Look closely at your staff because a quarter of them are planning to quit this year. Of course, not all will find another opportunity that suits them. But this stark statistic does highlight why employee retention should be a top priority in 2025 — particularly in sales.
Many businesses struggle to hold on to their sales talent, not because of poor culture or hiring misfires, but because of a failure to develop capability. The real churn drivers often show up during onboarding, in inconsistent coaching, or in teams with no structured development path.
Our guide introduces practical ways to spot these risks and then invest in structured training to build a sales team that performs and stays.
The real cost of sales churn
Sales professionals traditionally bring in revenue to your business. So, the loss is felt heavily across pipeline, planning, and productivity when they leave.
The cost of replacement
Replacing a sales employee isn’t just about the cost of advertising a role somewhere or the time investment of running interviews. Onboarding and lost output also add up, with estimates placing the cost at 30% of an average employee’s salary. For top performers, where relationships and active deals are often in play, the cost to replace them can exceed 200% of their annual salary — far more than a few pennies.
Although many businesses accept these costs as inevitable, high-churn teams undoubtedly create a structural drag on commercial performance.
The cost of pipeline and forecasting disruption
Sales turnover also creates instability in pipeline ownership. When in-progress deals are handed off to a remaining team member or are dropped altogether, this slows momentum. The new hires brought in to replace them take months to get up to speed, and by the time they’re fully effective, the quarter may be lost.
As a result, forecasting also suffers. Sales leaders find it tough to build a reliable model when the faces behind the numbers constantly change.
Pressure on management bandwidth
Sales leaders know training is important, but when turnover is high, managers shift into recovery mode rather than development. Supporting the replacement, reassigning accounts, and rebuilding confidence in the team all take attention away from coaching, performance strategy, and pipeline reviews.
Cultural risk and instability
Sales teams are especially sensitive to leadership changes. According to Culture Amp, employee turnover rises by 40% within six months of a senior leader’s departure, and a change in direct manager triggers a 16% increase.
Short tenure, limited compounding value
88% of business development representatives are achieving quota, which sounds positive, but most don’t stay long enough to build on that success. The average BDR has been in their current role for just under 18 months while overall tenure in the position is closer to two years. This typical pattern suggests frequent movement, either internally or across organisations.
Sales teams with high churn miss out on long-term value. They train, ramp, and rebuild in a constant loop, without ever realising the returns of sustained experience.
What’s really driving sales turnover?
When salespeople leave, it’s often the final stage of a breakdown that started much earlier. Here are some of the top reasons sales turnover is a problem in your company.
Weak onboarding
Onboarding shapes a new hire’s first experience of the role. When it’s rushed or inconsistent, new hires are thrust into live selling environments unprepared. They struggle to build confidence, fall behind on early targets, and find it difficult to recover.
Training must sit at the centre of onboarding as a core part of how a salesperson is introduced to the company, the customer, and the expectations of the role. Without it, even high-potential hires are set up to fail.
When this part of the puzzle is missing, 47% of sales professionals have left their roles, highlighting the direct link between onboarding training and attrition.
Skill development gaps
Even in companies that deliver strong onboarding, sellers are often left to manage their own development once they settle into the role. Structured training, if it exists, fades into the background as activity levels rise and new targets take over. A 2025 survey of 100 frontline sellers and sales managers highlights this gap:
- 94% of managers believe they coach regularly, but over half of sellers (53%) say they receive coaching quarterly or less
- 40% of sellers regularly deviate from the prescribed sales process, introducing inconsistency across deals
- Only 20% use buyer signals to prioritise opportunities, leaving too much to instinct and guesswork.
- Adoption of sales technology remains low. For example, only 6% use AI to prioritise tasks, and more than half lack the right tools to manage deals and forecast accurately.
Without structured development, sellers lose consistency in how they work. Skills like qualification and closing weaken without reinforcement, and individual performance becomes harder to sustain. Over time, reps recognise they’re not improving, and the business isn’t invested in their development — so they quit.
No clear path forward
Career progression is a critical factor in sales retention. When reps can’t see a clear path to new challenges, bigger responsibilities, or senior roles, they start planning their next move, whether or not they’re hitting their numbers.
On the flip side, Mike Earnest, VP WW of Sales at Wiz argues that “When you help someone develop skills they never thought they could master, they’re not leaving for another $10,000.”
To avoid this development vs retention standoff, make progression frameworks visible early. Sellers must understand where their strong performance can take them. Without this visibility, motivation fades even among top performers.
Rather than be sidelined to annual reviews, career development must be part of regular coaching, built into the rhythm of the team. Sellers who believe their growth has stalled find opportunities elsewhere, often with competitors who are more intentional about showing them a future beyond quota.
How traditional training falls short
“You wouldn’t send a soldier to war without training. So, why send a salesperson into the market without preparation?” wonders Muhammad Abid, a sales leadership coach.
Unfortunately, too many sales training programmes are standardised and don’t suit modern learners or offer content applicable to the current sales landscape. Here’s what to avoid:
- One-off, generic training sessions with little relevance to day-to-day challenges: ‘One-and-done’ workshops might tick a box, but they don’t stick. Without ongoing reinforcement, practical application, and customisation to real buyer conversations, knowledge quickly fades.
- Emphasis on product knowledge over commercial acumen: Knowing the ins and outs is important, but sellers also need to understand how customers buy, what drives business value, and how to navigate complex decision-making groups. Traditional training often misses this broader commercial skill set.
- Coaching is left to chance or depends on the quality of individual managers: Inconsistent coaching creates inconsistent teams. When coaching quality depends entirely on individual managers, many of whom were promoted for their own selling skills rather than their ability as educators, sellers get mixed messages and patchy support.
- Disconnect between enablement and outcomes: Too often, enablement is seen as a “nice to have” function rather than a strategic driver of revenue outcomes. Training programmes aren’t always tied to KPIs like deal velocity, pipeline conversion, or forecast accuracy, making it hard to prove value or get executive buy-in.
- Training isn’t embedded in operations: Many organisations only intervene after performance problems appear. But world-class sales teams build training into their daily rhythm, with regular role plays, call reviews, and coaching loops that prevent issues before they surface.
6 signs your company has a training-driven churn problem
Churn is a normal part of the working world. No matter how much you invest in your sales people, some will inevitably move to different companies, relocate or pivot out of the industry altogether.
So, how can you tell if your sales churn stems from a lack of effective training? Here are some telltale signs:
1. High early attrition
If a significant number of new sales hires leave within 6-12 months, it often signals that onboarding and early-stage development are falling short. Sellers who feel unsupported early are far more likely to quit before they reach full productivity.
2. Extended ramp times
When it takes longer than expected for new hires to hit quota or become self-sufficient, it suggests that training isn’t equipping them with the right skills, at the right pace. Long ramp periods also compound the costs of turnover when reps leave before generating full ROI.
3. Visible disengagement and frustration
Sales reps expressing boredom, dissatisfaction with their current responsibilities, or impatience for career progression often aren’t being challenged or developed properly. Without continuous learning pathways, even high-potential sellers lose motivation and start looking elsewhere.
4. Inconsistent performance across teams
If different regions, branches, or managers show wildly varying results, it often traces back to inconsistent training and coaching practices. A high-performing sales culture depends on a shared foundation; without it, success becomes arbitrary rather than repeatable.
5. Managers are overloaded with reactive training
When frontline managers are constantly pulled into basic onboarding, skills fixes, or ad hoc coaching, it’s a sign your organisation lacks scalable, structured training. Instead of focusing on growth and strategy, managers are stuck patching gaps that could have been closed earlier.
6. Lack of adoption for sales processes and tools
If reps routinely bypass CRM systems, skip key sales stages, or misuse enablement tools, it’s often because training didn’t make the “why” and “how” clear. Low adoption drives inconsistent execution and frustration that leads to higher churn.
Equip your sales team for the long term with Furza
The data is clear — training and retention are deeply intertwined, especially in sales. LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning report highlights that 88% of organisations are concerned about employee retention, and providing learning opportunities is the single most effective way to keep people engaged, loyal, and growing.
At Furza, we specialise in helping ambitious businesses build stronger, more resilient sales people and teams through structured, high-impact training.
Our tailored sales academies use a hire, train, and deploy model to bring in top early-career sales talent, assessed not by CVs, but by real potential. Candidates are then rigorously trained to hit the ground running, reducing time to productivity and lowering the risk of hiring misfires.
We also partner with existing sales and management teams to deliver bespoke training that sharpens skills and drives measurable results. Every course is built around the specific needs of your business so your people can learn and consistently apply the techniques that matter.
With Furza, you can create a motivated, high-performing sales people and teams that drives sustainable growth, all the while reducing attrition.
Ready to equip your team and set them up for long-term results? Contact Furza today to discuss a tailored sales recruitment and training programme.
