“IF I KNOW BEFORE THEY HAVE AN OFFER, THAT’S A BIG PLUS”
Jay Mincks is the Executive Vice President of sales at Insperity, a Houston-based HR outsourcing firm with 50 offices and a 600-person sales organisation. He spoke with HBR about predicting and preventing attrition. Edited excerpts follow.
Q: How much turnover do you experience in your sales force?
A: It averages 28 per cent a year, but that number is a little deceptive. We sell a complex, intangible product, so there’s a steep learning curve. It takes 12 to 18 months before someone is really up to speed, and during that time, the turnover rate is unacceptably high. But after that, turnover among our “A” players is just 5 per cent. Our compensation plan ensures that we rarely lose our best salespeople.
Q: If you suspect someone might leave, how effective are you at stopping that?
A: If I know before they have an offer, that’s a big plus. You go in, sit down, and do an intervention. Usually they’ve had their feelings hurt somehow, so you have to fluff them back up, tell them they’re appreciated, and ask: What could we do to make your life better and keep you? If we catch it early, we have almost 100 per cent success.
Q: What about after someone has an offer?
A: If we make a counteroffer, the success rate is about 50 per cent. But of the half who stay, many will still leave soon. Whatever drove them to look for another job is still inherently there. Counteroffers can buy people back for a while, but if they’ve checked out once, it’s easy to check out a second time.
Q: Would you like to rely more on data to predict who might quit?
A: Anything I can do to take intuition out of the equation is helpful. I have to hire 12 new sales managers this year. I’m not sure all of them will have the right intuition. Being able to rely on data would be invaluable – it would take some of the mystery out of it and give us more opportunities to do an intervention before someone walks out the door.
Q: If you could design a dashboard to manage turnover, what would be on it?
A: Actually, I’d be more interested in data predicting which of the salespeople I hire will succeed; that would be the holy grail. We use recruiters, and we conduct interview after interview, but it’s so hard to tell – salespeople can be chameleons. We spend all this time and effort training them, yet too many fail. It’s debilitating to my sales trainers. Our organisation could save millions if we could find a way to use data to drive the number much lower.