Sellers leave all the time. When a bad one leaves, you don’t care. But when a great seller leaves, it’s awful.
The cost of replacing a sales person is often three times their annual salary. It can cost six, seven, or sometimes even eight figures when you account for hiring fees, salary, overhead costs, training costs, lost sales, and management time spent.
Losing a top performer can be even more.
One of the most interesting findings in the RAIN Group Center for Sales Research report, The Value Driving Sales Organization, is that value-focused companies have significantly lower undesired turnover.
Sellers that organizations wanted to stay, actually stay.
Why? What else is going on?
Value-Driving Sales Organizations seem to have two key influences at play here.
Sales Motivation
For starters, sales motivation at Value-Driving Organizations is much higher. Sellers at Value-Driving Organizations are 1.7x more likely to actively pursue top performance than those at Non-Value-Driving Organizations.
The mantra in many Non-Value-Driving Organizations is “hit quotas” or “maximize sales,” and the sellers don’t necessarily love selling there.
Sellers at Value-Driving Organizations are on a mission to make their market places and customers’ businesses better. They’re always talking about value and it makes them feel good to show up and bring forth what they have to the world. Sellers stay, they like selling, and they pursue top performance.
Sales Management
Value-Driving Organizations are 2.2x more likely to report that their culture drives and supports sellers’ motivation to succeed.
Sales management is much more likely to prioritize helping sellers succeed. They actively work to maximize the time managers spend coaching the team versus other activities, including interviewing, pipeline management, selling themselves, and recruiting.
Sellers have support from direct managers to make the biggest difference and they appreciate this.
If you want to retain your top performers, make sure you have a culture with value at the core. Sellers love this, they win more, they’re more motivated, and top performers stay at your organization longer.