Boost Sales with Effective Strategies in Onboarding Forms

How to create outlook signature

hello and welcome to today's brief and are where we promise to be bright to be brief and to be done in 19 minutes or less today we're going to be talking about the topic of how to fight sales turnover using your onboarding strategy we're going to talk about how you can make sure you're putting your money your time your energy behind the right people the people are going to stick we're going to talk about why it's important to get your existing employees your existing team members in on the onboarding process early and here's what's key how to get them engaged we're going to talk about using onboarding as an opportunity for culture building and so much more my name is jeff brooks on the CEO of the Brooks group so I have the opportunity to guide and direct the organization from a strategic level and I'm drea Douglas director of talent management consulting I lead a team of consultants that help organizations hire develop and retain top sales talent so Adria I know you have a poll question for our audience to get us kicked off so what's that question yeah I wanted to ask you guys first you know we're all here today for fundamentally the same reason you know we value retention organizations value retention for different reasons so we want to hear from you what's the primary reason your organization values retention so you've got a couple of possibilities there are you all looking to reduce the costs of turnover or perhaps look at succession planning maybe you're thinking about how to improve your own company's energy or morale and maybe improving efficiency or something else so if we'll give you just a little bit of time to answer and then we'll take a look at what brings you here yeah responses are rolling in if you get a chance go ahead and take a look at that so the question again what is the primary reason your company values retention okay so five four three two one let's see what those answers are what brings people here okay it looks like number one number one from the group is to improve efficiency I hear you there and number two is reduction cost of turnover drea what do you think I think that's a very interesting result actually I would have guessed most people want to know or value attention to reduce the cost of turnover it looks like it flipped towards improved efficiency so I found that interesting personally well the good news is we are going to address all of these topics but we'll certainly spend a little bit more time on how the onboarding process can help improve efficiency and I think we're talking there about probably time to productivity which really brings us to the point here before we jump in the topic I think it's important to clarify the kinds of roles we're talking about here we are thinking about roles like sales and customer service inside sales outside sales for that matter you know administrative roles not necessarily the folks who are working in the warehouse or roles like that we're really talking about these kinds of positions where efficiency at submit to you really matters in other words the faster we can get somebody to productivity the better off we are so dreis drea I've got a question as I have the opportunity to talk to a lot of the clients and organizations that we we we get to work with we're probably represented in our audience there are a couple of ways that onboarding isn't working one is where there's no onboarding and the other is where it's perhaps too much tell us how it plays out in your experience for those organizations where there's not enough for no onboarding right well and people folks in our audience may have had this experience than their selves throughout their career where for example you show up on the first day and you spend the whole day filling out paperwork or you know no one's there to greet you at the front door and walk you to your desk or give you a tour of the office these are very simple basic things right now believe me we'll get to the meet soon where we have to cover these things at first but for those who may not be thinking about these things these are really important they have a huge impact in a person's impression of your organization so another thing that happens often times when there's no onboarding are that people are dropped into their work without being prepared so for exam well you've got a sales rep who's starting and the organization says okay we hired you you're you hired you because you of your vast experience you've been doing it for a long time here's your list of leads now go well and the functional result of having no onboarding or I mean let's be practical here very little is is is turnover right if if people aren't made to feel at some level welcome and then beyond that empowered to do their work as quickly as they possibly can you know turnover increases which of course eats into that efficiency so let's look at the other side of the coin as it were what happens when there is too much onboarding right and I think this is a concept that many people probably don't think about but oftentimes when organization does set their sights on onboarding it can go a little overboard if you will so that looks like a significant time spent in training especially classroom setting a person sitting at a in a chair looking up at a screen at slides that are very content heavy and expected to acquire a lot of information and really stuff that in there in a very short amount of time without without really allowing the opportunity for them to really marinate on that a process that information and/or to apply it in ways that are small but significant yeah I think that's key right it's about the opportunity to process and then critically apply what's learned so in other words using that information if you know we work with a number of organizations whose onboarding process can last many weeks and and certainly there's a lot of material to cover and important topics to touch on but if if new employees aren't given the chance to to work with the material to process it we're just not being as effective as as we could so let's take a look at sort of what a sample agenda might look like what should we be covering so if you're going build in time to there there's a place for that but if so when we're talking about setting your your new higher up for success here is one way you can do that it's by building out an hour-by-hour agenda this is a very basic or simple pared down version of what even at the Brooks group that might look like so day one they know they've got a team huddle our team meeting then they've got their office tour so basically this axe or serves to set the expectation for them so they have a full and productive first two days not just where do I go what do i do who should I talk to you what are my resources great and there are a couple of key points here number one and we're going to get into some aspects here I see a question coming in right now and the answer is the question is is it two days and you're done no not necessarily it depends on your organization is is our answer this is just a sample and the most critical element on this agenda by far is something I don't want to gloss over and that is the role of a mentor the research clearly shows the more engaged a mentorship program you have is the less the turnover you experience and the reason for that is fairly straightforward I think it's pretty obvious if people have somebody who's not their manager who's you know perhaps not even a direct pier but somebody who's been in the organization for a period of time and can help them navigate the hallways to to understand what appropriate inappropriate looks like we're where those questions can be answered in a safe environment their time to productivity and their likelihood of sticking around is key so you see on this sample agenda we have a couple of opportunities for lunch and meetings with the mentor didn't want to move past that but let's dig in a little go ahead dress to be clear we don't expect their day to end at two-thirty so I don't want anybody to think that that's the case you know this is just a sample snapshot of what one of those might look like good pick up I'd be a good good opportunity there good couple of days to go home now you're done I'd be very happy I'm sure alright so but you're really talking about starting the process well before that first day you're looking at two day to two weeks before the first day tell us a little bit about what how that plays a role if you would trail right so we encourage organizations to think about onboarding well ahead of time before the before the new hire gets there so the first thing you want to do is make sure that you announce the new hire to the team so depending on the size of the organization this could be your whole company this could be just the team that they're directly working on a department what have you the the team members should know this person's name it shouldn't be the first time they've heard their name when they first walk in the door they should also know the role they're going to play so what is this person's position and what's their purpose in the organization what what gap are they filling how are they going to help us meet our goals so the relevant parties that you might consider doing this for our their their managers obviously and relevant managers they would touch and their peers things like that yeah all of the folks who are who are playing a role and there's a key element here too and that's the idea of of setting expectations with those existing employees about what role they're going to be playing with the onboarding process for example here at the Brooks group they're sort of a cross-departmental team that we put together that takes a new a new member of our organization out to lunch on that first day so just setting that expectation making sure that people are aware of that of that role but let's talk about what happens a week before the first day drea alright so you know now you're counting down and this is a really good time to send out a package to your new hire and to reach out to them you know you can have an executive reach out either a two weeks or one week before to personally tell them how excited they are that they're joining the organization's they get that personal touch from the from the top people in the organization that that makes them feel welcome and like a valuable member of the team in the package that you might send them you would want to include that agenda so they know what to expect and they can prepare as well as any materials so in that welcome package you might consider answering questions like should I what time should i arrive you know even had the books group it's not necessarily obvious to somebody if they should you know be super early that might not be the best thing either so we actually I remember when I was hired I was asked to arrive 15 minutes late which I would never have expected at it because they hadn't last-minute things they need to put in place to make sure they were ready for me you know things like how should I dress if it's a business formal environment more casual just just to make sure that they know those things who will greet them and where should they park or into the building basic stuff like that it should also include any paperwork so they can fill that out and have it ready to hand you and they're not spending that first day on the job doing that stuff and then of course the agenda should be a part of that as well so you're setting the expectations for both the new hire and current employees regarding the onboarding process you're doing that you know in the lead up to that new person starting perfect and you know this time before the person starts is also great opportunity for perhaps a key executive to reach out and touch base with with a new hire and say hey welcome aboard we're glad to have you that really goes a long way in terms of building that sense of camaraderie in that sense of community and and continuing look we put it this way very often a new hire who's joining your organization is as enthusiastic about working with you and for you during those first few moments before they join and right after they get there as they ever will be it been romanced through the interview process they're excited about what's to come and so to maintain that look for opportunities you know as I said whether it's a key executive reaching out or the way this welcome sort of package is put together on boarding begins and reducing turnover begins well before that start day but let's get to it Draya tell us about these first two days of course now's your chance the time where things are really easy you know they execute that agenda so they show up they know exactly what's expected of them they know where to go who to talk to who they can ask questions of they've been assigned a mentor and you can start executing that agenda and this is a great opportunity for us to highlight you know an element that I think can certainly make a difference in the way you on board your sales professionals and that's to execute and to have a in place a strong sales process what we find is our clients who have implemented the impact selling system which is a linked sequential customer-focused sales process see onboarding that is faster that is more efficient that is easier to replicate simply because the steps inside that sales process what you expect your sales team to perform when they are working with your prospects and customers is more easily repeatable and so if that sounds like something that's interesting to you certainly reach out and let us know we've got a program coming up the seventh and eighth of December and Atlanta and certainly would make a difference as you're looking at onboarding new salespeople but let's let's take a look here Dre at the importance of continuing this idea of onboarding sure teaching culture I think that's a really associated with this first two days you know when it right when a person walks in your front door they're going to start gathering information or taking notice of what your culture is it's always there it always exists so you want to make sure that it is clearly defined you don't want them to be vague about what the culture is and one way you can do this is to recognize others inside the organization who model those behaviors so for example here at the Brooks group we have seven core values they are very well-defined they're very tight and specific and I believe Jeb you yourself worked very hard with the executive team to think about folks inside the organization who who really exemplified those characteristics who had to had done something recently into to illustrate those things to everybody else so that everybody knows and understands really what's to be expected yeah absolutely and I think this idea of of encouraging managers to deliver targeted coaching kind of speaks to this and the best way to introduce that on the front end of a relationship with a new employee is through story and to tell stories about what existing employees have done to live and breathe those core values here's what we mean look people leave organizations whether they voluntarily turn themselves over or you know they're asked to leave because of a mismatch of company values of core values and the better job you can do in the onboarding process of introducing them to those core values what I like to call the rules of engagement they're at a much higher likelihood of sticking around it's look you don't introduce those core values early and completely in that onboarding process you're asking people to play a game without having told them the rules of it and that's that's really not fair and it holds you back so as you said you know tightly define those core values it's not about just simply saying we have a core value of integrity what does that mean right it's about defining it with specific examples with with stories about what people have done and weaving that throughout the onboarding process spending as much time as it makes sense in your process to to do that so let me Draya pass it on on to you yeah you know and there are some other things here that I found interesting that I've noticed other organizations do to help facilitate a culture of retention really and that is to to conduct not only exit interviews which a lot of organizations already do but if you don't an exit interview is a great idea when people leave asking them to take the time to sit with somebody and have an interview about their experience working at the organization and why they left is helpful information to have but also stay interviews so with those folks who've been with your organization for a couple of years and seem have assimilated well and fit well within your organization of performed well consider conducting stay interviews with them and asking them so what is it what are the deal breaker what would be a deal breaker for you here at the organization or what do you love about working here what keeps you here to to help you define more clearly what it is exactly that gets people to stay alright so we are we are right up against the time here and so I'm afraid that these questions that have come in we will have to answer directly via email there are a couple here so if you've sent one in we will get it out to you via email but that said we want to say thank you so very much for taking the time to spend a brief 19 minutes or less with you it has been a pleasure having you today as our expert drea thank you for your time Thank You Deb and thank you of course to our audience we encourage all of you to stay in tune for our next brief and are in between now and then take a look at the impact selling public seminar scheduled for December seventh and eighth through there in Atlanta Georgia with that said I'm Jeb Brooks CEO of the Brooks group and I'm ji less director of talent management consulting thank you for joining us