How To Retain Management

May, 12th 2024

Losing a high-performing manager is one of the highest costs you can have as a small business owner or manager.

The estimated cost of losing a high-performing manager for a 7 or 8-figure business is more than $100,000…especially if the founder is the one in charge of training.

Here are 6 ways you can ensure your managers never leave:

1 Compensation

In a professional relationship, everything always starts with compensation.

It’s the first thing everyone looks at to see if a job is worth applying for (if you don’t have brand recognition).

Providing the salary and compensation your talent desires is the first step to retaining them.

In order to ensure you never lose your talent for compensation, here are a few simple steps to follow:

A- During the interview process, ask your talent what they want to earn this year, next year, and in 5 years…Log this information in your talent CRM.

Quick note: if you don’t have a place to log information on talent prospects and active team members, let me know and I can introduce you to someone who can build this for you.

B- During the first 1 on 1 with the new hire and their manager, ensure this is discussed again, documented (again), and re-visited annually.

If your talent is happy with what they’re earning, this is one less reason they will leave and one more reason to stay.

2 Set Them Up For Success

The number 1 reason talent leave companies is due to stress.

This can be stress induced from the operations, stress induced by people, or both.

Your job as an executive is to ensure neither of these stressors are happening in your company. 

If your company is experiencing stress due to poor organization, operations, or managerial practices, you should book time here for a consultation with my team. We will rid these issues from your business and enable you to focus on growth again.

The three things you can easily control to ensure your talent is set up for success is quite simple:

A- Ensure there are clear goals & KPIs for talent

Defining success should be as simple as a pass, or a fail process. If talent is falling short of goals, this leads to point B…

B- Remove Barriers

A SIMPLE action you can take away from this is to have a place for talent/managers to document/submit barriers that are coming up in the day-to-day operation. Have managers remove 1 barrier a week (or a day) & check with talent monthly or quarterly to ensure this is happening. 

This one process will bring your team closer together, build more trust, and improve your operation.

C- Coach & Train

This one is simple, but if your staff doesn’t feel properly coached or trained they’ll resent their role and will probably leave (at some point). Here is an extensive training on how to create effective training. 

3 Know How They Want To Be Managed

Everyone wants to be coached and communicated to in different ways. In the first 1 on 1 with talent, have management extrapolate this information.

• What are things talent would like their managers to do?

• What are things they would prefer them not to do?

• What is their love language? (Have them take the assessment)

The last one may feel silly, but some people need words of affirmation to feel valued while others need acts of service (removing barriers). 

Knowing how your people can feel valued changes how you manage them.

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• Being stuck in the day-to-day ops.

• Not having time to grow your business.

• Build a team that you can trust to maintain your high standards.

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It’s really easy and more affordable than you think.

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4 Build Intimacy

Humans will develop an unreasonable sense of loyalty to both their managers and the company if they feel a deep sense of intimacy with their managers.

I know countless people who should have quit their jobs years ago but stayed because they felt connected to their manager.

Here are some simple ways you can do this:

• Know their family, kid's names, special dates and talk about it.

• Invest in their lives.

• Know their birthdays and anniversaries and celebrate them.

• Talk about things they care about.

• Help them with things in their personal lives.

• Do team outings and team-building events outside of work. 

The list can go on, but doing these things truly does matter to build loyalty. 

5 Develop Them

Track what your managers want to accomplish personally and professionally. Inside your talent CRM, track these things & help project manage them with your leaders.

If you help your talent:

• Accomplish their goals.

• Earn their desired income.

• Feel valued and seen.

• Feel connected to you and their team.

• Content with where they work (and not stressed).

They will never leave!

6 Ask (Bonus)

Once a year, you should have your managers and their direct reports bluntly ask:

“Is there any reason you would consider leaving us in the upcoming year? If so, is there anything we can do to make things better here?”.

If a marriage ends in divorce, it usually isn’t a surprise.

The same should go for losing your talent. If we have the courage to have candid conversations, we can build a workplace where people never leave.

Whenever you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you

1. If you're serious about taking your agency to the next level and want my help in doing so, click here to book time for a growth consultation.

2. Your agency will go broke if you don’t know these, watch this video to avoid going out of business.

3. If you want to stay in touch, follow me on Twitter.

Stay Happy

Stay Hungry,

Jordan Ross

CEO & Founder @ 8 Figure Agency

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