Over the last few months several CEO’s have told me they have a “great on-boarding process.” When I press them to show me the documentation, it doesn’t exist. Sometimes the on-boarding is left to HR or the Office Administration with help from Sales Leadership. Always, it is not efficient or effective for sales people and most importantly, for the CEO or the company.
Although I am providing you with a few tips for developing an on-boarding process, it is not enough to create an effective on-boarding process for your next salesperson. It should however get you to consider what and how you on-board you salespeople.
- Get the hire correct. We call the costs of salespeople who have failed Sales Ghosts. Free Sales Ghost Calculator This is critical to match up your needs with hiring the right person. By the way, we can help you with that.
- Have a Written Plan. The first 90 days are critical. Tips 3 through 8 help with an outline of the plan.
- Clear expectations. Activities, Reporting, Revenue, Behaviors, CRM. You cannot get upset because someone did something you did not tell them they could not do.
- Sales Process. Make sure the new hire understands the cadence of your sales process and why the CRM is important. You have a CRM with the sales process in it, right?
- Access to Company Information. Where do they find the marketing materials. The product data sheets. The restroom. Tell them to whom they should gather information in the future.
- Get them in the game. If you hired the right salesperson, you should be able to them up to speed on the basics of your product very quickly. Some good messaging for their targets and the good salespeople can get to work. Get them on the phone right away. Let them bring a technical person with them later as needed.
- Product. Help them understand what problems your product solves, and why the prospect cares about the solutions. Your sales team should be selling solutions, not widgets. They need to know the good questions, the tough questions and the great questions that they should be asking. This does not require them to learn all your features and benefits. Your website will do that for the buyer.
- Human Resource Forms. This is important, and should be done the first day; but give the new hire most of the forms in advance. They bring in most of them completed and review at the end of the day.
- Evaluate Quickly. If you did make a mistake with the hire, end it quickly. Hoping something gets better, is not a plan. Our clients are armed with data about which competencies the new hire needs support, and we get it right 95% of the time. If something new pops up, we look at it with great vigor to determine if there is a problem.
- Continuous Improvement. If you need to hire three sales people and will bring them on at different times, the third on-boarding process should be a bit smoother and the ramp up time should be shorter. Track the success of your new hires over the first 12 months.
By the way, we can help you with all of these issues. It starts with a business conversation about what you want to achieve.
