PRIME+ Selling System Blog

Sales turnover is a problem. It affects all businesses, including alcohol beverage sales. Some sobering statistics:

• In the past year, 58% of companies experienced higher than average sales turnover.  
• Sales attrition is 13% higher than any other segment at 35%. 
• Replacing salespeople can cost companies between 150%-200% of their annual salary. 
• Filling an open sales position can take over six months on average.

High salesperson turnover is a liability for alcohol beverage sales managers. It can potentially cause damage to your company's reputation when customers ask what has happened to yet another rep. When sales managers are constantly recruiting, interviewing, and training new sales reps, they can't focus on alcohol sales training and coaching for their existing team. Turnover can hurt your brand, as the more frequently applicants see your business recruiting for the same positions, the less likely you'll get qualified, high-performing candidates.  

There is another cost to your sales team in the form of diminished morale. When your reps constantly have to do more with less, they are more likely to look for a better deal, meaning that your sales team attrition will continue to increase. So, how can alcohol beverage sales managers turn the tide? This blog post will outline five sales rep retention strategies that can help reduce turnover among sales teams.   

1. Communicate Early and Often 

Proper communication is one way to improve employee engagement. It starts with onboarding, where you give them critical information about their roles, the company culture, resources within the organization, and expectations. You'll also need to have frequent discussions with your sales reps about their growth and development progress.

Communicating consistently with your team about their progress, the areas that need shoring up, and those in which they are excelling are discussions that should be happening routinely, not only in a periodic review. 

2. Include Your Team in Key Decisions

Closely aligned with communication is collaboration in decision-making. Even though approximately 75% of employers rate teamwork and collaboration highly, 86% of employees say their workplace fails to collaborate and has ineffective communication. As a BevAlc sales manager, you must exhibit the skills you want to see in your team.

If you expect your team to be collaborative, include them in key decisions. Including them in brainstorming and troubleshooting exercises helps them feel more engaged and develop critical thinking and leadership skills.   

3. Be Transparent About Expectations & Letting Direct Reports Know Where They Stand

This could also be called No Surprises About Performance or Getting Let Go. No employee should ever be let go without adequate counseling and feedback. An employee that doesn't meet goals or correct mistakes when they haven't been given sufficient notice or counseling is a failure of the manager to perform adequately and effectively, not the employee. 

Developing sales reps consistently depends on ensuring that you have the right sales coaching and leadership skills.  

4. Conduct Meaningful Reviews 

Performance reviews are a critical part of team management. Meaningful reviews help improve team performance. They give you insight into the salesperson's career goals, so you can work together to manage their career track. It is also the perfect opportunity to discuss the progress made since the last performance review and goals for the upcoming weeks.  

Meaningful reviews help to ensure that your team has the right tools, techniques, and support to succeed. Your reviews should also cover progress in their alcohol sales training. Giving the employee a chance to provide feedback about their experience can give the manager direction on how to improve their management skills and what else they can do to improve employee satisfaction.  

5. Give Appropriate Recognition 

Giving your team members the appropriate recognition is another important factor in employee engagement, satisfaction, and longevity. Some interesting statistics include:

• Businesses that routinely recognize their employees have 31% lower voluntary turnover. 
• Only 29% of US employees feel as if their employer values their contributions.
• Approximately 68% of HR leaders feel that recognition increases retention.  

The vast majority of employees want to do a good job. While earning more money is motivation, it isn't the only factor that promotes high-level achievement. Your sales reps also want to be recognized for a job well done in more personal ways. Understanding what motivates your team and acting upon that will result in a happy, engaged sales team.  

The Right Alcohol Sales Training Can Help Reduce Employee Turnover 

Having an effective, motivated, and engaged sales team says a lot about your company culture. An ongoing learning and development program is critical for improving retention. Investing in high-quality alcohol sales training will ultimately save you time and money in reduced turnover in the future.