Why New Sales Hires Leave:
The #1 Reason

When you recruit a new sales candidate, you talk about all the wonderful things they’ll experience with your company. You talk about an exceptional compensation plan, especially how it’s structured and what top performers can actually earn, along with strong products and stable leadership.

When you have a high performer you’d like to bring on board, it’s not uncommon to do whatever it takes to get them hired, which sometimes means going the extra mile to sweeten the deal.

At Some Point, You’ll Make a Few Promises

During the recruitment period, you’ll find yourself saying something like this:

• “If you close three deals in the first three months, we’ll bump up your base salary.”
• “If a sales leadership role opens up, it’ll be yours.”
• “You’ll be eligible for this year’s bonus, even though you’ve started midway through the cycle.”
• “We’ll change your title after the first six months.”
• “We’ll promote you in the first year. We’re growing so fast, it’ll happen.”

Every budding relationship needs trust, and nothing hurts a new one more than failing to follow through on a promise. Once the new hire settles in, those promises are all too easily forgotten. When employers don’t keep them, employees lose trust and respect in leadership, and turnover follows. Intent is never enough.

Explicit Promises and the Ones You Don’t Write Down

There are explicit and implied promises made to a new hire. The explicit ones (benefits, salary, OTE, reporting structure) are the hard, static variables. They’re contractual and in writing.

Many of the broken promises, the ones that actually cause turnover, are implied and never appear in a written offer. They’re expectations, sometimes called the “psychological contract.”

Employees start forming expectations in the earliest stages of the interview process. It’s part of being human. As a hiring manager, you form them about the employee too: you expect they won’t undermine you, they’ll work hard when no one’s watching, and they’ll do their best to hit quota. These implicit expectations exist only in the mind, but when they’re broken, trust erodes just the same.

Three Ways to Build Trust and Keep It

1. Recognize the power of clarity. Communicate clearly during the interview process. Don’t overpromise or hint at situations that aren’t real. This is your chance to manage expectations. Don’t tell a new hire they’re walking into a thriving territory full of pipeline if that isn’t the case.

2. Take notes during the recruitment process. Document the promises you make, in detail. Be methodical and precise, and hold yourself accountable to them. If you make promises that you soon forget, your new hire will still be counting on you to deliver, and that gap damages engagement. Eventually, they start looking at your competitors.

3. Put milestone dates in your calendar. You’ll build far more credibility if your new employee never has to remind you to follow through. New hires leave when they feel promises haven’t been kept, which is both expensive and avoidable. Make an extraordinary effort to keep your promises and execute them fast. And if your chances of fulfilling a promise are small, don’t make it.

Employees Notice What You Do

Employees stay with companies when they’re confident in leadership, and one of the best ways to earn that confidence is simple: do what you say you’ll do. They judge you on your actions, not your intentions. It’s easy to neglect promises once a hire is on board, but over time it’s a losing strategy.

I interview sales candidates every day who are looking to leave their current employers. When I ask why, they often say the same thing: their employer didn’t follow through on what was promised. The rep is disenchanted and no longer trusts leadership.

Establishing a Culture of Trust

As a leader, it’s worth taking an honest look at your own behavior. If you want to build trust, keep your promises, and reduce turnover, ask yourself:

• What steps do you need to take to communicate clear expectations?
• What promises have you made that you can shore up today?
• What promises can you stop making to avoid setting the wrong expectations?
• Are you consistently following through on your commitments to your team?
• Do you believe your new hires are clear on what to expect?
• What can you do to hold yourself accountable?

Restoring trust after it’s been lost is much harder than building it steadily over time. Making a real effort to build and maintain trust with new hires puts you on the path to stronger revenue and lower turnover, starting with how those hires are made in the first place. It also reinforces your credibility as a leader.