In this article series, our intent is to help Sales Leaders and their teams get ready for the Changing Sales & Buying Demographics by the year 2020.
In our first few articles we shared some major upcoming workforce changes that will have a serious impact on sales teams. Fifty percent of the workforce will be comprised of millennials by the year 2020. This presents a major challenge because many sales teams are composed largely of sales professionals aged 52 or over, and these baby boomers will want to retire in the next 3-10 years―meaning jobs will need to be filled. Many of these positions have been held by experienced sales professionals for many years. These boomers have extensive product and industry knowledge and great customer relationships. How can you ensure these opening positions are filled with skilled and qualified sales professionals? You should begin planning your succession plan now to better prepare your team―and most importantly your customers.
Here are 7 simple strategies to help you begin your succession plan:
1. Have a coaching conversation with your senior reps. You can no longer force retirement at 65 years of age according to the Canadian Human Rights Code. This means some boomers may choose not to retire until later. Even though you can’t force retirement you can ask coach-like questions to identify their goals toward retirement and to make succession planning smooth. Both parties should openly communicate their expectations moving forward, to ensure the continued success of the company.
2. Offer flexible working schedules to accommodate the boomers who may want to phase out of their position gradually. Many boomers reaching retirement age may want to continue to work, but only on a part time basis. By offering a flexible work schedule you can make this transition smoother for all involved parties.
3. Create a farm team of upcoming sales professionals to step into the roles as boomers leave them. Having a trained and prepared sales professional ready to step into the role will avoid the awkward and clunky transition from a seasoned sales professional to a new hire or transitioning worker.
4. Hire millennials into entry-level sales and marketing positions and provide them with a career pathway. By hiring millennials into your business you can help ensure the future success of your company, while ensuring the success of the next generation.
5. Mentorship is a great way to help transition sales professionals into senior roles―whether it be new hires or existing workers. Mentoring creates a support system for both incoming employees and for outgoing boomers, and it ensures company knowledge, and existing customer relationships are passed along to the incoming employee.
6. Special projects/assignments are a good way to help keep boomers involved in a transition role. These special projects could include customer relationship management, product training programs, customer service roles, marketing or inside sales.
7. Be sure the candidate taking over has the correct temperament for the position. If you are promoting from within, be sure that the position change is welcomed by them, and that their temperament is suited for the job in need of filling. Often, the top-salespeople are promoted to managerial positions but they are not suited for office work and find it stifling.
It is important that soon-to-retire boomers retain a sense of importance within the company, and these strategies can help accomplish this, while training another sales professional to occupy the soon-to-be-vacant position.
During the next few months, stay tuned for a series of articles on how YOU can get your team ready for the NEW DEFINED Sales Team by 2020 with strategies and ideas to get ready for 2020:
More statistics on Boomer succession plans can be found here.
Join us on March 31 at Burlington Golf & Country Club to learn more about the 2020 initiative. Find more information here.
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.