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hey everybody welcome back to sales performance improvement radio i'm your host terry hansen it's great to be back with you once again excited to spend some time with you today talking a little bit about uh the onboarding and orientation process that a lot of companies have or don't have when they're onboarding brand new sales reps this is a really an area that that i think every company in the in the country has the best intentions to do things right but by and large research and studies show that that 70 percent of companies out there have an onboarding and orientation process for their sales reps that's really lacking in many areas and because of that because the onboarding process isn't that great isn't well architected and mapped out they're not setting their sales reps up for success that means the ramp up time is taking longer it's taking longer for the sales uh the sales people to to pay for themselves to get productive to really hit their sales quotas so there's a lot of arguments and a lot of good reasons why we as sales operations and sales enablement experts where we've got to go back to sales uh sales orientation and onboarding and look at what we can do to supercharge that and really really do a good job there so in this particular episode i want to share with you five tips for onboarding new sales reps and i hope you'll take these to heart so can't wait to share these with you let's cue up the theme song and i'll check back with you here in just a second for over 15 years i ran a successful outsourced sales enablement and consulting firm before it was acquired by rise holdings in 2020 but while i was able to help hundreds of my own clients improve their sales productivity marketing effectiveness and grow their revenue the sales growth game is always changing every year brings new challenges to growing sales as technology competition economic conditions and customer buying behavior change in these turbulent times how do you improve sales and marketing and grow revenue when you're new to your leadership position or you don't have the right resources in place or you're just battling dysfunction inside your own company that's the question and this podcast will give you the answers these days i'm on a new quest to discover what's working in today's dynamic sales and marketing environment and bringing those treasures and insights back to you my name is terry hansen and this is sales performance improvement radio okay so let's dive in um i think all of us have probably had the experience at one point in time in our careers or another where we've interviewed for a position we've gotten a job and the onboarding process really hasn't been that great it's always kind of akin to kind of uh you know walking you around the facility or the company introducing you to a couple of people sitting you down in the conference room having you on the first day fill out all sorts of new higher paperwork and then basically after that kind of throwing you and i into the deep end and saying good luck i hope you learn how to swim if you need anything give us a call et cetera and you kind of have to learn on the fly what the core duties and responsibilities uh that that you as a brand new employee have i think everybody's had that kind of an experience in the past and i think we can all agree that that there's uh while there's some merits to learning on the fly and and kind of uh learning as you go uh there's a whole there's a whole host of opportunities that we have to to really empower and strengthen and enable our new hires for success let me give you an example uh going back gosh at this point 25 plus years when i was in my early 20s back in 1998 i had the chance to audition uh for an acrobatic and stunt performer role at walt disney world in orlando florida and um so i auditioned in las vegas and found out a couple of weeks couple months later that i had gotten the position and i originally had auditioned for the indiana jones epic stunt spectacular role it um at uh at disney world but when the casting director called he said hey we're opening up a brand new theme park called the animal kingdom and we've got an acrobatic and and uh stunt roles in these in this show do you want to be in and i said absolutely so i packed up all of my earthly belongings in my 1984 green volkswagen jetta and my older brother and i set out from idaho i drove all the way across the country to florida and once we arrived i got checked in and and started my onboarding and orientation process now walt disney world disney company is obviously a world-class organization and they do things right and they did a lot of right things with my own personal onboarding i remember week number one we in the morning we had kind of a classroom style onboarding session where there were several of us that were brand new employees at the time and we kind of sat in a classroom style there was a facilitator there and uh and and she talked to us a lot about the history of the company and about the culture and how um guests that would come into the parks they were just that guests they were there on vacation uh disney was the happiest place on earth and and each employee had a had an important responsibility to provide these guests with world-class magical experiences and because uh uh because the uh disney was really the happiest place on earth each employee were were considered cast members cast members like in a show like in the theatrical production and so we were all cast members we weren't employees we weren't team members we weren't you know just regular people we were cast members we were part of something special and since we were since we were cast members there was such a thing as being on stage and off stage anytime you were in front of a guest you were considered on stage and as a character on stage you had a uniform you had a persona you had an attitude and you exemplified all the best things that disney had to offer but you were when you were backstage or not in front of guests you could be out of character you could get out of your uniform in costume et cetera uh but they grilled into this culture of being on stage versus off stage being cast members and being part of a a unique uh providing a unique guest experience for all of the guests well so uh the classroom style learning we had we had discussions we had kind of round tables there was q a there was games we had trivia they handed out these little award prizes if you answered questions correctly these little disney rubber plastic figurines of goofy and minnie and donald and and whatnot and so you kind of collect those as little mementos and it was a lot of fun but after the morning session of kind of classroom style learning was over then we would change clothes as acrobats and stunt performers we'd change clothes and go over to the rehearsal studio where we'd start rehearsing the show now this was of course much much more hands-on we were you know tumbling we were doing corey dance choreography we were memorizing lines we were on the stage we're doing things and just physically going through the motions of learning our roles and our parts etc well as the park got ready to open and as things were going closer we got we our rehearsals did you know got more and more full instead of just practicing segments of the show we did whole run-throughs and then we had guests come and watch we would tour the different parts of the park and and so our our gradual immersion into disney and into our role and what we'd be doing kind of had this kind of um it kind of escalated it kind of had this evolutionary thing but it was a full body experience involving the mind the body the senses the everything it was it had it was kind of a multi-dimensional experience and so really when the park when animal kingdom opened up day one we were fully on board and that whole process took actually less than two months less than two months from the time that i arrived in orlando florida to the time that the park opened up we had you know shows rehearsed fully on board ready to go and whatnot and there's a lot of lessons that can be learned from disney in a variety of ways but particularly particularly as it relates to onboarding let me share with you five tips five key insights from this experience at disney and what you and i as sales operations sales enablement sales managers and executives we can do to really empower and strengthen and support our brand new sales reps as they're coming on board so tip number one is recognize that not all sales roles are created equal it is a mistake to try to have a single onboarding process for all of your sales roles meaning you should not treat your aes your account executives the same way as you treat your sdrs your sales development reps and you should not treat your sales development reps the same way as you might treat your account managers right each type of sales role deserves frankly its own unique track its own unique program or process now granted probably eighty percent of the onboarding process could be the same for all sales roles but that remaining twenty percent maybe thirty percent or forty percent needs to be unique and individualized for each of those particular sales roles so do me a favor tip number one is differentiate and segment your sales roles into their own kind of unique buckets and have eighty percent or sixty percent or seventy percent of the onboarding process be the same but leave that 20 30 40 percent unique for them so don't just treat all of your sales people the same way put them on unique and individual tracks so different tracks different sales positions different onboarding processes okay make sense that's number one number two and disney did the same thing you know whether we were whether there were dancers or acrobats or character performers or people working in food and beverage or at the resorts or or ride operators everybody had a different track disney did not treat everybody the same in that in that sense tip number two is take the time to actually be an architect put on your architect and designer hat get a white board get a scratch piece of paper out and brainstorm in bullet point fashion everything that you would want to have covered and and focused on during the onboarding and orientation process for a brand new sales person get it all out on paper just whiteboard it out get everything all out there and then start chunking it down into days day one day two day three day four day five and uh and so take the time really to to draft it out write down a complete schedule day one you know starting at eight a.m uh from eight a.m to nine a.m this thing from nine a.m to ten a.m this thing right actually block it out by time time chunks time blocks each day of the week for for the first two weeks so be intentional and actually architect design and draft and come up with a good plan broken down by time use maybe a calendar like an excel spreadsheet or a calendaring uh a tool that you can actually just you know create a week one and week two calendar but when you do that that forces you to become very detail-oriented and and set up a little bit of a choreography this thing would need to come before that thing and that thing needs to come before this thing right it forces you to think about cadence and chronology and choreography and sequencing and that's important when it comes to onboarding what comes first second third fourth fifth so take the time tip number two to write down a complete schedule for the first two weeks of your new sale uh your new hire your new sales hire tip number three tip number three is um it is important to focus on different levels of onboarding and i've got a little bit of a a a diagram think of a think of uh maybe four four concentric four circles inside of each other on the outer circle you might focus on the external environmental industry related things for example you might you might focus on you might focus on having them do some research on competitors or industry trends or customer needs or economic or political conditions or technology things that are outside the company that's kind of at the really the macro level the big picture level then the the next circle inside might be related to the company itself the company itself so think about uh maybe going over the company vision the mission statement the values the corporate strategies the goals uh who the stakeholders are the culture the products the services the policies procedures all of those kinds of things that are just kind of the same for everybody company-wide makes sense then the third circle that used you kind of get closer and closer to the center might be specifically related to the sales position the job description itself that's where you might go over specific expectations of that position special tools and resources and compensation plans processes uh maybe working conditions or technology or other other specific things you're just unique to that position and then finally the the very center circle that you might get to is the person themselves the sales rep themselves and here's where you might focus your your onboarding process on their own personal level of knowledge their skill level themselves their unique abilities and capabilities their motives and desires their their expectations for the position so think about these four different levels uh starting at the beginning of the orientation process focusing on the macro level the big picture external environmental level and as the days kind of go by you're you're you're you're going into those circles second to the company level and third to the sales position itself level and then finally to the sales rep level themselves so make sure you incorporate at least these these four levels of information at certain points throughout the onboarding process so that's kind of tip number three that i would recommend for you tip number four would be is recognize that um that every every person learns in different ways not everybody is a visual learner not everybody likes to read not everybody likes hands-on things not everybody likes to sit through lectures so incorporate in your onboarding process a diverse variety of ways to conduct your onboarding process let me give you some examples um you might have for example you might give you might give your your new hire um an opportunity to do some self-guided research online they might do some self-guided study on their own reading things on their own so self-guided learning and research is a great method to help orient and onboard somebody another one is maybe just think about a classroom classroom setting like disney had where there's one facilitator a group of people all together and you're facilitating a group conversation that's another great way you interact with others you interact with the facilitator but another way might be just a one-on-one session just a you know the the manager and the new sales rep just a one-on-one session that's a great environment to onboard and work with somebody uh a third a third or fourth would be is having the having the new sales rep attend some internal meetings they could be sales production meetings they could be um you know planning sessions they could be anyway but having them interact with other team members in a in a company meeting session a great tool to use for the onboarding process another one would be call shadowing so as other sales reps are making outbound phone calls or they're on zoom calls where they're closing sales or doing demos or something like that having your new sales rep shadow another sales rep that's a great simple way to get them involved and have them uh have them learn more about what to do and how to do it consider also using role play everybody knows what role plays are but consider using that sort of a tactic during your onboarding process to test knowledge to test skills and inabilities and adjust and uh and practice where where needed there think about giving them the opportunity to make their own cold calls to write up their own scripts to send out their own emails and interact directly with customers while being observed and watched so they sell you watch observe and then give them feedback so having real live customer interactions another great deal but also don't forget simple things like assessments and quizzes give them give them give them a test give them a quiz and have them answer questions and grade them and you know give them high fives for the things that they did right and and evaluate and teach and help educate them on the things that they didn't do so good there but remember that that people are either very visual oriented they like movies and videos and pictures and images or they are auditory in nature they like talking through things and how things sound and and again discussing things that's that's the second kind of modality for learning third is people have a tendency to read and write they do best if they can just get the information read and they can write and take notes people learn well that way as a third modality and fourth is the kinesthetic the hands-on some people are just more hands-on experiential learners so make sure you incorporate visual components auditory components reading and writing components and hands-on components to your onboarding process and when you have that degree of kind of diversity and variability you ensure that people frankly don't get bored but also that they um that you're catering to their whatever kind of learning modality or style that they might have okay so just to review where we've come from tip number one is to make sure to have to segment your sales roles and have different onboarding tracks and programs designed for each one number two is to make sure to architect and design and actually write down your week one and week two schedules you know hour by hour now tip number three is make sure you're focusing on at least four levels of orientation external company uh sales role and then sales rep so going from you know big picture to little picture fourth tip is is make sure to use multiple elements involved in the onboarding process recognizing that people learn in different ways so use a variety of different methods and fifth and final tip is to evaluate how well the onboarding process is working how do you do that well you onboard a brand new sales rep 30 days later you evaluate how well they are doing against the expectations their 30-day expectations so step number one that you would need to do is obviously make sure you've got 30 60 and 90-day expectations in place for their sales activity an example might be is you know a day at uh after the first month they should be able to confidently make 50 outbound phone calls every single day with with maybe a connection rate of something like 10 you know but after 60 days or after 90 days those numbers might increase and the conversion rates might get better and and so forth and so on so have some clear expectations at the 30 60 90 day mark and then after you've onboarded a new sales rep then check them at the 30 day 60 day and 90 day marks and compare how their actual performance is doing their sales activity and and sales whether or not they're hitting their quotas and that sort of thing measure how well those things are going against expectations and if they're right on the money great you get the sense that your onboarding processes is is doing well but if they're off or if their sales activity is off and if they're if there's a gap between their current performance and the expectations then you might need to adjust your on-boarding process add some more things in or take some other things away or or do things a certain you know differently but these are the five tips and five keys that really the best companies out there on the planet exemplify including disney and i'll never forget my experience working with them i felt like disney just did such a great job at empowering me enabling me and setting me as a performer up for success and because of that you know i was able to hit the ground running really day one as soon as the parks opened up and that's really what i want for your sales reps uh on there after their onboarding process is done that they're hitting the ground running that they're hitting their quotas fast that their ramp up time is really short and that they're quick to get to that that profitability and that productivity level that you want them to be at so take a second peek at your onboarding and orientation process take a look at how you can incorporate and use these five tips to improve and kind of shake up and and optimize uh your your onboarding process to make sure that you're you're ramping your sales reps uh to the best ability so anyway great to be with you guys if you've enjoyed this particular episode be sure to uh like and comment and subscribe all those regular things and be sure to check us out every single week on sales performance improvement radio and post your comments and questions down below what other topics do you want to make sure we focus on to get the most out of your time and i know your time is precise precious and you've got lots of things to do and really i'm dedicated and focused a hundred percent to making sure that this podcast and these uh and these shows are are each episode really is is is is game changing for you inside your company so keep up the good work can't wait to be back with you once again on the next episode of sales performance improvement radio take care we'll see you soon bye [Music] you