For company leaders to have success hiring and holding on to top sales talent, it’s imperative they understand what matters most to sales professionals. Every employee has individual characteristics, of course, but a recent survey of 600 sales professionals by Dooly, a Canadian provider of sales enablement software, provides interesting insights into what matters most to today’s sales professionals and, perhaps more importantly, what is triggering them to leave a current employer.
Pay and benefits – The good news, according to the Dooly Sales Happiness Index, is that 87% of respondents are happy working in their current role, and 89% are happy at their current company. More concerning to management is that six in 10 respondents say they would be motivated to leave their company for an employer that offers better benefits. Slightly more than half (51%) would be motivated to leave for higher pay, and half would be motivated to leave for more flexibility.
What leads to departure – For those who reported wanting to leave a current employer, 43% cited lack of benefits; 33% cited lack of access to the best tools and technology to be successful; 31% cited a lack of bonuses.
Frustration over non-revenue-generating tasks – Nearly eight in 10 respondents (78%) said a lack of understand- ing from management on how much time is consumed by non-revenue-generating activities leads to misalignment between expectations and what sellers can reasonably achieve. Attending internal meetings, scheduling calls or meetings, and responding to internal inquiries via email, Slack and other internal communication platforms are the top time-sucking tasks that keep them from selling more. Another 25% said updating CRM data prevents them from being more productive selling. A whopping 95% of respondents agreed that reducing time spent on non-revenue-generating activities would help them achieve quota.
Technology is a vital retention tool – 75% of respondents said their company’s tech stack makes a big difference in their productivity, while 57% said their company’s tech stack is harmful to their output. The average number of tools in a company’s sales tech stack is 13, but respondents said they only use an average of eight of these tools regularly.
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