Tag: employee retention

How the Best SaaS Companies Attract and Retain Top Sales Performers

Posted on by Nick Mann

In today’s competitive SaaS ecosystem, it’s not enough to simply have a great product. You need elite salespeople who are capable of managing complex sales cycles, connecting with customers, and staying perpetually motivated. Building a team of superstars starts from the ground up, where you understand what it takes to attract and retain top sales performers.

For this article, we’ll explore both sides of the process — recruiting the best of the best and keeping them around for the long haul. With that said, here’s how the best SaaS companies attract and retain top sales performers.

They Create an Airtight Compensation Package

While there’s more to making a sales position attractive than money, we’d be lying if we said that it wasn’t a deciding factor for most candidates. And you can bet that those who are truly elite know their value. So, no matter how great your brand or culture is, you’re going to need a competitive compensation package to build a winning sales team.

This starts with offering a salary or commission that’s on target with key competitors. But it’s also important to offer enticing benefits, as well as rewards that encourage salespeople to give maximum effort.

Besides that, many of today’s top SaaS companies offer non-financial incentives like equity participation, additional time off, and flexible work schedules.

For info on how much top sales talent gets paid, check out this article.

They Use Objective, Data-Driven SaaS Sales Recruiting Processes

While it’s certainly possible for a “gut feeling” to work out when hiring a sales rep, it’s not recommended. With so many variables impacting a rep’s performance, it’s easy to make a poor hire if you rely primarily on instinct.

In the modern sales recruiting era, the vast majority of top SaaS companies use data-driven strategies to objectively assess what each candidate brings to the table. That way, they can shortlist and eventually hire candidates with the highest possible level of confidence.

For example, when SaaS companies use the Sales Skills Assessment to guide hiring, they find that 72% of recommended candidates are top performers and 0% of non-recommended candidates are top performers.

That’s because this tool focuses on 21 sales-specific competencies that are backed by science to pinpoint ideal candidates based on quantifiable metrics and what’s worked in the past.

So if you’ve been having lackluster results doing SaaS recruiting “the old-fashioned way,” a data-driven tool like this can be well worth the investment.

They Focus on Internal Advancement

Now let’s move to the retention side of things. As you’re probably aware, the longer a salesperson is at your company, the more likely their retention is to decrease. For perspective, “One year after being hired, there’s a 76% chance they’ll still be with your company. By year five, estimated retention is down to 38%.

One of the best ways to significantly reduce turnover is to prioritize internal advancement. According to data, if you promote a salesperson within the first three years of being hired, there’s a 70% chance that they’ll stay with your company. However, if they’re not promoted within that time frame, there’s only a 45% chance of them remaining.

By these numbers, internal promotion should help increase your retention rate by 25%, while also leading to additional benefits like building a stronger culture and a more loyal team. So if up to this point internal promotion has been an afterthought or non-existent, now is the perfect time to switch up your approach.

They Go All in on Onboarding and Continuous Learning

It should come as no surprise that there’s a correlation between strong onboarding and increased salesperson retention. But you may be surprised at just how big an impact it can have.

According to research, “69% of employees who have an exceptional onboarding experience are likely to stick around for at least three years, and businesses with a smooth onboarding process boost their employee retention rates by 52%.

These numbers show that giving onboarding more attention can be a true game-changer and potentially mean the difference between having reps sputtering out after a few months and being key cornerstones for the long run.

To simplify the onboarding process, we created a streamlined checklist that you can use to get new reps onboarded quickly and seamlessly without missing a beat. On it, you’ll find everything you need to know, including creating an orientation resource, training on the software reps will be selling, educating them on buyer personas, and more.

Also, besides doubling down on onboarding, it’s important to work continuous learning into your framework. For instance, offering free ongoing training and matching each new hire with a mentor can go a long way in continually improving their skills. And for many, this can provide the extra touch needed to keep them engaged and wanting to stick with your company.

They Use Data to Fully Optimize Recruiting and Retention

Finally, let’s discuss a strategy that can dramatically improve both recruiting and retention — analytics.

As you gather more data and learn what does and doesn’t work, you should be in a better position to make smarter choices. The key to fully optimizing your recruiting and retention processes is to implement robust analytics that help you sift through the data and generate actionable insights.

Some examples of KPIs you can analyze include application completion rate, time to fill, time to hire, quality of hire, and Net Promoter Score.

From there, it should be relatively easy to figure out what needs improving, so you’ll know where to focus your efforts. And beyond the low-hanging fruit, this data should help you continually iterate on your SaaS sales recruiting so you get better and better.

Attract and Retain Top Sales Performers in Today’s Ultra-Competitive SaaS Landscape

Again, truly thriving as a SaaS company goes beyond just having a great product. You need a team of experts who can sell well and keep them around for the long haul.

There’s a lot that goes into accomplishing that. But when you break it down, some of the most critical elements are offering highly competitive compensation, leveraging data-driven sales recruiting tools, prioritizing internal advancement, and going above and beyond with onboarding and continuous learning. Check those boxes, and you should inevitably have a winning team on your hands.

To see how HireDNA can take your recruiting to the next level, sign up for a demo today.

Here’s Why 79% of Talented Salespeople Quit

Posted on by hiredna

While today’s sales brands face numerous challenges, one of the biggest is salesperson retention — an issue that’s especially pressing for smaller businesses. A recent study even found that 55% of companies cited retention as the number one challenge, officially usurping lack of capital.

I’ll be the first to admit that solving the retention problem isn’t easy. It’s incredibly complex with a long list of ever-changing variables. That said, there is some low-hanging fruit that’s a great starting point. And that’s what I want to tackle in this post.

Here’s why 79% of talented salespeople quit and what you can do about it.

A Lack of Appreciation

Let’s get right down to it. There are countless reasons why salespeople quit. Better pay, a lack of career development opportunities, and a poor work-life balance are just a few that come to mind. But a recent study found that one of the biggest contributors to turnover is simply not being appreciated.

“A whopping 79% of employees will quit their job because of a lack of appreciation from leaders,” explains Georgi Todorov of Thrive My Way. To be fair, this stat doesn’t say that nearly four out of five salespeople have quit because of a lack of appreciation. It just says that they will quit.

But from this data, we can confidently say that a lack of appreciation is one of the biggest reasons companies lose elite talent.

Looking Closer into Why Salespeople Quit

A few years back in 2017, Forbes wrote an interesting article about the correlation between a lack of appreciation and turnover. In it, they mentioned that “66% of employees say they would ‘likely leave their job if they didn’t feel appreciated.’ This is up significantly from 51% of employees who felt this way in 2012. Among millennials, the number of employees who’d leave if unappreciated jumps to 76%. This helps account for the overall increase from the 51% figure in 2012, as millennials are becoming the dominant generation in the workforce, with a unique set of characteristics and needs.”

Now that we’re in 2022 and millennials have saturated the workforce even more and will continue to be the dominant force for years to come (take a look at the graph below), it’s easy to see why the number of salespeople who say they’ll quit because of a lack of appreciation has swelled to 79%.

No, Millennials will NOT be 75% of the Workforce in 2025 (or ever)!

While being appreciated has always been important, it appears to be especially important for younger demographics. A separate article by SHRM corroborates this idea, saying that recognition is huge for millennials, as well as Gen Z, which is starting to enter the workforce in larger numbers.

From a Turnover Risk to a Loyal Employee

Something else I found interesting was that placing a larger focus on employee appreciation can help companies go from battling turnover to having a team of highly engaged, loyal, dedicated salespeople. And this is especially true for younger reps.

“While some employers may see these young workers as disloyal or unmotivated, the truth is that they can be turned into an organization’s most enthusiastic and valuable resource when shown appreciation for their work and rewarded in the right way,” notes Rodney Mason, CRO of payroll technology firm daVinci Payments.

More specifically, 79% of salespeople say increasing recognition rewards would increase their loyalty.

Zooming out, nearly four out of five salespeople will quit because of a lack of appreciation. But conversely, the exact same number say increasing appreciation would boost their loyalty. So you can see firsthand just how big of an impact there can be.

Going After the Low-Hanging Fruit

While knowing that such a large percentage of your salesforce could potentially quit for one single reason is a little frightening, at the same time it’s good news because the solution isn’t rocket science. In fact, it’s incredibly simple. You just need to show appreciation.

There are several ways to go about this. Some brands go all out and create a formal employee recognition program (you can learn how to create one here if you’re interested). Some write blog posts with the sole purpose of spotlighting salesperson achievements. Some show their appreciation on social media, and so on.

But it doesn’t have to be this formal. At the end of the day, it just boils down to baking appreciation into your company culture and your daily interactions. And these five tips are a great starting point.

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This is one of the easiest ways to get your turnover under control, build stronger relationships within your company, and gain a competitive advantage. And it doesn’t require you to shell out huge salaries, offer over-the-top benefits, or implement game-changing career development opportunities. You simply need to appreciate your sales reps.

Understanding Why Salespeople Quit (And Fixing It)

Turnover is complex, with countless hours and big money often being spent trying to reduce it. While there is no magic bullet for curbing turnover, understanding the psychology behind why many salespeople quit is a critical first step. And as we’ve learned in this post, one of the biggest reasons is simply due to a lack of appreciation.

Fortunately, this isn’t something that takes deep pockets or a robust HR department to fix. You just need to adjust your mindset and make employee appreciation a focal point. Do that effectively, and your retention rate can’t help but improve.

Find out how HireDNA can not only help you find better sales talent faster but retain salespeople longer. By using cutting-edge technology like intelligent matching and science-based assessments, HireDNA eliminates 96% of hiring mistakes and reduces turnover by more than 33%.