For anyone who works in a subscription-based business, where customers pay on a month-to-month basis and can cancel at any time, you know how critical customer retention is.

Through experience, I’ve learned that the ability to regain a customer once they’ve already decided to cancel is extremely difficult. You can throw incentives at them, beg and plead for them to stay, but they’ve likely already moved on.

Here are 3 ways to make sure you minimize the dreaded “I'm canceling” notice:

Get everyone involved

Your customers interact with many areas of your business (sales, support, billing, marketing, etc.) What I’ve found is that many times, your front line staff aren't always attuned to the signs of customer dissatisfaction.

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For the first time in 40 years, my beloved Golden State Warriors are NBA champions!

While I might attribute this to my lucky socks and pregame ritual, many pundits credit their teamwork. And specifically, their league leading record of assists per game.

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People are undoubtedly the most valuable asset of any organization. As more and more companies are investing in sales development groups, they're realizing that finding high quality Sales Development Reps (SDRs) is not easy.

Here are 3 big takeaways that will help you find your next standout SDR.

1. Always be looking

To find the best candidates, don’t stop interviewing - even when there isn’t a hiring class or open req. I've made it a point to do a phone interview every single day. If possible, I try to bring in a candidate for a face-to-face interview at least once a week.

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One of the best parts of my job is talking to entrepreneurs in the sales technology space. The other day, I took a call from a stealth-mode founder with a bold vision.

Here’s his pitch:

If you’re generating inbound leads and are focused on setting introductory meetings/demos for sales reps, technology can replace your entire SDR team.

Provocative, right?

He argued that for many inbound SDR organizations, all they do is push the meeting. They send email after email and answer every question a prospects asks with “you’ll find that out if you take the meeting.”

In a way, I agree with him. Far too many teams are doing little more than identifying the guy, checking for a pulse, and closing on the meeting. There’s little-to-no vision creation or pain/consequence discovery. This approach can work beautifully when the goal is "getting more and more at bats” for the sales team.

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