Are You Prepared to Weather the Sales Turnover Tsunami?

I have noticed a recent uptick in the number of new positions being announced by my LinkedIn professional network. By no means am I an Influencer. However, I am connected to 5,000+ individuals so not an insignificant sample size. Since most are focused on Go To Market (GTM) it started me thinking about possible impact on revenue generation and what could be done to avoid negative consequences.

A Perfect Storm?

Roy Maurer’s SHRM article coined the Tsunami reference and discussed the phenomenon. According to Roy, “More than half of employees surveyed in North America plan to look for a new job in 2021, while separate research shows that a quarter of workers plan to quit their jobs outright once the COVID-19 pandemic subsides and recruiting efforts ramp up.” Even if only a fraction of this materializes it is a huge number.

For GTM organizations specifically, as soon as business and pipelines start trending in the right direction, there will be a rush to repopulate or grow sales and marketing organizations. A hiring frenzy and the associated cascade of backfilling will be compressed into the next several months as GTM leaders try to resource and operationalize their FY21 and FY22 business plans. Meaning, GTM leaders will need to hire, rehire and backfill successfully (all at the same time) causing a Sales Turnover Tsunami.

Don’t think that this will be limited to individual contributors or junior talent. According to a recent article from Fox Business News, 44% of households between the ages of 55 and 64 considered themselves pre- or post-retirees due to impact of the pandemic. This is up significantly from previous years and makes perfect sense. First, IRAs and 401(k)s for GTM leaders are probably near all-time highs. Second, there is fatigue from managing through the pandemic. Third, the burden of ramping up to meet growth objectives will not be an ideal situation for some.   1+2+3 = early retirement.

What Can be Done?

Employee retention will be the most effective countermeasure. Conventional wisdom includes open dialogue, career planning, recognition and targeting top talent.   While all of these are good, I think salespeople can be retained more effectively by adding a tailored approach. Here are three actions for you to consider.

1.      More Money

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Salespeople are coin operated”? It’s true. A great way to embrace this reality in your retention efforts is to build out a commission accelerator for the period of retention.   Let me elaborate. If your retention goal is this calendar year, why not raise commission rates by an affordable percentage until 12/31/21? This approach is relatively easy to administer and has an added benefit of pulling forward additional revenue. Your sales comp team can build out a participation model to help quantify the additional selling cost plus the additional productivity. 

If you’re thinking you cannot afford to invest in sales retention do a quick web search on the business case for retaining employees vs hiring new ones.   Hubspot reported that the average cost of recruiting, hiring, and training an employee is typically 200% of an employee’s annual salary. Since we are discussing revenue generating employees, you’ll also need to factor in the opportunity costs associated with the lag in productivity of new reps. Full productivity, in my experience, is usually reached after 12 months. 

2.      Less Hassle

I have led several Free-Up-Time-To-Sell (FUTTS) initiatives in my career to help alleviate unnecessary sales administration burdens. In essence, you gather feedback from the sales organization (leadership included) on those processes that are taking the most time away from prospecting, customer success and front-line management. You then enlist your best project managers and black belts to come up with better processes and workflows. In addition to the increased employee satisfaction and related retention, a case built on these improvements can be significant when you free up selling hours across large populations.

Don’t be surprised if a recommendation is made for more investment in SalesTech. In my previous article I discussed the proliferation of SalesTech solutions. Use this to your advantage. Pick out one or two targeted solutions for specific problems and get a quick win. More than likely the acquisition and integration costs will be reasonable since you’re taking a focused approach.

Another thing to consider. Did you get leaner in sales admin and support roles during COVID? It is understandable if you did. Do not underestimate the negative impact this might have on the morale of your salespeople. As you submit job requisitions ensure a healthy mix of support roles. Look at your pre-pandemic support to sales ratios for guidance and prioritization.

3.      Repeatable Approach

When I was a sales rep I felt the most confident when the solution I was representing had been successfully sold to similar customers. As I progressed into leadership and sales enablement I always tried to build “Repeatable Solutions” so the broader organization could take advantage of a winning approach.

With this principle in mind, I suggest you conduct a thorough win rate analysis to understand what is working. Contrast and compare everything. Which commercials perform better? Where is your winning price? Do you have certain bid response language included in most of your won deals? When combined, which solutions are generating more closed deals? Are certain customer segments outperforming others? Do you win more (or less) if pre-sales support is involved in a deal?

Once you understand how to win, enlist Sales Enablement to build success playbooks. These playbooks should outline the winning combinations from your analysis and act as a “How To Guide” for the broader organization. By the way, Sales Enablement can also lead the required communication and training programs to ensure adoption. I guarantee salespeople will be more confident in their ability to crush quota causing them to spend less time looking at other career opportunities.   GTM leadership will feel the same because participation rates will improve giving them line of sight to their own OTE and career advancement.

Ideally, we all want 100% of our GTM resources in place to ensure business performance. A reality that will be harder to achieve because of the anticipated increase in resignations and early retirements. I am confident the three practical approaches outlined above can be added to conventional employee retention to help you successfully weather the Sales Turnover Tsunami. 

Good luck in your efforts and I wish you continued selling success!