Categories: Sales Coaching Tools | Talent Management
Sales talent is a cornerstone to a best-in-class sales organization. As a sales leader you need the right people on board if you want to hit your revenue goals every quarter. Without a process to attract, hire and retain top sales talent you will waste money on mis-hires, lose talent to the competition and have no way to build a bench strength for growth.
A recent survey of business leaders showed that employee turnover cost organizations an average of $36,295 in rehiring and lost productivity costs annually, with that number climbing higher than $100,000 for 20% of respondents.
Let's explore three common reasons why new hires fail to meet expectations and how you can improve new sales hire management.
1. Poor Hiring
The obvious reason why new hires fail is that we hire the wrong people. Avoid costly hiring mistakes by establishing a Success Profile unique to the behaviors, attitudes and values that make someone successful in your organization. A Success Profile is not a job description; Rather, it’s a combination of success competencies – knowledge required to effectively perform the job and the success behaviors – what competencies look like when the job is being performed effectively.
The best way to start building your Success Profile is to dig deep to understand what has made your top performers successful in the past. Not every candidate that can be successful in your organization will start out with every one of these target competencies; you should also consider the underlying qualities that you have the ability to shape into success with strong onboarding, training and coaching programs.
Once you establish your Success Profile, it's important that it's applied consistently. Make sure everyone involved in hiring and onboarding is aligned on the qualities of success for your organization and how to uncover them. Don't be tempted by "all-stars" who don't fit your profile - just because someone has been successful elsewhere doesn't necessarily mean they'll be a fit for your organization.
2. Ineffective On-Boarding
Many organizations are so eager to get new hires up to speed that they dump an overwhelm of information on them in a short time. This type of onboarding increases the likelihood that sellers will focus on features and functions in their sales conversations, regurgitating information from their product fluency packets rather than truly understanding the value their solution provides.
In a conversation on the Revenue Builders Podcast, JP Bolen, VP of Global Sales Productivity at Rubrik, describes how his organization significantly reduced seller ramp-up time by creating a nine-week interactive training program. He shares how creating opportunities for new hires to apply what they were learning in conversations while going through onboarding generated deeper questions and conversations that broadened their understanding.
With this in mind, it's important to view onboarding as an ongoing process. Set clear benchmarks of success for three, six and twelve months and ensure managers have the tools to coach to desired behaviors, as well as identify and address challenges where they arise. Having a consistent message, methodology and framework for seller success will help you to identify why and where problems occur.
3. Lack of Feedback & Coaching
Front-line managers are integral to the success of your sales force and new hires. Sales managers will be the ones to assess and develop new hires' success as they move through your onboarding program and into the field, so it's critical that they are supported with the tools and skills needed to be great coaches. Here are three skills to equip your managers with to successfully develop new hires:
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- Roleplays That Provide Value: Roleplays can sometimes feel like a chore, but when executed well they can be a powerful tool for improving sales outcomes. To make sales roleplays more valuable for their team, managers should make the scenario realistic, set clear objectives, reinforce wins and give actionable feedback.
- Positive Opportunity Coaching: Opportunity reviews shouldn't be dreaded by reps as arbitrary checklist run-throughs or punitive inspections. They should be a chance for reps to grow and work collaboratively within their team to maximize each potential deal. That means including not just the "what," but the "how" and helping reps create an action plan. Check out our tips for managers to make a greater impact with opportunity coaching.
- Driving Accountability: Accountability starts with consistency. Give your managers a consistent cadence for coaching and forecasting by establishing a Management Operating Rhythm, and clearly communicate to new hires what is expected of them in this cadence. Ensuring consistency in how coaching is executed can help guarantee that every new hire gets the same opportunity for success and limit your chances of costly churn.
Enabling managers to be great coaches requires that they have something to coach to. Make sure your organization has a clearly aligned sales message and process, and that everyone understands what success looks like. Share our top resources for improving front-line sales manager skills to get your team up to speed.
Get New Hires to Productivity Faster
If you're seeking predictable revenue and growth for your sales organization, you need new team members to become profitable quickly. Force Management Co-Founder John Kaplan will be joined by Shift Group Founder and CEO JR Butler in an upcoming webinar conversation, sharing strategies to reduce ramp time through proven talent management tactics. Sign up join us.
