enx magazine
Phone: 1-818-550-7547 Toll Free: 1-800-850-4949 Fax: 1-818-550-7527
The #1 Sourcing Publication in the Document Imaging Industry
SALES REP TURNOVER AND COMPENSATION
By Andy Slawetsky
Sales representatives are the lifeline of office equipment dealers. They’re the main point of contact with potential clients and are in charge of managing accounts to which they’re assigned. Continually changing a customer’s account executive can eventually adversely affect the dealer’s ability to retain that customer when it comes time to renew leases.
Each year we conduct an
enormous study of office equipment dealers in which we ask them about
virtually every aspect of their business. Hundreds of in-depth
interviews are conducted via telephone interviews that can last up to
two hours. The following information referenced in this article came
from our annual dealer study. 
Turnover
Turnover rates are a
critical issue for dealers who expect to actively compete in the
high-volume, digital, copier/printer and color markets, all of which
require higher levels of selling skills and expertise. We would expect
to see those dealers with more experienced sales representatives be more
successful in these markets. High turnover rates erode dealer profits
through increased recruitment, training and management costs in addition
to losing opportunities due to open territories. Decreased productivity
rates, normally associated with new sales representatives, erode profits
even further. 
Over the last three years, we have consistently seen the industry average turnover rate drop for copier/MFP dealers from 32.3% in 2005 to 25.9% in 2007.
When looking at the last three years, Toshiba dealers have had the most success when it comes to retaining sales representatives. Conversely, Ricoh has had a much more difficult time, losing more than 5% more sales reps than the industry average over the last three years. Konica Minolta made great strides, reducing their turnover rate from nearly 30% in 2005 and 2006 to fewer than 20% in 2007. As the bizhub line has become stronger and Konica Minolta’s merger pains have eased, it seems they’re finally hitting their stride.
Sales Rep Turnover pg1 pg2 PRINT WORD DOCUMENT
40,000 COPIES MAILED OUT EACH MONTH * FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO IMAGING INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS * COMPANY & BUSINESS PROFILE MONTHLY FEATURES