Are those new hires you just fired actually revenue gold?

I’ve long had a hunch that sales departments were throwing away perfectly good salespeople on a regular basis, but until recently I didn’t have the data to support my belief or to quantify how much it was costing organizations to operate that way.

Christopher Patton, the founder of Lionboard Analytics, had the same hunch, and he set out to collect and organize the data to support it. His work lays the groundwork for organizations to understand and quantify the cost of their unnecessary employee turnover and slow ramp-up times. This has allowed him to begin collecting aggregate data that is relevant to the entire industry.

Based on that data, it has become clear that many organizations are sitting on piles of gold in the form of potentially productive salespeople, but that they’re throwing that gold away in an unproductive hiring, firing, and employee attrition cycle.

We spoke with Patton for this article. Below, we’ve identified three key mistakes that almost all organizations make that cause the unproductive cycle, along with data and insights from Patton that support our findings.

Mistake #1: Expecting too much from junior salespeople

It sounds counter-intuitive. Aren’t we supposed to set high expectations? Isn’t that what separates the gold from the dross? Not so fast. While we may think we’re “encouraging” junior salespeople by setting high expectations, the opposite can be true. When goals are unattainable, they lead to discouragement. A discouraged salesperson is a less productive salesperson, and an unproductive salesperson is at risk of leaving or being fired.

Many organizations expect junior salespeople to be up to speed by 90 days. Patton, based on his initial research, thinks that in most cases that is unreasonable. Depending on the complexity of the sales environment, months or years may be more reasonable.

World-class organizations set reasonable goals based on their team’s real world performance, taking into account the maturity, in terms of longevity with the company and background, of each individual salesperson. Setting reasonable goals allows each salesperson to grow into full productivity.

However, that doesn’t mean we should just stand around and wait for them to get there. Which leads to mistake #2.

Mistake #2: Not providing enough support after initial training

It’s a common desire to hire salespeople who can “hit the ground running.” While there’s nothing wrong with looking for salespeople who learn quickly and have a drive to succeed, it’s unrealistic to expect them to be up to speed after initial onboarding, with no further support.

Unfortunately, many companies offer initial product training, and then expect salespeople to take it from there. Others may offer some methodology and process training along with coaching, but it’s a rare company that makes salesperson training and coaching a central and pervasive part of their culture and environment.

This problem isn’t limited to a salesperson’s first year. In fact, according to Patton, some of the worst mistakes are made by companies in a salesperson’s second year:

“The most important development time for a new salesperson is clearly their first full year, but my research shows that their second full year is just as important. Unfortunately, while mentoring and coaching in the first year is often spotty at best, managers expect sellers in their second year to either make it or fail. But this second year may actually be the most critical development opportunity. Sellers at this stage have now been through a handful of opportunities; they can start to see patterns in the sales process, how competitors influence deals, the strengths and weaknesses of their support team; and they’ve seen what success looks like. This is the point at which they are ready to emerge as consistent performers, yet it’s also the point at which many organizations stop coaching and supporting them.”

His research shows that companies do better when they provide second-year sellers with positive coaching, and clear and reasonable expectations based on activities and tasks (not just quotas).

“Losing reps at this point,” says Patton, “where they’re ‘crossing their personal performance chasm,’ means backtracking two to three more years of lost revenue versus what these emerging veterans can achieve under the right conditions.”

Mistake 3: Mistaking emerging veterans for established veterans

Many organizations implement automated content delivery systems and call them “sales enablement.” True sales enablement, on the contrary, focuses on helping sellers become more effective. Unfortunately, according to Patton, many sales enablement programs make the mistake of not delineating between “emerging veterans” and “established veterans.”

“Established veterans are salespeople who have already proven they have the competency and behavioral capabilities to achieve an expected level of revenue performance,” explains Patton. “Emerging veterans are salespeople who have passed beyond their ‘rookie’ year, but have not yet proven themselves as consistent performers.”

The two groups of veterans require different types of enablement. Established veterans benefit from programs that improve their efficiency, which is true of many enablement programs. Emerging veterans, however, require more nurturing, including systematic coaching and mentoring.

The ability to get emerging veterans ramped up to full productivity is not just an academic exercise. It has significant ramifications for long-term revenue growth.

Patton cites the story of a $500 million Building Technology Company that was lagging in development of its Emerging Veterans. “We determined that if they could improve the emerging reps’ development time of just 1 business unit,” he says, “they could improve that unit’s revenue by $34.5 million. In fact, if they had achieved that level of performance the previous year, it would have added 7% of additional profit to the overall business.”

Supporting emerging veterans requires commitment at the highest levels, as well as training, support, and capabilities at the management level, and the technology and tools to support the system. We believe Membrain is the best software platform for building a supportive system that uncovers and polishes the gold among your new hires and emerging veterans. And we believe that such a system is one of the most important investments your organization can make.

About Christopher & Lionboard Analytics

With an impressive career in sales enablement companies, Christopher Patton created Lionboard Analytics to help sales enablement leaders elevate their conversation with their executive team, to help them transition from a tactical pursuer of “random acts of enablement” to become an influential voice in the formulation and execution of their company’s Go-To-Sale Strategy. For more information about Christopher's work with Lionboard, please visit: https://www.lionboard.com