Every year, U.S. businesses lose over $1 trillion to employee turnover. The main cause? Easily preventable mistakes from managers that lead to low job satisfaction. To replace these employees, companies must pay anywhere from one half to two times the lost employee’s annual salary.
But the cost of a crumbling sales team is more than just monetary. As you lose sales reps, you lose institutional knowledge, invested resources, and client relationships. To avoid this common issue, you need to take the proper steps when hiring your team.
Through the right strategic approach, you can create a powerhouse sales team that’s both effective in the field and satisfied with their daily work. Consider the following steps to attract, train, and retain team members who will help you achieve your sales goals and stay long enough to drive real results.
SaaS Sales Recruitment Strategies
Building any successful SaaS sales team starts with finding the right people. Being deliberate and strategic in your hiring process will help you hire the best candidates possible.
1. Prioritize Skills
While a candidate’s resume could be impressive, experience doesn’t always translate to ability. That’s why 56% of employers use skill-assessment tests during their hiring process, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
Using these tests, along with checking soft skills during the interview process, provides a clearer picture of an applicant’s actual abilities.
2. Streamline Hiring
Don’t let quality candidates get lost in a drawn-out hiring process. Streamline your methods by tracking metrics such as time to hire, cost per hire, attrition rate, and more to identify any inefficiencies in the way you’re currently hiring.
3. Leverage Social Media For Recruitment
Social media is central to modern sales recruitment. CareerArc research shows 86% of job seekers use social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook to search for positions. Leveraging social media for recruitment allows your team to reach a wider audience and recruit at-scale without investing heavily in resources.
4. Consider Outside Help
If your team is struggling to hone in on SaaS-specific candidates, consider using an industry-specific recruitment agency. These agencies may cost more to use than social media or job sites, but they may also produce higher-quality results.
SaaS Sales Team Training Strategies
Once you’ve assembled your dream team, you need to arm them with the tools they need to succeed. Your training process is the first impression new recruits have of your company and will set your employees up for their future within the organization.
1. Identify Knowledge Gaps
Building an effective SaaS sales training program begins with pinpointing what your team does and does not know. Using employee surveys, you can discover where your team has the least amount of knowledge and prioritize training to fill those gaps.
2. Utilize Interdepartmental Knowledge
The expertise your organization’s other departments hold is invaluable to creating a well-rounded and effective training program.
For example, bringing in experts from your product department during onboarding ensures your sales team has a deep understanding of your solutions. Working with departments like marketing and salesops can also boost your team’s overall mission and strategic alignment.
3. Provide Continuous Training and Mentorship
Training is not a one-stop shop. To extract the most value from your sales team, offer continuous training opportunities. Whether this be seminars on new feature updates, resources on modern sales techniques, one-on-one coaching sessions, or a mentorship program, staying engaged with your team will keep them sharp.
Pro Tip: Consider using outside resources to boost your training’s effectiveness, such as free online educational platforms like Consensus Academy.
SaaS Sales Employee Retention Strategies
In 2024, a SHRM survey found that 44% of U.S employees feel burnt out at work. This same survey showed that burnt out employees are nearly three times as likely to actively search for another job. To avoid burnout and maximize your team’s value, you need to motivate them to stay long-term.
1. Reduce Misallocated Time
According to our 2024 Sales Engineering Compensation & Workload Report, sales leaders and individual contributors both believe removing repetition would most improve their work life.
One of the key drivers of this misallocated time is unqualified demos. By using tools like demo automation, you can reduce this burden on your team and potentially improve long-term retention.
2. Offer the Right Compensation Plan
Fairly compensating your employees for their performance goes a long way toward retaining top talent. For individual contributors, benefits are often a top priority. In fact, in our 2024 SE Report, non-managerial respondents ranked perks and incentives as the top way to improve their work life.
When building your team’s compensation strategy, your plan needs to align with both your organizational goals and employee needs. Consider how much your team’s pay mix will rely on commission, the bar for sales quotas and on-target earnings, and how to incorporate accelerators into your plan to motivate employees to go above and beyond in exchange for financial rewards.
3. Provide Encouragement
Another top response from SE Report respondents on ways to combat burnout was receiving recognition for their work. Offering your team encouragement and recognition when they achieve sales goals, or support when they’re struggling, may be all it takes to reduce churn among talented sales team members.
Empower Your SaaS Sales Team
From reducing repetition to creating effective workflows, Consensus has the tools you need to empower your team. Discover how Consensus demo automation can take your team to the next level by scheduling a demo with one of our experts, learn more valuable insights about sales team management at our blog, or educate your team using free online training through Consensus Academy.
