6 Sure Fire Ways to Chase Off a New Sales Hire (or any new employee)
“You can’t lose what you ain’t never had” – Muddy Waters
We hear it all the time, “The guy we hired never showed up for the first day of work!”, or, “She only lasted a few weeks, then turned in her resignation”. Even worse, “Our last hire quit to take another job after four months!”.
So, what happened – bad hire? You got played? Bad candidate? Bad luck? Maybe…
But hiring managers are often quick to point the finger of blame at everyone but themselves when a new hire doesn’t work out.
Comments like these are common:
“I’m glad she quit now rather than a year from now, better to find out early that she couldn’t hack it.”
“The recruiter sent us mediocre candidates, he was the best of the bunch and we had to hire someone.”
“The guy was lazy, he wanted us to spoon-feed opportunities to him. I could tell he wasn’t going to make it.”
Sometimes, even when you do your best hiring job, things still don’t work out. But many times, our hiring and on-boarding process is at the root of the retention problem. To borrow a line from an old Muddy Waters song, “You can’t lose what you ain’t never had”. In other words, we never really cemented the relationship with the employee. In our conversations with candidates and employees who either don’t show up for work or leave after a short tenure, we hear a number of things that support the theory that the employer “ain’t never had” the employee in the first place. In the past six months alone here is some of the feedback we received from lost employees.
• “It was going to take too long to get up to my required income level.”
• “They were really nice people, but I received no structured training.”
• “They weren’t prepared for me, they had no equipment prepared, no computer or access to company files, nothing.”
• “I sat around a lot the first few weeks waiting for some direction. I didn’t feel like I was earning my paycheck and I wanted to get moving – I need commission checks to survive.”
So, considering the feedback we receive and with the Muddy Waters song in mind, I offer this list of 6 Sure Fire Ways to Chase Off a New Sales Hire.
#1. Under pay on base salary and over commit on top end earnings capability and the time it will take to earn commissions.
Candidates and new employees love it when they come in thinking they are going to start cashing commission checks within 30-60 days of hire then find out that the existing Reps have all the high potential accounts. They are expected to start from scratch and create brand new opportunities that will take months (after they are trained) to develop and yield dividends. In the meantime, they are expected to feed their families and pay their bills on a meager base – all in the name of “keeping them hungry” so they’ll hustle harder. Yeah, that should keep them motivated.
#2. Wait until the new employee’s first day to begin preparing for them.
Don’t use a check list of important things to do and have ready prior to the employee start date. Don’t have a training schedule lined up, don’t have business cards ready, don’t have a computer or cellphone available – you don’t want them to get too comfortable on their first day, right?
#3. Make sure to take plenty of phone calls and allow a lot of interruptions when you are working with the new hire.
You’re busy, you’re important. Dedicating time to train a new employee isn’t as critical as the business of the day. That will send a clear message as to where they stand on your list of priorities.
#4. Don’t have a clear job description and well-defined performance standards for the role the new employee is filling.
Keep ‘em guessing, they’ll figure out what they should be doing and at what level soon enough.
#5. Give them the toughest assignment you have – you know, the things no one else in the company is doing (because they are so tough).
Expect them to start with zero existing customers and develop all new opportunities. Give them the most challenging vertical markets to penetrate or the toughest products to sell. After all, you don’t want to spoil them with easy business – they need to earn their stripes.
#6. And by all means, disappear. Don’t offer feedback, encouragement or support.
You’re not a babysitter, right? You hired an adult, a professional – they should know what to do and go do it. If they need help, they can come to you (or someone) otherwise leave them alone.
Obviously, I’m being very sarcastic here, but I do so to make a point. While there certainly are times when we lose a candidate or new employee through no fault of our own, too often we lose them due to a lack of our own hiring and on-boarding “due diligence”. Take a close look at your current practices, be honest with yourself and make sure you are doing all you can to increase “ease of entry” into your company and the role the new employee will be taking on. Don’t find yourself in the situation where you didn’t really lose an employee, because you never really had them in the first place.