Sales is a high-stakes career path, and there’s a reason sales recruiting agencies estimate the turnover rate to be around 40% at many companies. When a new hire doesn’t work out, your business can suddenly be plunged into crisis mode. So rather than waiting for the next crisis to hit, prepare yourself for the crises to come.

In talking to managers and business owners, we’ve learned about some of the most common problems faced by sales team leaders on a regular basis. Fortunately for you, although these sales hiring nightmares cover a wide range of scenarios, they all have a simple solution.

Nightmare: Hiring a Dud

Data from sales recruitment firms shows that of all the sales professionals in North America, only the top 10% will actually provide a solid ROI. Not only that, but nearly twice as many (22%) will prove untrainable. Every manager will accidentally hire a bad employee on occasion. Then there are the real losers, the recruits who give new meaning to the terms ‘under-performing,’ ‘lazy,’ and ‘wildly incompetent.’

You’ve probably heard hiring horror stories, or even lived through them yourself. The job candidate who was hired because of a fabulously faked resume. The young college grad who blames everyone but themselves for their failures, because they’re just, like, ‘dealing with a lot right now.’

If you want to keep the duds from even applying in the first place, a sales recruitment firm can help filter out the mediocre candidates. That’s because the best sales headhunters know how to spot the fakes, the phonies, and the outright liars. By the time job seekers’ resumes hit your inbox, they will have been properly vetted by an experienced sales recruiter.

Remember: Sales recruitment firms estimate that the cost of a sales hiring mistake can be up to six to 10 times that employee’s base salary!

Nightmare: Having to Fill Several Positions at Once

Previously, we’ve discussed how to avoid the nightmare of losing your top seller unexpectedly, often losing leads in the process. But what if you lose multiple employees at once? What if you need to suddenly expand your business, but require skilled sales people with experience in your industry?

A sales recruitment firm knows how to lure in the best candidates to your company, and fast. While needing to fill several positions quickly might be a nightmare to you, it’s what sales staffing agencies do best. They can find skilled candidates with the exact qualifications you need, saving you the time and headache of creating multiple job postings and endlessly interviewing candidates.

Nightmare: Needing to Fill a Position on Short Notice

Fortunately, this is only a sales nightmare if you don’t have a sales recruitment firm on deck. When you have experience working with a top sales recruitment firm, you are always ready to fill important sales jobs at a moment’s notice. You can start vetting employees and move straight to training with the help of your recruiter, without wasting time sifting through a thousand resumes.

Any sales recruitment firm or human resources worker will tell you the same thing. If you post a job online, you can expect hundreds of resumes to flood your inbox. And when you need to fill multiple positions quickly, you won’t have time to find a sales recruitment firm, too. So plan ahead and start working with an experienced sales staffing agency before the crisis hits.