When is a sales person not a sales person? When they get hired at your company. Shocking, yes? Click To Tweet
You just invested all of this time and money to screen hundreds of resumes to find the perfect sales person – and you finally did.
They passed the assessment, all 3 interviews, and the meeting with one of your top sellers.
How can this sales person possibly not be a sales person?
Because a sales person’s previous success doesn’t necessarily mean they will be successful in your organization.
- How does your target customers align with the previous company?
- Is the selling process the same? Was it more or less complex?
- What about the sales cycle – shorter or longer?
- Did the person come from a direct competitor? Red Flag here: That doesn’t guarantee success with your company.
- What do they need to perform their best? Can you meet that?
- What are your expectations compared to theirs? and their previous company?
- How is the support team similar or different?
Get it? A sales person is not a sales person is not a sales person.
Even after you carefully select the best fit for this territory – how do you avoid a sales person is not a sales person and gain a top performer and top producer out of the gate?
It is possible and it’s all about the onboarding process.
Sink or swim on boarding programs guarantee failure… Click To Tweet … or at least expect a longer time-to-performance ramp up.
This sink or swim on-boarding philosophy is to be eliminated at all costs.
Instead, embrace a structured ongoing and consistent process and your sellers will meet or beat their sales quotas.
Companies today cannot afford much of any downtime to performance. So even though it may take time to implement the right on boarding process, you gain higher retention and better time to performance. It’s worth it.
Here’s a perfect first 60 days onboarding process for your sales team:
Week 1:
- Meet all department managers
- Product familiarity
- Observe other sellers
- Participate in the weekly sales training meeting
Week 2:
- Pre call planning with sales manager
- Product familiarity
- Joint sales calls with sales manager
- Debrief calls with sales manager
- Participate in the weekly sales training meeting
Week 3:
- Pre call planning with sales manager
- Product familiarity
- Solo sales calls
- Friday, debrief week with sales manager
- Participate in the weekly sales training meeting
Week 4:
- Pre call planning with sales manager
- Joint sales calls with sales manager
- Debrief calls with sales manager
- Participate in the weekly sales training meeting
Week 5:
- Monday Pre call planning with sales manager
- Solo sales calls
- Friday, debrief week with sales manager
- Participate in the weekly sales training meeting
Weeks 6 – 7:
- One-one-One Coaching Session with sales manager
- Solo sales calls
- Friday, debrief week with sales manager
- Participate in the weekly sales training meeting
Week 8:
- Pre call planning with sales manager
- Joint sales calls with sales manager
- Debrief calls with sales manager
- Participate in the weekly sales training meeting
There are 4 basic themes in the on boarding process –
- One-one-one coaching
- Joint ride alongs
- Weekly skill builders
- Empowerment
Turn your “sales person is not a sales person” into a top performer with the right on-boarding program.
Want more? Bottom line: if you want to discover how your sales reps can crush their numbers monthly without spending tons of money on outsourced sales training, then check this out now!
