Employee turnover is rampant in certain forms of selling.
Specifically, telephone salespeople come and go at an astonishing rate. Helping my consulting clients, I’ve tried to staunch turnover that has ranged from 300% to 1200% per year.
I even offered a class across the country aimed at eliminating telephone turnover. It wasn’t successful for a host of reasons, none of which pertained to the quality of information or my techniques for keeping hires aboard.
Telephone sales managers simply couldn’t believe the turnover beast could be tamed. Some trainers also lamented that if I had a serious impact on reducing the number of new trainees required, their careers might be in jeopardy.
In this article I’m going to focus on one variable that is correlated with keeping the people you hire on the job, and not losing them in short order. It is the speed-to-sale, which is a statistic dealing with how quickly new sales reps close their first deal.
Here is the pivotal correlation: The longer it takes to earn the first order, the faster you’ll lose your people. The quicker they close a deal, the more likely it is that they’ll stay on the job, after that glorious milestone has been reached.
In an ideal world, you’d hire someone and on day one he’d close a deal.
We did this at Time-Life Books, more often than not. Our shifts were four hours in length, and our super-streamlined sales training took an hour and a half. This left two and a half hours for our reps to earn their first stripe.
Challenging, yes, but it certainly was attainable. And as a manger I’d do everything in my power to facilitate getting the first customer. Like a helicopter parent, I’d hover after the first few presentations were made, to answer questions and to offer tips. I’d promise they were getting closer and closer with every call.
And then, they were to ring a bell to be shown how to document their first deal.
By the end of that first shift, we knew who had the stuff of survival. We also recognized those that had the stuff of greatness. And those that had neither, typically, were the first to volunteer that perception, if they had no deal to write up on day one.
Sometimes, non-closers were invited to try again the next day. But only one in three would show-up, partly because they had internalized our high performance expectations.
The key is to show reps they have a future with you, and this cannot happen too quickly. Otherwise, they’ll infer if it doesn’t click quickly, it won’t click for them at all.
Make sure your training program is lean. Cut out any frills, just as we, at Time-Life didn’t teach how to document a sale until AFTER they had earned one. Why get into clerical issues if there is no demonstrable production to “write up?”
In one mutual fund situation, I audited part of a six-week training program. We cut it back to a single week, and even at that, it was filled with fluff.
Sales training suffers a lot from Parkinson’s Law. It requires about as much time as you’re willing to allow for it.
Be stingy and be smart. Include only the information that is essential to earning that first sale.
This means “product knowledge,” a black hole filled with swirling details, is de-emphasized, by design. Hold back most of your advice and war stories until after your new hires have shown the spark resulting in the first deal.
Help them to make a fast, first sale, and you will probably have made a lasting hire!
Dr. Gary S. Goodman is a top speaker, sales, service, and negotiation consultant, attorney, TV and radio commentator and the best-selling author of 12 books. He conducts seminars and speaks at convention programs around the world. His new audio program is Nightingale-Conant’s “Crystal Clear Communication: How to Explain Anything Clearly in Speech & Writing.” He can be contacted at gary@customersatisfaction.com. Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/sales-articles/reducing-sales-rep-turnoverhow-fast-is-the-first-sale-made-1615309.html