Right Road to a High-Performing Sales Team

"The average cost of losing a sales rep at Gannett is $285,000," says Jeff Bergin, director of advertising at Gannett. From the time that an employee decides to look for a job to the time that his replacement is up to speed is roughly 33 weeks, says Bergin. At the American Press Institute seminar Advertising Leadership for Community Markets, Bergin shared methods for retaining employees, including hiring the right people and giving them the right compensation.

Right Hiring

When hiring, look for behaviors in interviewees. Make a potential employee prove that he is "determined" by delaying phoning him back and see if he takes the initiative to call you back.

A rigorous interview process can also create a "club." At Gannett, all new employees, from sales reps to advertising managers, must go through the same intensive interview process. Old staff treat new staff with respect because everyone had to overcome the same obstacles.

Team interviews can test for behavior within a group. The manager isn't the only person working with the new employee, so he shouldn't be the only interviewer.

Right Tools

Supply your staff with cell phones, Blackberries, and/or broadband Internet access to let them do their job. Bergin has seen sales reps postpone cell phone calls to save minutes because their employers didn't reimburse their cell phone bills. In addition, if the new technology becomes a perk of a job, your sales reps will be less likely to leave.

Basic supplies must be taken care of as well. Bergin once visited an ad department where stacks of proofs were piled for no apparent reason. It turned out that the office had run out of plastic bags for the proofs because there was outdated instruction to stop ordering the bags. Even though the rule was not permanent, no one in the department had purchased bags for a while. As soon as the bags were re-ordered, the piles disappeared.

Right Goals

Bergin's key to setting proper goals is keep them stable. A goal is not a goal if it keeps changing. With that said, your goals still need to be realistic. Bergin recommends avoiding setting goals based on numbers. For example, one advertising department he visited required that each sales rep needed to make 10 new business calls a week. Rules like this only inhibit a rep's time working on more effective sales and also feels like an upper limit. Instead, Bergin recommends setting behavior related goals. For example, ask salespeople to improve sales technique instead of setting a target number of sales calls.

Right Instruction

Coaching for behaviors instead of results yields even better results. A consistent Process can act as a control in determining why a rep did or didn't made a sale. Bergin suggests treating methodologies like an NFL coach treats football plays: train to the method and if the method doesn't yield the result, change the method. Avoid the knee-jerk reaction that sales reps are not working hard enough.

When training, make sure to have a "Why am I here?" conversation, letting your employee know what your purpose as a manager during the training process is.

But don't expect results right away. By mystery shopping a Gannett telephone ad sales office, Bergin discovered that different salespeople pitched sales in different ways. Bergin introduced a new method in which a salesperson opens with a values anecdote. However, he expects that it will still take three to four years for 50% of all sales reps to use the method.

Right Rewards

Too many newspapers are inadequately compensating some staff while over-compensating others, says Bergin. Strike the right balance by shaping compensation around how much control the sales rep has over the advertiser. Bergin believes that large account managers should have a larger base salary than territory salespeople. Territory salespeople should have the highest commission percentage, Bergin says, to motivate them to sell more.