The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

According to a DePaul University study, the average turnover cost per Account Executive (AE) is $97,690 when you add up recruiting costs, training costs, and lost sales. So, if you lose five AEs in one year - you’re close to losing nearly a half a million dollars. 

Couple that with the fact that in a Glassdoor survey, only 19% of AE’s have no immediate plans leave their companies, but 68% of AE’s plan to look for a job within the next year.  

Why do sales reps leave? And what can your sales organization do to stop your top sellers from leaving?

At The Center for Sales Strategy (CSS), we’re big proponents of thinking like an owner — in other words, getting into the minds of the decision makers and decision influencers you call on. 

One of the many ways to do that is uncover and understand what financial challenges are top of mind for them, especially as we head into a new year.

Are you one of the 63% of businesses that have problems getting traffic and leads? Or are your salespeople part of the 44% that give up after one rejection?

It happens to everyone in sales. You connect with a prospect, conduct a needs analysis, maybe even give a stellar presentation, but something happens along the way, and the prospect stalls. Do you know it takes six to eight follow-ups for sales leads to convert to paying customers?

Before moving forward after a stalled account, evaluate where you went wrong. How do you re-engage stalled accounts? Well, it all depends on where you’re at in the sales process.

We all have a choice to make. That choice is what we’re going to do for the next 20 weeks of the year. We can continue to worry, fret, blame, and sit on the couch (if you're not doing any of those things - hurrah for you!). But we can also take the opportunity to be the Comeback Kid. 

Twenty weeks is a long time. That's 100 working days, with a few holidays thrown in. We encourage you to continue the activity that got you where you were before this pandemic struck. And, while we always encourage you to visualize the win, it's the plays in between that are really important. How can you win each day? What activities should you do to get you to the finish line? And, are you doing those activities to the best of your ability?

Whether you call it cold calling, prospecting, or new business development, lead generation is critical piece for the sales success formula. In many current sales structures, the salesperson in charge of lead generation also oversees setting appointments, finding needs, selling solutions, and ensuring contracts are fulfilled.

Sales managers are great at tracking pending business and placing accountability on the average number of new accounts. While these are important metrics to track, they’re also narrowly focused on the middle and end of the sales process. What if we placed greater accountability at the beginning of the sales process as well? Imagine placing more focus on lead generation efforts, whether through a specialist role or an inbound marketing agency, where qualified leads are regularly handed off to Account Executives.

“Respect is a two-way street, if you want to get it, you’ve got to give it.” - R.G. Risch

Aside from lowering prices, releasing better products, or providing superior service, there's something else that your salespeople can do to improve sales performance. A sales professionals livelihood depends largely on the levels of trust and credibility they build with prospects and clients.

The more respect you command, the higher close ratio you will have. Additionally, the higher the degree of trust you establish, the less the need to negotiate. Getting that first appointment with a new business prospect is difficult because most sellers don't take the time to establish trust and create value in the mind of the prospect.

If you want to be treated as a professional, someone who is trustworthy, and worth an investment of time, do these four easy things and prove it to your prospects and clients. 

I recently had a coaching assignment with a highly ambitious salesperson. This person wasn’t prospecting for new business as often or as much as her manager would like. I’d had a few calls with her and given her a few assignments to complete between our calls in the prospecting part of the sales process. Her performance for me (and for her manager) continued to be lackluster. I've done a lot of individualized coaching over the years. Because of the talent interviews my company does, I am privy to the innate talents of everyone I coach. Often times my coaching assignments are to get people to do something they are not currently doing. Prospecting is often at the top of the list.