As a new sales leader, I struggled to recruit top reps from better-resourced companies. We were bootstrapped, didn't have all the perks, and our product wasn't sexy.
To compete, I needed to develop reps from scratch. A world-class training program allowed us to hire for character and not experience. It all started with the onboarding plan.
Today I'll show you how to build a foundational onboarding program to ramp your sales reps in record time.
I often see companies providing product and customer training, then calling it a day. This is a recipe for disaster.
The onboarding program sets the foundation for your entire sales org.
With a successful onboarding plan, you'll:
"The bookings numbers in a B2B company are heavily dependent on being able to recruit salespeople on time, and ramping them to full productivity over a short period of time" - David Skok, Matrix Partners
Here's how to do it:
You need a template that you can make iterations to after every class. Creating this from scratch each time wastes a ton of time and energy.
Create a spreadsheet and put each week of onboarding in its own tab. Then, segment each day into 30-minute increments.
This is where companies get it wrong. They spend most of their time training on the company and the product. Neglecting sales and customer training in the process.
Map out everything beforehand and budget the appropriate time for each category. When you take inventory in advance, you'll make 100% sure it makes the cut.
For sales training, split the training into active training, passive training, and self-study.
Ex. Role-play for active, call shadowing for passive, and digital courses for self-study.
Switching it up keeps things fresh.
Onboarding is taxing on a manager. Often, everything else is on pause until the initial onboarding is complete.
Sharing the training load with other teammates gives you some of your time back. It's also a great way to involve future leaders in actual management activities.
Reach out and coordinate calendars with each person that you'd like involved. Schedule these meetings first so you can be respectful of their calendars.
Bonus: Hire in pairs so new hires can role-play with each other without needing a manager present.
You're almost done! The last step is getting the meetings on the calendar. Schedule every session on the new rep's calendar and create an agenda to share on their first day. I like to create a "training calendar" for this.
These steps provide a much tighter onboarding process that prioritizes the essential pieces. Even better, you'll have a framework to make iterations on based on the feedback and results of each class.