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.
In a study of 20,000 new hires, researchers with Leadership IQ found out something you likely already know – 46% of newly hired employees fail within 18 months and only 19% achieve unequivocal success. So, what are the reasons they fail, and what can we do to prevent this from happening?
1. Poor Hiring
The obvious reason why new hires fail is that we hire the wrong people. Make sure to not only screen for skills and experience, but also for behaviors, attitudes and habits. Use a Success Profile to define your perfect seller’s DNA and then to match the right candidate for the job. 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
2. Ineffective On-Boarding
We are often so eager to get new hires up to speed that we tend to overload them with information during their first couple of weeks. Think of on-boarding as an on-going process over 6-12 months. Work with new hires to create their own action plans and reassess them often. Give feedback and help new employees strategize. For their first 12 months (yes, that long), build role plays of selling situations and post-mortems into your coaching.
3. Being Fooled by the New Hire Facade
New hires want to look competent and make a good impression. Sometimes this means they avoid asking the “stupid” questions, or making requests for additional on-boarding support. They put up a cheery facade while desperately trying to figure things out on their own. Here’s how you break through to find out how they’re really doing:
- Set the expectation that they own their own on-boarding, providing weekly status updates on progress and that you expect they will ask for what they need.
- Keep probing for concerns, suggestions, perceptions, and what else they need.
- Make continual improvement part of the norm.
4. Lack of Feedback & Coaching
There are many ways to be a mediocre performance coach: avoiding, assuming, hinting, sugarcoating, crushing, etc... You have to adjust your style and approach to each person and situation. Sometimes you match up well with your new hires and sometimes you don’t. You are more likely to be successful in coaching sales talent to be top performers with these 5 basic techniques:
1. Set clear expectations
2. Help them strategize
3. Help them learn from their experiences
4. Use a coaching model of Tell – Show – Observe – Provide Feedback
5. Make sure your feedback is timely and actionable, so they can make an immediate change.
5. Delegated On-Boarding
Remember half of your new hires are likely to fail within 18 months. Replacing them can cost as much as 4 times their annual salary; not to mention the territory momentum lost. Effective recruiting and on-boarding will make or break your sales team. It’s great to set up learning opportunities with other people, but as a sales leader you’ve got to own the on-boarding plan, while assuring that your new hire takes ownership for successful progress. You drive the process. You identify how to get your new hire ramped faster. You make it happen.
