Are your salespeople engaged in their work?

Are your salespeople as efficient as they could be? Are they engaged in their work? Are they looking for another job? What about you? Are you as efficient as you could be? Are you engaged in your work? Are you looking for another job? Before you can get others engaged in their work you need to be engaged in yours.

The best way to generate revenue is to have a sales team that is happy where they are and engaged in their work.

If they love their jobs, they keep their customers happy, and their customers continue to buy and become great referral sources.

Executives agree that people are their most valuable assets yet typically don't know how their employees feel about their jobs.

When the budget gets tight the first things to get cut are training, bonuses and rewards, things that make salespeople more productive.

When the budget needs to be cut it is even more important to be sure your employees are engaged and productive.

Show them how important they are and motivate them to pull together for the company.

It is the job of the sales manager to know how the salespeople feel about their jobs and to make changes based on that knowledge.

It is also the job of the sales manager to be sure the salespeople have on-going development opportunities to learn new ways to approach their jobs and have a means for continuous improvement.

Good salespeople always want to be better.

Without the learning and without a challenge they may get bored quickly and do less than expected.

Why do people leave their jobs? Harvard Business Review states the following as the top 5 reasons.

* Job content

* Level of responsibility

* Company culture

* Caliber of Colleagues

* Salary

Note that salary is not the first reason.

It isn't even the second reason.

It is fifth and it is not the reason most people leave or stay for that matter.

Let's examine these five reasons more closely.

Job content - This is the No.1 reason why people leave.

It covers a wide variety of things.

It could be that the work is not challenging, the job doesn't use their strengths, or the work is not interesting.

These people may be underutilized or undervalued.

If you want to keep people,work with them to make their job more interesting or find other work that is challenging and interesting.

Ask them what would make the job content more appealing.

A sales manager's job is to figure how to get the most out of each salesperson.

Learning what they enjoy doing and how to best utilize their strengths will go a long way.

Level of responsibility - People like having some responsibility.

There are many ways to let salespeople take on additional responsibility in areas of interest.

Their first responsibility is their customers.

Make sure there is a process in place to allow them the autonomy they need keep their customers happy.

This does not mean rampant disregard for the rules.

It means that all salespeople know the processes and have the authority to operate within those.

There is nothing worse that responsibility with no authority.

If you put someone in charge of a project that person needs to have the authority and the responsibility over that project to make it a success.

Company culture - What is your company culture? Can you explain it? Do your salespeople understand it? Typically departments within an organization each have their own mini culture.

Departmental cultures are often misunderstood by other departments.

Does your company have a "sales culture"? Does everyone sell? Does everyone understand that without sales they would not have a job? Or are they complaining about the salespeople, making statements that all the salespeople ever do is play golf and take people out to dinner? In order to really build a strong sales culture everyone one has to be supportive of sales.

The results of this kind of culture shift are amazing.

Caliber of colleagues - This includes you.

Personality differences are abundant and people need help learning to work together.

Ongoing team building exercises are a must.

Sales managers must figure out a way to keep their team cohesive.

Salespeople tend to be more independent workers but in this marketplace it is important that they work together also.

What are you doing to build your team? And just what do salespeople think of their sales manager's performance? According to March 15, 2004, SellingPower.com Sales Management Newsletter: Your on-the-job performance might not get as high a ranking as you think you deserve at least not according to your employees.

According to a survey of more than 6,000 sales professionals from Charlotte,North Carolinabased consultants Sales Performance International, only 17 percent of respondents reported that their sales manager's overall performance was superior.Here's how the rest of the participants rated their managers:

* 45 percent said their sales manager was performing satisfactorily

* 26 percent gave their manager a fair rank

* 7 percent said their manager's overall performance was poor

* 5 percent chose not to answer the question Keith Eades, CEO of SPI, says the study's results are a reflection of the job requirements facing managers."Being an effective sales manager is more demanding than it was 10 years ago," he says.

Even so, it doesn't look like today's sales teams are going to cut their managers any slack.

We know that poor management can result in high turnover.

The obvious corollary is that low turnover is the result of good management.

All I can say is "Don't be the reason your best salespeople leave." Salary - Many studies have shown that compensation is usually way down on the list of reasons why good people leave.

If the only right thing in a person's job is the pay received, no amount of money will keep that employee.

We all agree that people are likely to stay at their job if they are engaged in their work.

How do you find out if your salespeople are engaged in their work? Ask them.

The Gallup Organization developed these 12 questions to determine our level of engagement in our work.

Have your salespeople take this survey: Agree/Disagree

1.I know what is expected of me at work.

2.I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work.

3.At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.

4.In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing a good job.

5.My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.

6.There is someone at work who encourages my development.

7.At work my opinion seems to count.

8.The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.

9.My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.

10.I have a best friend at work.

11.In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.

12.This last year, I have had opportunities to learn and grow at work.

TOTAL: Scoring - Agree Column: 10 or more, this salesperson has a job that suits him well and he is engaged in his work.

6 - 9, it's time to think about some changes that would make this salesperson happier.

3 - 5, you need to reassess the situation.

Either the job or your company is not the right fit for this salesperson.

2 or less, you probably don't need an explanation for this one.

It is becoming more and more important for companies to retain their best people.

According to the authors of "Impending Crisis: Too Many Jobs, Two Few People by Herman, Olivo & Gioia," by 2010 we will face a labor shortage of 10,033,000 people.

In many parts of the country such as Reno this is already starting to happen.

What will you do to help insure that your salespeople are engaged in their work so that you can retain them? Alice R.

Heiman is president of ARH Consulting LLC, a sales consulting company based in Reno.