Sales Onboarding to Ramp Sales Reps Faster and More Efficiently
When you’re crafting an onboarding strategy for your organization, you want to think about both the baseline onboarding that every new hire will receive (information about your values, benefits, and company history), but also the job-specific onboarding and training that will help them be successful in their new role. For sales reps in particular, an effective onboarding process will drive productivity, boost morale, and significantly boost your bottom line.
In this blog, we’ll walk you through key phases to include in your sales onboarding, pitfalls to avoid, and some metrics to measure sales onboarding success.
Let’s dive in!
What Is Sales Onboarding?
Sales onboarding is the process of introducing new sales reps to your organization and giving them the tools and resources they need to thrive. As with any onboarding process, we recommend you structure sales onboarding around a hyper personalized new hire experience and follow the 4 C model, covering compliance, clarification, culture, and connection (you can read more on that here).
First, you want to make sure your sales onboarding helps your reps become comfortable with internal tools and systems. Recent Hubspot research shows 71% of sales reps work in a hybrid environment, making clear communication, whether someone is remote or in-office, that much more critical.
Sales reps also need a well-structured onboarding that educates them on buyer pain points, products and services, and your company’s sales process. Get that right, and you can decrease ramp time and get to closing deals even more quickly.
Key Phases of the Sales Onboarding Process
Keep in mind the difference between onboarding and orientation. Sales rep orientation will last a couple of hours or days and walk them through your company policies and benefits. Sales onboarding is a long-term process that begins the moment that offer is signed and ideally continues throughout their first year on the job.
Let’s walk through some of the key phases to include in your sales onboarding process.
Preboarding
The first step to decreasing ramp time for your new rep is to maximize the time between offer signed and day one. You want to start building a connection between your sales rep and their hiring manager and get as much paperwork as you can out of the way.
Preboarding should include sending a welcome package with all the tools they need to hit the ground running, as well as a gift to reassure them that they made the right choice to join your company (keep in mind, other offers could come in before their official start!).
Share information about your company, role expectations, and introductions to their team and the company culture. You can also share a high-level overview of their first day, week, and month on the job, so they’re super clear on what to expect.
What will really make your company stand out is if you ask your new sales rep to share a little bit about themselves, like their favorite 3 p.m. munchie or favorite cuisine, and even a quick video introducing themselves to the team (Enboarder’s Video on the Go makes this super easy).
Day 1 Onboarding
For most companies, day one is all about orientation – showing your new hire around the office, introducing them to their team and co-workers, and checking off all the compliance bits. You want to make your new sales rep feel welcomed and confident in their decision to join your company.
If they’re starting at your office, surprise them with their 3 p.m. munchie on their desk and take them out for a welcome lunch at a restaurant that serves their favorite cuisine. These personalized touches ensure your sales rep starts on the right foot from the very start.
Product and Market Training
You want your sales rep to know your product inside and out, and onboarding should give them a solid grounding of product knowledge. Hubspot shares some really great ideas for product training, including role-swap exercises, gamification with interactive quizzes, and attending industry conferences.
Sales Process Training
A significant portion of your sales onboarding should cover your sales methodology – the series of steps your sales team uses to sell to prospects. This will teach them how to nurture leads from potential customers to converted buyers.
Shadowing and Coaching
Especially with more sales reps working in a hybrid or remote setting, you’ll want to set them up for success by connecting them with your most seasoned sales team members and/or internal and external trainers.
Ongoing Development
A helpful way to think about ongoing development for your sales reps is to craft a 30, 60, 90 day plan with clear milestones for learning the product and business, implementing what they’ve learned, and refining their sales process based on ongoing feedback.
Common Pitfalls in Sales Onboarding (And How to Avoid Them)
Overloading New Hires with Too Much Information
We’re all inundated with notifications all day long – the average American smartphone user receives 45 notifications per day. So if you frontload your sales onboarding with too much information, it’s bound to get lost in the noise. Pace out your communications and training so you get the desired impact.
Lack of Follow-Up After Initial Onboarding
Ideally, onboarding should last well into your sales rep’s first year on the job. You’ll want to integrate surveys and gather feedback on what’s working well and anything that might be missing in their onboarding. You’d be amazed at what you learn just by asking!
Not Leveraging Onboarding Software
Onboarding software like Enboarder can automate the whole sales onboarding process – delivering immediate ROI and saving you precious time so you can focus on more strategic work. In fact, Zapier was able to save 86 work weeks by using Enboarder!
Ignoring the Role of Culture in Sales Team Success
How your new sales rep feels about their role and your company has a direct impact on their performance. If they don’t feel like they belong and morale is low, that will inevitably influence their interactions with prospects. Use creative onboarding ideas, team-building activities (like Enboarder’s Connection Networking Game below), and buddy systems to really bring your culture to life during sales onboarding.
Failing to Update Onboarding Materials and Processes
Your sales onboarding process is only as effective as its ability to evolve with your company, your product, and broader market trends. Whether you need to educate sales reps on new features, pricing changes, or sales process updates, you want to make sure your sales onboarding can easily be adjusted on the fly (thankfully, Enboarder’s no code builder makes this super simple).
Lack of Personalized Onboarding
If you want to improve employee engagement and productivity, your entire sales onboarding process should be designed with your sales rep’s success in mind. Onboarding is not about what you need from your sales rep, but what information, tools, and people will get them up to speed and selling as soon as possible. For example, a seasoned rep should have a slightly different onboarding than a rep early in their career or just out of college.
Metrics for Measuring Sales Onboarding Success
How do you know if your sales onboarding process is actually working? Start measuring! Here are some metrics to track:
- Time to First Sale: How quickly are new hires closing their first deal?
- Ramp Time to Full Productivity: How long does it take for a new rep to meet their sales quota consistently?
- Retention Rate: Are your new hires staying for the long term?
- Training Completion Rates: Are reps completing all their required onboarding training within the expected timeframe?
- New Hire Satisfaction Scores: How do new hires rate their onboarding experience in feedback surveys?
Use Enboarder to Automate Your Sales Onboarding
Successful sales onboarding is about much more than checking off a list of training sessions. It’s about creating a structured yet flexible process that connects your new sales reps to your mission and the tools and information they need to be successful.
Ready to see how Enboarder can reduce your ramp time and get your sales reps to sell faster?