Can You Hold Onto Your Salespeople

By Rebecca Aronauer

Salespeople are special. Anyone who has spent time in the profession can see how a commission-based salary, the responsibility of being a brand ambassador, and the demands on time make salespeople different from their peers.

Perhaps out of necessity, salespeople also are more engaged than workers in other professions. A new study from Sibson Consulting found that 57 percent of salespeople are engaged employees, compared with 51 percent of non-salespeople.

The study's measure of engagement was based on two factors: wanting to do the work and knowing what work to do. According to Aaron Sorensen, a human capital consultant based in Chicago who worked on the study, engagement is a predictor of turnover.

"As the economy continues to improve and the mobility of the work force becomes greater, we're seeing that low levels of engagement are driving turnover," he says. But while salespeople are more engaged than their peers, their turnover intention rate of 17 percent is two points higher than that of less-engaged employees. The explanation for the disparity is the nature of the sales profession: As Sorensen says, "Sales is a more mobile industry."

While employees everywhere have benefited from the strong economy and subsequent hiring in the past 18 months, the sales profession in particular has grown to make up for cuts following the post-9/11 downturn. That growth, combined with the fluid nature of sales talent—a good rep will succeed almost anywhere—makes maintaining low turnover a difficult endeavor. If salespeople aren't happy, they can and will leave, according to Joseph DiMisa, the sales and marketing practice leader for Sibson, who is based in Atlanta. "All things being equal, sales reps would be more committed to your organization, but they also have a shorter fuse. If these things are not equal, they will leave due to the fact they have more opportunity," he says.

And in this industry, money counts. In the same study, 83 percent of salespeople rated pay as very to extremely important to job satisfaction, but 28 percent gave a low satisfaction rating to their compensation. Managers looking to retain their reps must pay them well, or someone else will.