How to Drastically Minimize Sales
Recruitment Expenses
We’ve all heard the old adage, “Keep your current clients happy because it’s more profitable to sell to them than to go out and get new ones.” If you want more business, “look no further than your existing and former client base.” As salespeople, we have to ignore this sage advice and leave that to the account managers and client services. If you make the big bucks, chances are your job is to drive new business because that’s where all the action is. With new business as the primary focus, it becomes easy to forget about generating business from the clients you already have. So what does this have to do with minimizing sales recruiting expenses? Quite frankly, everything! Believe it or not, this same advice relates to your sales team.
The single, most effective way to minimize sales recruiting expenses is to keep the best salespeople you have in the seat and work hard to drastically reduce sales turnover. It’s the go back to your current clients strategy except with your current salespeople! They are already there doing the job, so you should do everything you can to keep the great ones on board! The cost of unwanted turnover is astronomical, immense, and even extraordinary. I have statistics on the cost of turnover, the numbers are astounding. (I’m not going to share them with you here because it’s too depressing.) Let’s explore three simple things you can do today to keep sales turnover in check.
Sales Turnover Reducer #1: Minimize the number of times you change the compensation plan. You already know that this causes a lot of unnecessary disruption. What you may not see or hear is that this also creates a big window of opportunity for savvy headhunters to catch the attention of your best salespeople. Changing the comp plan refocuses behavior, and from time to time, it simply must be done. The frequency in which it’s changed however, should be weighed against the risk of turnover. You do have a few options if this element is difficult to combat and they mostly rely on you getting better. Your choices are to get better at selling the new plan or get better at fighting for better plans, so you can sell the new plan with all the zest, zeal and passion you are going to need to convert the doubters and the non-believers.
Sales Turnover Reducer #2: Build stronger emotional connections at all levels of the organization. Your sales people will stay with the company even in the rockiest of times if they feel connected to the CEO and executive leadership. Strong connections should be centered at the CEO, boss and peer levels—this creates truckloads of glue that will keep the sales force motivated to give their very best to the organization. You must pay attention to this factor, seek out and proactively create situations to increase bonds at all three levels.
Sales Turnover Reducer #3: Create rewarding mentorship programs. Sometimes this sounds like fluff to people who must consistently produce hard core results for a living. Humor me and think back to your own career, you most likely had your longest tenure with an organization where you felt you were learning and growing from someone on the team. Great sales people need to continue to increase their skills and experience personal growth. Building a rich and rewarding mentorship program is an easy and cost effective way to achieve this objective. Implementing a mentorship program will feed the hearts, souls and minds of your sales force. This in turn, will help solidify your reputation as an organization that is “sales friendly” and will ultimately reduce unwanted sales turnover.
Retaining sales talent can be difficult, but every sales rep I move to a new company reconfirms the old saying, “People don’t quit their jobs, they quit their bosses.” Try not to treat your current sales force like an old client whose newness has worn off. Remember that your existing sales team, like your existing clients, is your best shot at increasing your revenue today.
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