Controlling sales force turnover costs through optimal recruiting and training policies

Although some sales force turonver has been shown to be desirable, too high a turnover rate has adverse consequences on the sales organization, is costly, and should be controlled. This paper shows that under typical circumstances, over a certain period of time, no firm can reasonably expect to always have exactly the number of salespeople it desires. In most cases, a firm may have more salespeople than it needs, and bear the associated costs of idle personnel, or too few sales representatives with the related vacant territory costs. This paper shows that (1) these costs are related to the length and costs of new salespeople's recruiting procedures and training programs, and (2) management can minimize them by devising proper policies about the frequency of new salespeople recruiting campaigns and about the size of the various new recruit cohorts. Data requirements and implementation issues are discussed.