Sometimes it feels like companies make a concerted effort to drive their top-producing salespeople out of the organization and into the welcoming arms of the competition.  If you read that line and chuckle, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

After all the time and effort expended to locate, hire, and train top producers, why in the world do most companies do things that make their top salespeople quit?  In my opinion, companies don’t pay attention to the basic drivers/motivators for top producers.  If your company has a hard time holding on to salespeople, it’s probably for one of the following reasons:

• You’ve changed their compensation structure.  And not for the better.  The #1 cause of a disgruntled top producer is negative modifications to their compensation structure.  With salespeople, the comp plan is a sacred covenant - everyone agrees that these are the rules.  Top producers inevitably knock the ball out of the park, and management says, “Uh-oh.  These guys are making too much money.”  So they change the comp plan.  The usual suspects are caps on commissions (ludicrous), reducing overall commission payouts (kills trust faster than anything), and taking away clients to give to other salespeople (all that hard work, stolen away).  Please, don’t do this stuff.
• They have an unhealthy relationship with their manager.  This usually happens when the top producer’s previous boss - who was awesome - gets promoted and is replace by a less-than-awesome boss who feels like they have to prove their worth by tinkering with everything that was working.  I call this, “New Boss Syndrome.”  It goes something like this:  (1) New boss enters the picture, (2) new boss fails to take the time to build relationships with the top producers, (3) new boss says or does something to piss the top producers off, (4) new boss’ involvement actually starts to hinder the top producers’ ability to produce (read:  mandatory attendance at excessive and pointless “sales meetings”), (5) top producer starts accepting headhunter phone calls, (6) they leave. 
• You’ve increased their risk.  This risk may be caused by poor company financial performance, a merger or buyout, or an overall macro decline in the size of the market for the product or service that they’re selling.  This one’s a bit more difficult to counter, and I mention it only because you need to pay twice the attention to top producers when a broad-based decline hits your industry.  They begin to consider that move to Career X that they’ve always dreamed about.

These things are what headhunters are trained to watch for when calling your salespeople.  If they perceive that one of the above is going on, they’ll zero in on your top producers like a missile.

The truth about top producers is that if their ego is sufficiently stroked, if they are fed with good marketing support, if their comp plan is solid, and if you get the heck out of their way, then they’ll be happily making your company money for as long as things stay rosy.  If, however, you’d like to make you top salesperson quit and go work for a competitor, you’ve been taught how to do so.