Tips for Building an Effectives Sales Organization

SiriusDecisions research indicates that 45% of B2B sales organizations report annual sales rep turnover higher than 30%. This is three times the typical turnover rate of other departments. This resulting gap hurts productivity and effectiveness of the sales team, especially when the company loses its high-performing salespeople, the fuel of any sales organization. The average outside sales rep has nearly 19 years of experience in sales. That’s an incredible amount of experience, institutional knowledge, and relationships with customers.  

Hiring a replacement can take 90 days, with another 90 days required to get the person onboarded and comfortable with the products and sales processes. Even then, it will take the newbie salesperson time to reach full potential. According to the Bridge Group, it takes sales reps 5.3 months to ramp to up productivity. 

This high impact translates to high costs from: 

- weaker sales 
- delays in launching products 
- investment in training materials  
- interruption to customer service  

A recent Forbes study explained that losing 25% or more of a sales force every quarter is common and just a 5% increase in sales rep attrition across the sales team can increase selling costs 4-6%. Sales revenues can drop by as much as 20%.  

To grasp the true cost of attrition, also consider the time impact on leadership. Finding talent is one of the most challenging parts of a sales leader’s job. It can take months to fill a sales position, and the task pulls managers away from more strategic, revenue-generating activities. 

It’s no wonder most organizations consider salesforce retention to be a high priority.  

Influencing factors

Understanding why salespeople jump ship is an important step in avoiding salesforce churn.  

Benchmark data by SiriusDecisions denotes that the top reasons high performing salespeople leave sales organizations is because: 

- 89% leave due to deficient compensation. Dooly’s Sales Happiness Index found that 51% of salespeople leave their position for higher pay. 

- 60%-80% leave due to lack of connection with leadership or incompetence of leadership. 

- 75% leave because of concerns about the company’s ability to meet market needs. 

- Unpredictable compensation or commission changes also cause frustration

Ten Tips for Building a Stable Sales Organization

Building a stable sales organization requires more than hiring talented reps. It takes consistent leadership, transparent incentives, and ongoing support that keeps salespeople motivated and aligned with company goals. The following ten tips can help reduce turnover, improve performance, and create long-term sales stability.

1. Provide Competitive Compensation And Incentives: Salespeople expect a robust incentive program and one they can trust for accuracy and full visibility.
2. Ensure Accurate Commission: Sales people often report lack of confidence in how commissions are calculated, and frustration over confusing algorithms for tiered incentive structures. Provide complete visibility with dashboards for tracking progress.    
3. Provide Product Onboarding:  When a salesperson knows the product well, they’re more comfortable talking to customers and explaining the features, benefits, and competitive advantages.
4. Encourage Relationship Building: Sales reps who build deep relationships with their customers tend to sell more. They are trusted and seen as an ally by the customer.  
5. Allow Flexibility:  Sales reps like autonomy. In general, it’s a career made for people who prefer to be on the move, meeting new people, and not chained to a desk.  
6. Provide Sales Support: Provide training and tools to help overcome common objections, answer competitive questions, and demonstrate value. 
7. Set Realistic Goals: Set fair, achievable but challenging goals for your team. If reps feel the company has set impossible quotas, they quickly become discouraged.
8. Provide Opportunities: Whether it’s more responsibility, more money, or new challenges, find out what motivates your top sales reps and give them room to grow.
9. Support Work-Life Balance: Research shows that 20% of employees who changed jobs over the past two years did so for better work-life balance.
10. Reward High Achievers: Recognize and award those team members who go above and beyond expectations. Bonuses and incentive programs will go a long way in building a positive sales organization, immune to employee churn.  

The Right Incentive Tracking Solution

Companies today are learning the value of turning to a software point solution to help them calculate commissions. Without technology, the process can be tedious, time-consuming, and prone to human error. The monthly task of closing out the books can take days, as the accounting team collects sources, determines eligible sales, and calculates commissions due. Answering questions and trying to resolve disparities can add more time.  

A robust incentive tracking solution changes that, calculating for you the commissions due for every salesperson, based on real-time data from the sales.  

IncentViz from Single Source is a highly reliable solution, built especially to integrate with Infor CloudSuite Industrial (SyteLine), Infor CloudSuite Distribution, Infor VISUAL, and Infor CloudSuite Service Management.  

• Managers appreciate the ability to focus on specific products and create multi-tier programs.
•  Accounting values the time savings and ease of use.  
• Salespeople welcome dashboards so they can stay informed of their progress and trust the real-time reporting.  

Learn more about IncentViz at incentviz.singlesrc.com