Ultimately, you’d like your new hires to be whistling while they work to bring in business and increase your earnings. But if your organization suffers from RDS (Revolving Door Syndrome), you’ll squander company dollars making up for your attrition rate. In other words, until you get to the source of your retention problem and remedy it, you’ll keep feeding monster.com.

On average, it takes seven months and around $30K to find and onboard a new sales rep, according to a study by the Aberdeen Group. Such associated costs should be expected if your organization is in growth mode. Growth is a good problem to have! But if turnover is high year over year in your sales department, you’ve got a systemic problem. Even worse is losing top performers when they decide to move on to a better opportunity. Suddenly you’re busy trying to plug leaks in a ship from which everyone’s jumping.

From the Get-Go, Be Honest About Expectations
Just as you need to know who your prospective sales reps are, they need to know what sort of work environment they might be bringing their lunch box and framed family photos to. Signing them on to what they hadn’t bargained for will hurt you as they grow disgruntled and cynical on the job and/or quit in frustration. Instead of that fiasco, set realistic expectations at the interview stage, being honest with prospective hires about the workplace. You don’t need to scare them off, just be upfront about challenging aspects they might face at your company. If they’re good, they’ll understand that no sales opportunity is without its pros and cons.

Setting Realistic Goals and Monitoring Progress
Because sales folks are a competitive bunch, you can set goals for them that are challenging—but also attainable. And in doing so, don’t fail to provide the resources necessary to reach those goals. Keep tabs on individual contributors’ progress, and hold supportive one-on-one’s in which you discuss their performance. What you’re doing here is opening the lines of communication regarding job performance, and revealing where improvement and coaching are needed. Ever-competitive, your sales reps will take up the gauntlet.

Outline Realistic Goals and Coach Accordingly
While we’re on the topic of coaching … one of the best investments you can make in your new hires is to coach them. Coaching benefits the company by increasing staff competency rate, while at the same time signaling to your workforce that they are worth investing in. Coaching is something we’ve blogged and “articled” about before because it’s so important for the health of a company. Failing to nurture reps through ongoing coaching will result in a workforce that’s frustrated at being underprepared and under-supported when doing their job.

Reexamine Your Compensation Package
Money is on the mind of top-performing sales reps. They’re not coming to work for the free instant cocoa in the breakroom (with or without mini marshmallows). Casual Friday isn’t tooting their horn. If not properly compensated, they’re likely to shop their résumé around to more generous companies. Reexamine your compensation package on an annual basis, taking into account what’s being offered at competing organizations. Tiered plans with rewards for top performers can attract stronger candidates, as can additional compensation for lower-performing but still valuable reps. Put this question through the thought mill: How much are you saving with your slim-pickings compensation compared to how much you’re losing in attrition costs each year?

Engage in Incentivizing
Developing fun and creative ways to show your appreciation for your valuable staff will further motivate them to stay with you. Incentives such as gym memberships, flex time, additional time off, even an in-house concierge will build loyalty; they also promote a more stress-free work environment. Holding weekly, monthly, or quarterly sales contests will additionally motivate your naturally competitive sales staff to do their best.

Exit Interview: What Went Wrong?
Sometimes despite a company doing everything right for their employees, they lose top people. That’s just a difficult reality you face in business. But these days too many companies fail to take advantage of a relatively painless datamining tool: the exit interview. If you want to know why Jane or John Doe is “breaking up with you,” sit them down one on one and ask why they’re resigning. And don’t have their direct supervisor be the one doing the asking—you don’t want those on the way out to hold back anything. Ideally, the exit interview should be conducted by a member of the HR team.

Remember, when it comes to employee retention, it’s one thing to get them to say “I do”; it’s another to hold them and keep them.

It’s typical to end up with forecasted numbers that miss the mark by a sizable margin. Sales managers often find themselves in a familiar situation: running around in a postmortem panic over why their numbers are off. But neglecting to actually get to the bottom of the bad forecast is another classic misstep, the result of which is being in the same forecasting predicament quarter over quarter.

The act of forecasting is an exercise in futility if you fail to identify the culprits behind bad numbers. We’ve spent a lot of time researching and thinking about the topic, and we’re passing our learnings on to you. Read on to find out the root causes of faulty forecasting so you can stop predicting sunshine when there will in fact be rain.

You’re Relying on Bad and Incomplete Data
Your CRM is more riddled with holes than a wool sweater in a moth infestation. Some of your data is missing, or it’s outdated, or it’s simply inaccurate. Holes such as these can lead to skewed forecasts. Remember, what you get out of your CRM depends on what you put into it. The more data points your team inputs into your CRM, the more solid the data will be as far as forecasting. The more data you’ve amassed, the more accurately you’ll be able to forecast.

Direct your team to engage in data input as a best practice. Make sure everyone’s diligent about documenting communication points and populating fields at the account and opportunity stages. This collective effort will draw a data-driven picture of why some deals are successful and others cough their last breath and die. Adhere to this rule: “If it’s not in your CRM, it does not exist.”

You’re Being Blinded by Positivity Fairy Dust
The mantra of this industry could be, “Be optimistic or be obsolete.” Sales is chancy, yet despite what might be repeated setbacks, you must maintain a sunny disposition, staying positive when it comes to growth opportunities and deal closing. That said, you don’t want to go through your sales life being a happy idiot. Engage in that other “ism”—realism. Meaning, don’t clog your pipeline with too many potential deals that are built on wishes and dreams. That magical-thinking “user error” often results in an overinflated, unrealistic forecast. Making the effort to debug your pipeline is time well spent.

You’re Betting on the Wrong Horse
Be careful not to funnel your resources into unpromising deals. Emotion can be the driving force sometimes—“I like that company … I’d love to work with them … they seem cool!” Next thing you know, resources spent on your dream company have not resulted in a deal, and now you’re short on TME (time money energy) that was better spent pursuing more realistic leads. Again, this can be the result of too many deals in the pipeline, and/or the wrong ones getting special treatment while the right ones get ignored. Forget that glam deal you’d love to land. Focus on data management. Or, if you’ve mastered the art of data management already, use what you know about data science to rank and prioritize opportunities for reps, teams, region, or product lines, taking into account things like close probability, momentum, size, and market trends.

As people like to say, “No one has a crystal ball.” True enough, but forecasting can be thoughtful or it can be stab-in-the-dark reckless. When you make thoughtful, intelligent predictions, it’s more likely the clouds will part and you’ll have your day in the sun.