Strategies for hiring and retaining critical talent.
Late country music artist Johnny Paycheck first sang these lyrics 47 years ago: “Take this job and shove it! I ain’t workin’ here no more.” What is it that makes employees so unhappy and disgruntled that they choose to move on from a dealership? Is it a feeling of disrespect, perceived inflexibility, or lack of empowerment?
Employees leave their jobs for various reasons. For money-driven salespeople, discontent might be rooted in what they deem as a base salary and commission structure that isn’t competitive enough. For field service technicians, it could be something as simple as a missing fringe benefit, like the absence of a company vehicle, or as complex as too few career advancement opportunities.
Mutual respect, common courtesy, and advance resignation notices have flown out the proverbial window in parts of our knee-jerk-reacting, sometimes intolerant world. “Two-week notice?” laughed one recruiter, who requested anonymity. “Today, you’re lucky to receive a two-hour notice from some self-absorbed, younger workers.” Some people burn bridges while others blow them up, not really caring about making good final impressions or their employer’s references.
Salespeople may leave for practical or family-related reasons, such as reducing their daily commute or less time spent on the road. Others have lost confidence in an organization’s leadership team or are interested in joining a higher growth potential company with more diverse offerings. It’s no secret that many sales professionals are monetarily driven. “These types of people are in it [sales] to make money,” said Jessica Crowley, senior vice president with Copier Careers. “Any type of dealership instability hits them in the pocket, which is why executive-level [personnel] changes can force out good performers.”
Organizational frustration can be another point of contention. According to Paul Schwartz, president of Copier Careers, dealer mergers and acquisitions frequently have detrimental effects on employee retention. He quickly points out the interdependency of sales and service employees, with which Crowley concurred. “For a rep to go out and sell a given device, one to two technicians need to be certified at the required level,” she explained. “The ability to sell effectively is diminished when there are layoffs in the service department. Who wants to buy from a company that can’t support its clients?”
Expanded offerings can be intimidating to salespeople who are hesitant to change. “But let’s face it, the strictly box-pushing days are long gone,” noted Schwartz. “Selling an array of solutions now is accepted practice among most dealers.”
Don’t Always Be Comfortable
Marco’s former CEO Jeff Gau, who retired in 2021, used to preach about “feeling comfortable, being uncomfortable,” recalled Sales Manager Ben Drewes, a 27-year veteran of the St. Cloud, Minnesota, dealership. That out-of-the-box mentality allows Marco reps “to evolve with what we sell and who they sell it to,” Drewes continued, adding that it’s okay not to know everything about every product. “That’s why we’ve developed other [support] resources.”
Interestingly, Drewes rarely sees compensation as the main reason for a poor fit between a sales rep and Marco. “We’ve only had two [sales] employees exit over the past five years, and they determined that they were not cut out for a career within our direct-sales model,” he said. One common denominator is the inability or lack of desire to put in the time and effort necessary to succeed. It may sound cliché, but hard work yields results, he asserted.
“It’s a tough job. You hear lots of ‘no’s,’” Drewes acknowledged, and not many “thank you’s.” Except for one newbie who started 18 months ago, his 11 other reps range in experience from eight to 25 years. Each has found ways to compartmentalize all the rejection and not let it eat away at them. Covering the greater Minnesota area, the team members share another attribute: “They’re all extremely well organized and use a methodical approach,” said Drewes. “It’s almost like you’re running your own little business.”
The ones who stick it out receive a lot of on-the-job training. “We have a ‘bring-on’ program, which helps new reps get to know Marco and our culture,” added Drewes, who tries to mesh the way that he manages with varying selling styles. “I tend to give a lot of latitude.” Vastly more important than formal orientation, however, is for sales hires to spend time in the field with colleagues who’ve achieved success. “That’s where they get to see what ‘good’ looks like and what’s possible,” he emphasized.
Over On the Servicing Side
Implementation and maintenance require sufficient technical training on different solutions, say the Copier Careers recruiters. Believe it or not, some dealership owners and managers refuse to invest the time to send their field technicians to school. Obtaining certifications and other transferable skills increases marketability, of course, but also sends a message of worthiness. In addition to not getting the training they need, techs are likely to leave due to one or more of these three other common reasons, Crowley cautioned:
- The inability to grow financially and profit
- Management’s unwillingness to “backfill” when another tech leaves
- The aforementioned leadership changes
The second point can be particularly irritating. “If a tech is expected to babysit someone else’s territory, it makes it almost impossible [for them] to hit their bonus,” Crowley explained. If this scenario happens one too many times, it usually results in a distrustful clash with management.
Regarding the first point about an inadequate compensation structure for techs, Marco sees that as more of a concern on the IT side than the printer/copier side. “There seems to be more job jumping among younger IT people,” observed Dan Voss, director of field service operations. “I get it because sometimes they can realize a 10% bump in pay by going elsewhere, compared to 3% to 5% annual raises if they stay where they are.”
Overall, Marco’s retention track record has been impressive. How do they maintain their staff of technicians, installers, and coordinators? Voss oversees 11 managers and some 90 techs in the North Region, covering North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. “We use career-pathing as a strategy,” he explained, a luxury that a larger dealership can afford to offer. “There are many different opportunities within our organization and its divisions. People can even transfer to other states if they want to.”
According to Schwartz, a generational shift exists on the channel’s technician side. He won’t get any argument from Voss, who joined Marco in 2012 after its acquisition of Mason City Business Systems in Iowa. “We’re losing experienced techs to retirement,” Voss stated matter-of-factly. His territory’s tech median age is 40 and up. “People that age are less likely to job hop . . . but it is an aging market,” he said. “It’s difficult to replace guys with 20, 25, and 30 years of experience.”
Valuable expertise doesn’t go unnoticed, so Voss and his team are trying to entice some older techs to consider remote help desk roles and stay on for two to five more years. “They may not be as [physically] mobile as they once were, but they know their stuff! And we’re more than willing to move around seats on the Marco bus for good employees,” he said enthusiastically.
Copier Careers reports that not many new people are entering the dealer channel, so attracting younger techs into the field is critical. “On the print side, we primarily look for people with electronics backgrounds and mechanical abilities, but they have to be customer-service oriented as well,” noted Voss.
However, with all those inevitable retirements pending, Marco foresees dramatic changes over the next five years. The skilled labor shortage is real. “We’ve already begun to address it,” revealed Voss. The dealership’s management team is increasingly questioning the necessity of rolling trucks onsite and exploring the AI angle. “How can we use technology to solve more problems remotely?” he added. The harsh reality is figuring out how to do more with fewer people on the payroll.
Of the 5,000 office technology dealers in the United States, why should your top-performing sales reps and field techs remain loyal to you? Provide solid reasons and incentives for them to keep working for your dealership. Remember, you must make them feel wanted and show them how much you appreciate their efforts!
