The Least Sexy Way to Help Your Team Succeed

Feeling behind on revenue after last quarter? Lots of you hired new reps last quarter and are hoping they'll deliver - if they don't, you'll never make plan.

But odds are you're neglecting one key way to make them succeed.

It's not sexy.

In fact, it's the opposite of sexy.

I'm talking about effective onboarding.

I'll bet that for most of you who are running sales teams at early-stage SaaS companies, your onboarding process could be summarized in three words:

Sink

Or

Swim

I know because I've been at companies like that. Maybe new AEs pick up some things from existing AEs. Maybe they don't.

Here's how it hurts: Bad onboarding lengthens the ramp time that it takes new AEs to become productive and lowers the percentage that ever sell anything.

This could cause you to miss your goal.

So how do you do better?

Follow four steps:

1. Define your core sales challenges: What hurdles do great reps overcome to sell great deals to your ICP customers?

2. Create a hypothetical prospect: This is an ICP customer that presents all of those sales challenges.

3. Build simulated sales conversations: Have new reps practice your major sales conversations by selling to your hypothetical prospect.

4. Implement the plan: Doing this well DOESN'T require a ton of resources, but it DOES require that you're organized.

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If you liked this article, have a look at our piece on Action-Focused Onboarding to see how to set your new hires up for success. You can also check out the P.S.I. Selling Content Page for more insights on sales communication, strategy, and leadership.

Want to build a sales process that proves value and a team that can execute? Get in touch.

For more about the author, check out Mike's bio.