing a team of people to work smart. Leadership is no longer just a term coined as a buzz word. It is the only way forward to keeping people.
People tend to take leadership lightly. It may not be within you but it’s something that can be trained. Review your own leaders’ capabilities. This form of review should go beyond answering a few true or false questions. It should also include real life observations and honest assessments. If there is an area to be worked on for improvement, then that should be addressed.
Once this hurdle has been crossed, if you’ve managed to keep your staff happy emotionally, physically and mentally, the turnover rates can be changed. Of course, the underlying assumption here is that the compensation you’ve offering is competitive enough and commensurate with the incumbents experiences and skills.
The final hurdle in keeping them would be in the reviews and appraisals. In my previous company, all other teams had performance reviews twice a year. My team had ours every month! It seemed like a waste of time at first that I have to sit and discuss figures with my manager every fortnightly but it did help in the long run. We could detect lack of motivation, discuss about issues that were not visible. We genuinely showed concern and meant it. We knew what each one aspired for and we helped them walk to their goal, we reminded them if they slipped and brought them back on track.
If they felt that they lacked in certain areas of skill, we would action a fun training session. These were not provided for by the company but our team did it. And as a result, we were the last team standing with zero turnover rate when the rest of the teams were like revolving doors. We’d go for team outing once a month, be it a hike, picnic, treasure hunts, karaoke, road trips. We did all we could to gel the team together and we became almost like a family that no one wanted to leave.
This also resulted in higher revenue as everyone helped to motivate each other to perform. A classic example as they are but it works. As a conclusion, from what I have experienced and comparing it to what I observe now, the significant lack of leadership in organizations today could be the root cause of the evil of high turnover. Nip that in the bud and see your team grow into a rose garden.
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