Get Your Star Reps to Stay

Turnover has always been a problem in sales. But as the role of a sales rep becomes more complex, organizations are growing increasingly worried about the hidden costs of undesired churn, and in particular about the costs of losing their star reps.

But what are the costs of turnover anyway? For starters, there are the costs associated with recruiting, onboarding, training, and salary paid to employees who have yet to reach full productivity. But there are some less obvious costs such as the demotivation ripple effects of losing high performers, gaps in continuity of service to clients, or even lost accounts.

So if you are worried about your high-performers jumping ship, you will be pleased to know that our research shows that while on average Challenger reps are accessing professional networking sites more frequently than the average population (or by 28%), are 1.2 times more likely to keep their online professional profiles up to date, and are 1.9 times more likely to apply to new job opportunities advertised on professional networking sites, they are no more likely than average performers and the rest of the population to be actively looking for jobs.

But if you are still worried about the number of high performers you are losing to your competitors, or about the possibility of losing them, review our newest research on Sales Culture.

CEB Sales Members register for an upcoming event on Driving Sales Transformation, to review our newest finding on this topic.

In sum, what our analysis of over 2,000 sales reps from more than 30 CEB Sales member companies showed, is that an organization’s sales climate can have a significant impact on the retention of star performers.  Specifically, we found that:

Challengers are 32% less likely to leave organizations with Judgment-Oriented Climates,
Core reps are 15% less likely to leave organizations with Judgment-Oriented Climates, and
Teams with Judgment-Oriented managers have 15% less turnover.

Not surprisingly managers are one of the biggest levers organizations have at their disposal to increase retention of star performers. The research shows that managers play a vital role in creating a micro climate for their teams within the larger sales organization climate, which greatly impacts both performance and retention.

CEB Sales Members, register to attend one of our upcoming workshops on Driving Manager Effectiveness in the Insight Selling Era, and review our Insight Selling Manager Competency Grid.

Share your thoughts with us, and let us know how you are engaging your top performers and retaining high caliber talent.