Jbeans

Director of Sales

How does your company handle exits?

Heyooo. So, we have had tremendous turnover lately at our company and yet it’s never properly announced that someone left? We find out by chance half the time via the grapevine. My boss feels like everyone that leaves makes a bad decision and doesn’t feel obliged to send a memo out to the staff to say hey so and so is leaving and their last day is —- we thank them and wish them well. It’s starting to rattle my team as a few of our key techs have left over the last few weeks. “Sinking ship” was a phrase used to me yesterday. I’ve tried to talk to the owners so we can get better at this? But they don’t seem to want to publicize the news? I can’t understand it? Feels bad bc it makes staff think they don’t care and worries them when so many people leave in a short period of time. To me, regardless of the circumstances- say bye thanks and good luck. Keeps everyone in the know - and feeling like the company gives a fuck.

am I missing the why here? Why wouldn’t it be better to address this and ease concerns ? A simple update and a well wish to me is so freaking easy yet so hard to get them to agree too. What do we think?

🙏 Mental Wellness

🧢 Sales Management

11

20 comments

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poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

3

☕️

Your management team is running around with their hair on fire, and stopping to dunk their head in the massive pool of water would be too easy.

Behind closed doors, they are discussing the problem, but as @goose said, optics are more important than logic right now.

goose

Politicker

2

Sales Executive

Optics. If they control the narrative and they will feel better about the process. I think you have a problem here.

Jbeans

Opinionated

1

Director of Sales

Houston….. we have a mofo problem.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

2

🦊

Why are the techs leaving? What can y'all do to make them want to stay?

Jbeans

Opinionated

0

Director of Sales

Bar the exit doors? 🤔

CaneWolf

Politicker

2

Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract

You're at a start-up I take it? And this is pretty common practice for start-ups. Hide the bad news and pretend like those people are the problem.

Jbeans

Opinionated

0

Director of Sales

No! We are so far from a start up. We are in the midst of some big org changes which I think is the reason for such high turnover - but still agree with your last thought there. Not everyone that leaves can the the “idiot” in the situation.

butwhy

Politicker

1

Solutions Engineer

They know that due to high turnover, the volume of "Bye, Felicia" emails would further deflate morale. From experience, they are right.

I think if I were you, I would worry less about the how they handle everyone leaving and spend more time analyzing why everyone is leaving and get your resume ready too.

Do.it.for.the.checks

Politicker

1

Account Executive

It should be addressed at the team level imo. We get these weird emails thanking them for their time that no one can tell if they were fired or quit

Jbeans

Opinionated

0

Director of Sales

Yep!! So this is exactly what I proposed today and got them to agree to at least send a note to the management team to assess on a smaller scale to their respective teams. Good call too tall! 😊

FromaBlankPerspective

Politicker

1

District Manager

I've seen this happen a few different ways, but my current VP handles it fairly well I think. He addresses it at the beginning of the next team meeting. It's generally the same line "(Name) made a decision that was best for them and their family. We wish them the best of luck!" and moves on

Jbeans

Opinionated

0

Director of Sales

❣️ This is my goal moving forward

Coffeesforclosers

Notable Contributor

1

Director Sales and Market Development

Anyone that is working with anyone that is customer facing or involved in internal deals should be announced. I dont know why people dont do this. You have key techs leaving my company wont announce AEs leaving with active f'ing deals going. Its insane, people suck. I announce most, shit, i miss some too. I think people get so bogged down with busy work they forget or as you said there is a huge wave of attrition and hard to keep straight.

I would suggest to your boss to push for a company all hands to address the sinking ship theory floating around, get ahead of it. I jump before we even see the iceberg usually lol

Jbeans

Opinionated

0

Director of Sales

You took my thoughts. How the f can I book demos and resources if I don’t know who’s where or what the heck is going on. It’s insane

Rallier

Politicker

1

SDR Manager and Consultant

Have you reached out to any of them individually? You might be able to gather some more info and determine if it's actually something to start worrying about

hh456

Celebrated Contributor

0

sales

Sales is hard too. Maybe they expect people to know that there is turnover in the department? Idk.

I had a manager who kept the top performer, pushed the middle to beat the top, and always fired the lowest performer every month. If you were ever in the bottom 1/3rd, you were gone.

Jbeans

Opinionated

1

Director of Sales

Brutal . Bet that was fun to watch. Did the others die young of High blood pressure related heart failure? Jesus.

hh456

Celebrated Contributor

0

sales

Idk I never got fired. But you could see it set in their faces. Long cold faces. Sad.

sellingsellssold

Politicker

0

SDR

For a newer company that seems pretty typical, large corporate companies handle them a lot differently.

Jbeans

Opinionated

0

Director of Sales

How? What’s best practice? Please. Share.

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