Managers often complain about their best salespeople leaving. When a great salesperson decides to leave your company, it is often quite painful and disruptive to the entire team.
The fact of the matter is that most professional salespeople choose to leave companies not because they no longer believe in the company or the product, but because of poor management. If you want to avoid this trend, take steps now to avoid these common mistakes.
Don’t Overwork Your Team
Your best people will often produce the most work, but this does not mean that you can take advantage of them. Your Sales Team are your most valuable asset and if you need to overwork them to reach your goals, it’s a recipe for disaster. There are quite a few studies out there, which prove that productivity goes down considerably when employees work too much, especially when they work over 55 hours a week.
If you want your Sales Team to work harder or more, then you better give them a bump in their status and pay as well. If you don’t, you will suffocate your best people and force them to look elsewhere for the recognition they deserve. If you increase the workload without changing anything else, you will find your best people on their way out the door.
Care About Your Team
The most common reason why people leave their job is a bad relationship with their boss. Sales Managers need to understand the difference between being the boss and being a human being. A professional boss/manager understands the balance of demanding a high quality of work while being reasonable with expectations. Managers who truly care about their Team show it when times are tough. It’s easy to care about your Team when they’re doing everything properly. However, when they’re down on sales, or not fully assimilating to a new plan or program, that’s the time to show that you really care. A good indication that you don’t care enough is the turnover rate of your employees. You may have a lot of success out of the gate, but if you want long-term success with your Team, you must consistently show you care about them. Asking people to devote time, energy, and passion 8+ hours a day when it’s evident that you don’t even care about them will create an environment where team member will leave quickly. They need to know that you care about them and their success.
Let Them Pursue Their Passions
The day-to-day grind often just isn’t enough for your most talented employees or team members because they are very passionate people. Therefore, you need to create opportunities where they can pursue their passions, which will in turn increase their productivity and overall job satisfaction. Unfortunately, many managers want to pigeonhole people into a tiny little box. They might fear that overall productivity will go down if people let their creative juices flow. However, there is no basis for this finding. There are plenty of studies out there to prove that people who are able to pursue their passions experience almost a euphoric state of mind that is exceedingly more productive than the typical employee. That alone is reason to allow your best salespeople to pursue their passions, not to mention if they feel satisfied on the creative side of their brain, they will fight to stay at your company because it allows them to do so.
Know How To Treat Employees
If you want to keep your best employees or Team members, careful thought is required. Think about how you treat them and why you do so. The best are tough and that talent gives them options in the business world. Experienced hiring managers that know how to treat the best people will often have people with the most longevity and the highest rate of success.
Do all you can to make your best people want to work for you because of the way you treat them.
