Great quote that is.  Selling Power provided it in their article Re-Recruiting and Retention.  The gist of the article deals with keeping your top performers when they have been recruited from your company.  The article lists some suggested goals you can gather by conducting exit interviews:

– Eliminate the barriers to retention that were mentioned in surveys of ex-employees.
– Identify essential, “can’t operate without” employees and thank each one of them (often).
– Upgrade personal performance contracts, paying special attention to the problem areas identified.
– Provide extra compensation and rewards. (Pacetta suggests establishing a recruiting and retaining fund for this purpose.)
– Ask each of your essential employees to come to you immediately if another firm approaches them.
– Make a personal commitment to keep your essential employees €“ especially when they attempt to leave €“ it will raise the stakes for you as well as put the recruiting company at a disadvantage.

I’m of two minds when it comes to salespeople who give their notice.  First off, they have crossed a bridge from which it is difficult to return.  Normally, the return involves paying the salesperson more money while wondering if they are going to be swayed by the next employment overture.  Expectations are now raised and the sales manager may get an itchy trigger finger when it comes to the salesperson’s performance.

Also, I’m highly skeptical that asking employees to come to you “immediately” if they are approached about another opportunity.  I’ve worked in plenty of companies where a recruiter reached me.  I always listened to what they had to say and never, ever, told my boss about the call.  Maybe it is just me, but I think I am in the majority on this one.

The main point I gather from the above list is that you need to pay attention to your employees.  Communicate with them on a regular basis.  Make sure your compensation plan is inline with the market.  Give them accolades when they deserve them.

Simple, yes, but successful retention is not a grand scheme of epic actions.  Instead, it is a daily commitment to doing the little things right.

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I am most interested in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) when it comes to enhancing communication. We have been through some rudimentary training on this topic so ManageSmarter.com’s article – Rapid Rapport and Riches – piqued my interest.

The long article covers many details, but here is a general definition of NLP:

NLP is a behavioral technology created in the 1970s by Richard Brandler, a student of mathematics and Gestalt’s Therapy, and John Grinder, a professor of linguistics at the University of California Santa Cruz. Neuro refers to the nervous system, through which we experience the five senses: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory. Linguistic is language and non-verbal communication systems that give our thoughts and emotions meaning. These include pictures, sounds, feelings, tastes, and smells. We experience situations and our environment through our senses, and then represent that experience through language. Programming refers to communication with yourself and others to achieve desired outcomes.

And the reason why this information is important in sales:

The core of NLP is building rapport, a skill critical to customer service and sales professionals. When you have rapport, you have a feeling of commonality, which gives people comfort because they feel understood.

Some of the training seems odd at times, but the real-world application of it is startling. We have developed a mild ability to use this training and it brings a heightened level of communication (emphasis mine):

In face-to-face salesmanship, a combination of voice tone and body language (body positioning, eye contact, and gestures) affects rapport. During live interactions, approximately 55 percent of information is gathered from the other person’s body language. If there is incongruence when someone’s body language is inconsistent with their words (i.e., appears angry yet says he or she is fine) people usually interpret the true meaning of the communication from the body language.

Now here is the part that we pay close attention to:

You also need to think about the language you use. We experience life through our senses, and some people have sensory preferences. They utilize some senses more heavily than others. The primary sensory preferences are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (touch). Most people favor their sense of vision, and use visual words to describe experiences. They might say something is “not clear,” or they “don’t see” where you’re coming from. A person with an auditory sensory preference might say, “That sounds good,” while a person with a kinesthetic preference would say, “This doesn’t feel like the right solution for me,” or “I don’t have a grasp on that yet.”

Good example of this: I have an auditory preference while Lee has a visual preference. However, we usually try to adapt to the other person’s preference (from our training). When we end a phone call, he will usually say “Sounds good.” while I will tend to say “See you later.”

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