This article was written by Mark Shackelford and was originally published on the Up to Speed blog.

Do you find yourself constantly concerned about retaining your employees and trying to hire the right people to take care of your customers?

There has been an awful lot of discussion about this topic and how to become better at your hiring process and pay plans. I believe the issue starts with identifying the right personality for the job and then having the right training process and accountability in place in order to retain good employees.

This starts with the dealer doing the right thing and having managers do things right!

We come in contact with salespeople in our everyday life and when we do, we recognize talent and we also recognize when we are treated poorly. Today’s workplace is becoming more and more challenging to find someone who wants to work the hours needed to operate our business effectively and is motivated by money. That being said, maybe we need to look at our pay plans and how they motivate our employees, while at the same time allowing them to balance their work schedule with time off.

We know that our industry has been challenged by vendors as well as manufactures in finding ways to change or eliminate our sales process, however, one thing will never change: people sell cars. So we need to hire the best at it and keep them.

The first thing we need to change is how we look at the work schedule. Then, through our interview process, we need to identify what motivates the new potential hire financially as well as how we can assist them in achieving their goals in order to succeed in their new career. Our pay plan should be tied to performance, as well as effort. Along this line, how often do you monitor their training and evaluate their performance? Do they align with each other?

Don’t forget that most people like to be held accountable and be led by a leader. How often do you have an accountability meeting with your employees to discuss what obstacles may stand in the way of them hitting their objectives?

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about: A new salesperson was hired that had performed quite well at their previous store, but after two months of struggling with their sales performance, they began talking about leaving. The sales manager and the HR manager held a meeting with the employee. During this meeting it was discovered that the sales person was struggling with getting leads and opportunities to work with customers. After reviewing the salesperson’s closing ratio and the number of opportunities, they discovered the statement to be true. In fact, the salesperson with the most sales had a lower closing ratio and burned through more ups than the person being reviewed. What if this salesperson had been given the same number of opportunities? It would be a win for everyone.

Many times we lose good employees and never know the real reason for their departure. Dealers who are doing the right things and managers who do things right will make the right hire, train weekly, and have a performance review with all employees at least twice a month.