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Cultivate, Motivate and Retain
By Michael S. Finn, RRP
Do you want to increase your production and profits while saving money? Check the numbers,
employee retention is a huge point of contention in most every industry. Strengthen your team by keeping your team.
If you want to strengthen your company or team, step up to the plate and cultivate, motivate and retain. The money
will not only roll in it will stay in. Companies are always saying they need quality people, step one is to look
within your own ranks. I have had more success with growing talent than hiring it. In this world of free agency
where the average career stint is two years, it may not seem feasible, but it is.
Many companies want to grow their business and often do not know where to start. It starts where it should start;
with people. If it starts with people you should grow your people. Easier said than done? Not really. It just takes
time, patience and effort. Individual results are very important, but they are not the end-all. As managers we
not only look for, but expect, loyalty. This is fine but the best way I have found to gain loyalty is offer loyalty.
As managers we tend to pull the trigger rather quickly. I understand we now live in a world of budgets and they
must be met. Yet how many times have we seen a manager or a company as a whole cut off their nose to spite their
face? Maybe we arbitrarily fire the bottom five sales execs. Seemed like a good decision at the time, but your
efficiencies drop the next month anyway. Many factors could come into play. You may have scared your line, who
are waiting for who is next to be fired. You may have taken out a great team player that adds to the mix and promotes
sales in other ways. Or maybe this exec was just in a slump from which they would have rebounded with training,
nurturing and patience.
There are many risks regarding pulling a quick trigger. My favorite is a theory that a philosophy professor once
regaled upon me. He called it the "Choo-Choo" theory. It's quite simple. If the last car on a train is
the caboose and you cut the caboose off, then the next car becomes the caboose. How this works is that if you keep
cutting, you are left shaving off your top writers. Before you know it you are down to the engine. Now if you decide
to replace them, what is to say that you will not hire new people and go through the same exercise again?
If this is the cycle that your company is going through, it is a very expensive proposition. Many companies have
put a number of normally $10- $35,000 to cultivate a new sales executive. These are hard costs and would be tough
to hide in a marketing program. Add up the cost of re-training a 25 person sales line that turns over twice a year.
Now take a 25-person line with a core of 15-20 people that are loyal to you for five (5) years. Now subtract the
stress on management who are not always running an ad, training and worried about having good sale execs to reach
budget this month.
These are the benefits that a loyal team brings to work each day and we have not even begun to talk about synergy.
The best definition of synergy I have is when 2+2=5. In other words the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
When you have 25 solid 10% closers who work well together as a team and average a 12% closing percentage as a team.
That is how synergy makes you better as a sales team.
I am not saying that changes are inevitable and even necessary. At times they are. I just hope people take a look
at how arbitrary decisions can effect a company, a team, an individual and everyone's bottom line.
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Michael S. Finn, RRP,
writes an insightful bi-weekly column regarding issues of ethical and profitable sales & marketing. Read his bio here
Email: Michaelsfinn@aol.com Published
on Mondays.
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