7 Ways to Attract and Keep Salespeople
What motivates a salesperson to leave or join your company? If you answered compensation, you’d be wrong. Organizations that recruit people based on pay structure are more likely to lose team members poached when a better offer comes along. Pay structure is important, but today’s sales professional considers everything from productivity tools to team culture.
Let’s analyze 10 things to consider as you build and retain your team.
1. You Don’t Want Everybody
It’s easier to hire someone than it is to fire someone. Be selective about the people you let into your organization. You don’t want everyone, especially if they haven’t bought into the culture of the organization. Having a great salesperson who defies management and has poor bedside manners is not worth poisoning the morale of everyone around them. The old saying hire slow and fire fast holds true.
2. What is Your One Thing?
Maybe your company offers great camaraderie among colleagues with helpful, supportive collaboration. Or perhaps you can provide awesome training courses, marketing and lead generation resources. Whatever it is, promote that “One Thing” that sets your organization apart and really makes you special in the eyes of the type of sales professionals you want to attract. Remember, you can’t be everything to everyone and that’s okay.
3. Get Their Hot Buttons
People are motivated by different things. It is your job as a great leader to find out and identify what is prompting someone to join or leave your organization. Ask prospective candidates questions. Spend time with your front line. Actively listen to them. In many cases sales professionals speak more to their managers than they do to their friends or even spouses. Yikes!
4. Always Be Recruiting
All too often managers find themselves forced to recruit when a salesperson leaves on short notice. This can be stressful not only on you but on the team as well. It is important that you maintain communication with a pool of candidates who have expressed an interest in working with you. Draft up a “Dream Team” list of people you’d love to see on your roster. Connect with these people on all social media portals and engage when they share content. Be sure to make personal contact with them at least once per quarter to see how they are holding up.
Make sure that you always have a few business cards in your pocket to be able to hand out to people you meet with exceptional customer service or sales skills. Many a waiter or grocery clerk aspire to be better and you’d be surprised by where some of the best professional salespeople were recruited from.
5. Attitude Over Talent
Selling is a skill that can be learned-especially by someone with the right attitude. It will take a little more time to train someone, versus hiring a skilled salesperson, but a good attitude is contagious. Likewise, a bad attitude is contagious, even if the person is a top producer. In 2017 Holiday Inn launched a marketing campaign entitled “Smiles Ahead”. During this campaign and hiring period if you didn’t smile a minimum number of times during the interview, you weren’t hired. Crazy? I don’t think so. Hire for attitude and the candidate will adapt.
6. Promote Growth
No one wants to work for someone who doesn’t inspire them to do and be better. As managers it is important that your team genuinely feels like you want them to succeed even if that means outgrowing you. Star executive Patty McCord of Netflix stated that, “people leave managers, not companies.” Put your ego aside and your reputation will precede you. Loyalty to your organization is more likely when salespeople see and feel like opportunities to grow within the company exist.
Avoid the revolving door and retain great talent by applying the above 6 strategies. Make sure you nurture the skillsets of your salespeople with the right mix of ongoing training, productivity tools and robust marketing programs that close the deal and keep your team happy for long term.