Many sales reps are passionate about what they do. They have the skills, a passion to learn, and passion to work hard. It is this character trait that makes a good sales representative, and you can retain them with the right hiring practices. To get the best out of a sales team, they need to know how they are contributing to the growth of the company. It is a misconception that one must hire someone in order to get the desired output. The sales representatives are often underperforming because they are not given the right tools, support, and consistent training, in addition to feedback on their performance.
How to hire the right people
You must assess your sales organisation’s current structure and identify any existing sales job requirements to identify a strong fit. The starting point is building a strong connection with your current customer base. It’s not enough to just know your business and products. It’s critical to create a positive connection with your customers that will compel them to advocate for your products and solutions. Focus on hiring talent that best suits your company’s objectives, and ensure they are a good cultural fit for your organisation. While assessing your current sales team, look at their strengths and weaknesses.
What good training looks like
Most salespersons have very little knowledge of their buyer. For example, salespersons are either targeting small businesses or multinational corporations. And while your sales management needs to put money into building a sales team who know how to build relationships with big brands, you also have to pay attention to the right kind of training. A good sales training program brings together field reps and the sales managers to set goals for reps. The training team can also pinpoint the desired outcomes for the sales reps. For example, does the sales team want sales teams to be tracking the big account details, should they be looking to increase sales through higher targets, and so on. Salespersons typically want to achieve more.
How to retain high-performing sales reps
You have your best reps – who deliver value-added services to customers, are well connected with customers, drive incremental revenues, get engaged in the process and deliver value. With these critical traits, you can expect your reps to stick around, bring in other people into the sales team and make your business grow exponentially.
If you are building for long-term growth, retaining your high-performing sales rep is a key to the company’s success. And, if they are not motivated and satisfied with their work, they will eventually find value somewhere else. A key aspect of retaining sales reps revolves around setting the right sales commission plans for them.
Additionally, build a sales culture that is a lot more than just quota attainment. Encourage reps to look at the bigger picture and see beyond their targets. This would translate to them going above and beyond to keep customers happy, deliver feedback from customers to the product teams and help their teammates create scalable processes for their success.
Case study
Box hit growth limits at three points. They identified that 3 percent of their sales reps were using less than 20 percent of their available quota. Each of these problems was solved in different, creative and intelligent ways. Customer Service Box uses employee engagement and customer support to communicate in a human tone. There are more than 4,000 emails a day from customers, and the HR team doesn’t want to miss anything or send a basic message that will go unnoticed. They incorporated a dedicated team of customer support executives who have advanced technical knowledge. These executives work on projects at the business direction level so that they can solve customer issues on the go.
While smart automation will help you streamline your sales operations and connect with customers faster, make sure your sales team stays relevant, connected and in tune with your customer. The above tips will help you retain your high performing sales reps and scale your sales organisation.
