3 ways to retain your high potential and talented Salespeople

Your most valuable resource in Sales is your sales people.

 At the beginning of 2012 with its uncertain challenges it is worth considering how best to retain and develop your best potential and talent within your team. Here are three areas worth considering

1. Actively Manage your talent
2. Recruiting mature salespeople and those returning to work after maternity
3. Outsourcing your sales recruitment or Do it yourself ( DIY) 

1.    Actively Manage your talent

Sales organisations are more complex today.

There is a greater amount of segmentation and specialisation.

Today’s organisations feature global, strategic, major, territory and industry specific account development roles.

Successful attributes in one role will not necessarily equate to success in another.

Careful consideration and investment in selection tools is a trend among many top performing sales organisations. Consider the engagement matrix below:-

  

‘Work to their strengths.’ is an old management adage but worth working on.

  

 It’s easier to get your team cruisers , performers, joggers and  stars doing 100 % or 120 % above target to improve their performance than getting someone from 40 %t to100 %.

Your stars are more focused and tend not get involved in office politics or distractions.

  

 Star Salespeople who can reach 120%  of the plan can get to 140% or 150 % more easily.

“There’s a tendency to leave those achieving 120 % alone. Best practise  suggests don’t. Instead coach them. You'll get more out of them.”

  

So with good negotiators whose strengths are in negotiating get more out of them by investing in negotiating  training.

At Planning for Success 2012 Negotiation skills specialist

 Lyndsey Byrne’s session will cover

    -          Avoiding the key mistakes made in negotiations

    -          Practise using the top tips of negotiation

    -          Receiving feedback on your negotiation style

“Low turnover in your sales force is not necessarily a measure of success.”

 Some sales managers need to release more people out and introduce more new people in while others should focus on keeping their top performers improving deal after deal.

In retaining sales talent, sales managers need to know

·         who their top performers are and

·          specific areas where they can help them develop their abilities.

One way of evaluating performance is through an organisational assessment and coaching. At Planning for Success 2012Coaching specialist  ( see left) Steve Braid’s session on Seven Steps to Constructive Feedback will cover

-          Observing negative, destructive, positive and constructive feedback through an interactive exercise

-          Learning how to use the seven step constructive feedback model

-          Thinking about situations on where to apply the seven step constructive feedback model back in the workplace (planning, preparation and delivery)

Such skills create a constructive dialogue between salespeople and their managers, alignment on corporate strategy and objectives, and identifies developmental priorities. The results help clearly identify any disconnection between the salesperson and the sales manager, and even the sales manager and sales leadership.

One of the key issues that sales teams face is the number of sales managers who were formerly excellent salespeople. While some of the attributes to be successful as a salesperson transfer well, it doesn’t always mean their becoming a successful manager.

Investing to make sure that their sales managers understand how to coach vs. sell; how to manage a sales pipeline  from an organisational vs. individual point of view; and how to lead their teams effectively through both internal and external challenges of 2012.

At Planning for Success Sales training Maven, Hugh Alford 20+ Ways to Generate New Business for your 2012 Plans will cover

-          Where are the opportunities and how best to exploit them in 2012?

-          How to protect  and expand your existing client business

-          An A-Z of prospecting in a recession 20 +Prospecting and new business generating Ideas for your plans for 2012

2.    Recruiting mature salespeople and those returning to work after maternity.

In the past many sales managers have been resistant to hiring older workers.

 Former salespeople returning to the workforce after maternity, second career people – and they can be valuable to a sales force.

Go back a decade and  Sales managers were overpopulating their sales forces with young people

But today there is a severe shortage of young people demanding a sales careers.

The average age is early to mid 30s. And there’s a shortage of talent. Therefore it’s crucial for organisations to look at and consider the more experienced people – people in their second careers, for example. There is a tremendous source of talent  among experienced workers. You might remember that rther provocative survey from last year...

Some sales managers claim “A good salesperson can sell anything” There are exceptions such as highly technical products and services.

Recruiting experienced salespeople from outside one’s industry makes good business sense and it’s a practise that’s growing. Plus, there may be less training costs involved.

3.    Outsourcing  your sales recruitment or Do it yourself ( DIY)

HR departments have embraced the concept of outsourcing these services and have found a reduction in overhead costs and a competitive edge in the talent market.

More organisations are beginning to accept recruitment outsourcing because there is a measurable return on investment.

Recruitment costs an employer from between 25 % to 30 % of a candidate’s first year salary to the recruiter.

More sales managers have been using Linked In as a recruiting source. So specialist recruiters need to offer differentiated advantages to sales managers using social media like Linked In.

At Planning for success 2012 Management Training  high energy professional Nushi Stach’s session  Play Your Performance Management Cards Right will cover

-          The five key stages of the performance review process with advanced questioning and listening techniques

-          Managing different people types in the performance review

-          Coaching and different coaching techniques

 Sally Moore, Tack’s North West Regional Director with TACK researcher Hugh Alford will hold an open forum session on the challenges of Sales leadership supported with data from the latest TACK research study. TACK will also be running live polls at the event.