Whose job is it to prevent sales turnover or is sales turnover a good thing?
Are you
- the rep that's going to turn over?
- the sales manager that the rep will work under?
- the recruiter who has to present candidates?
- the executive who is relying on the others to figure it out?
Why am I asking? Because 9 jobs in 18 years is a pattern. Who should care and maybe more importantly, what should they do about it?
If you're contemplating hiring this rep,
- Are you just looking for a body? Do your customers know?
- Do you really believe the reasons that the rep left his last 9 employers are valid? Seriously?
- Is he really smarter than all nine of his managers, their VPs and their CEOs?
- Did his employers really misrepresent and change his comp program as soon as he was about to make serious money?
- Do they really not have enough of the right kind of support that he needs?
- Does every employer limit his ability to sell by making it necessary to get so many people to sign off on the deal?
- Do you really believe that you're "Mr. Right" and that you're gonna live happily ever after?
- Has the rep answered these 8 questions?
- Have you tested them?
- Are any of the huge number of customers that he has sold loyal to him?
- Can they explain the science behind anything that they do?
- What is their salary/commission mindset?
- Why do they want to work for you? Do you believe them? Are you sure?
Question:
If you're really convinced that you're "Mr. Right" and the candidate is really convinced that you're gonna live happily ever after, start them at a lower salary, send the money to Carole and tell the rep, "I want to hire you. You want to work here. I've hired Carole and Rick to help with the onboarding process. At the end of three months, you'll get a raise or be terminated, based on how well you do with them."
Would you rather waste three month or two years trying to change them?