Sales Malpractice: Are You Insured for That?

Your dentist has scheduled your annual cleaning with his brand-new hygienist. She's showing great promise; she’s a bit new to the equipment, but your dentist hired her from a related industry – industrial plumbing – so she’s familiar with the water jet, and she can probably pick up the rest of what she needs to know along the way.?

How enthusiastic are you going to be as her “training patient”? ??

In your role as a leader in sports and entertainment, you have an essential responsibility to help your employees build the skills they need to avoid what I call “Sales Malpractice”: thrusting a young, inexperienced and ill-equipped sales team onto unsuspecting prospects.?

What are the consequences of that? Beyond disappointing (or angering) your fans, they can be numerous:

• Employees continue to leave jobs or consider leaving jobs in record numbers. According to one study by PriceWaterhouse Coopers, 20% of workers are likely to switch employers within their first year on the job.? If greener pastures are calling offering more growth potential, perhaps the pasture they’re currently in just doesn’t seem green enough. ??
• The current average tenure of a new sales rep in pro sports is roughly 18 months, which means they’re leaving their position at just about the time it takes for most people to truly “figure out” the role.??What a shame, especially since it takes roughly 5 months for a new rep to begin paying for themselves!
• Since the average cost of a bad hire in ticket sales is around $125,000, perhaps the “drive-by” training that many people give their people internally isn’t so penny-wise after all.?

If we could only figure out a way to help them feel more successful sooner, perhaps they wouldn’t consider leaving so soon and losing our investment in them.?

A balanced, structured, science-based training program that focuses on the basics of success in the position to which they were hired is not expensive at all.?In fact, given the $125,000 figure, it’s far less than 5% of that amount to do it right.?

The choice is simple; invest a little bit now or sacrifice a lot more revenue later.?Are you insured for that????

--?Bill Guertin?is Chief Learning Officer of?ISBI 360,?a training, sales and recruitment company that increases revenue and results for the business side of sports & entertainment. Reach out to Bill at?[email protected] , or set a time to talk with him one-on-one at?www.calendly.com/bill-isbi360 .