“Talent Crisis Looms in the Future”

by Steve Chriest

At least a few companies are beginning to realize that the pool of experienced sales professionals will begin to evaporate during the next ten to fifteen years. As 70 million Baby Boomers retire, they will be replaced by only 40 million new workers entering the workplace. Equipment finance companies, like all U.S. companies, are facing an unprecedented shortage of talent.

As leasing companies see the average age of their sales teams rising, the time is quickly approaching when they must step up efforts to recruit, train and retain sales professionals to replace not only retiring Baby Boomers, but younger team members who opt to ply their sales talents in other industries. For many companies, both large and small, mistakes in recruiting talent, and failure to retain talent, may impact their survival as competition for sales professionals heats up.

The dwindling supply of talent should be accompanied by increased costs of recruiting and retaining salespeople. The impact of these increased costs will be exacerbated by the consequences of bad hires. Smart management teams are already making plans to stop hiring and investing in poor performers. Identifying, hiring and retaining productive salespeople are fast becoming a top priority for leading edge companies in all industries.

Too many companies make the mistake of chasing superstars when they recruit sales talent. The problem with this approach, frankly, is that there aren't enough superstars to go around, and there will be fewer to choose from in the future. One of the keys to success is to concentrate on not hiring, promoting or training sub-par performers who don't have real potential for growth and improvement.

Sales team turnover, for many reasons, is unavoidable. Some turnover, at least in small amounts, is healthy for most companies. Fresh talent keeps the organization vital, as newcomers often bring new ideas and experiences that can benefit the business. But too much turnover is costly. For example, the turnover costs for telesales positions ranges from $75,000 to $90,000, while the total turnover costs for top sales producers can easily exceed $300,000!

Unless there is an unexpected explosion in the U.S. population, and a significant number of the new citizens turn out to be “born salespeople,” a talent crisis looms in the not too distant future for all U.S. companies.

Copyright © 2006 Selling Up TM . All Rights Reserved.

About the author: Steve Chriest is the founder of Selling Up TM ( www.selling-up.com ), a sales consulting firm specializing in sales improvement for organizations of all types and sizes in a variety of industries. He is also the author of Selling Up, The Proven System for Reaching and Selling Senior Executives. You can reach Steve at schriest@selling-up.com