A Tale of Two Onboardings

Scene 1

"Welcome to your first day, Salesperson."

"Thanks, Manager. I'm excited to get going and learn from you and my new colleagues. Who would you suggest I look to on the team for tips?"

"That would be, Mike."

"Thanks. Why, Mike?

"He's my best salesperson."

"Makes sense. What makes him the best?"

"He's got great relationships."

"Oh. Okay. Is that it?"

"Yes. He's got great relationships. I'll tell him you're going to ride with him for the new few days to learn the ropes."

-fin-

Scene 2

"Welcome to your first day, Salesperson."

"Thanks, Manager. I'm excited to get going and learn from you and my new colleagues. Who would you suggest I look to on the team for tips?"

"Definitely, Diane."

"Thanks. Why, Diane?"

"She knows her numbers and she follows a plan."

"You mean like her sales targets?"

"Oh, she has sales targets, but she is intensely focused on finding and closing deals between $10 and $20,000. Sure she closes some smaller and the occasional one that's larger, but as she says, 'I'd rather close three 10s than one 30 because I can close the 10s faster and grow them easier.'"

"That's what makes her successful?"

"Oh, no. She also knows how many first appointments she needs to get one close, how many conversations she needs to have to book one appointment and how many proactive prospecting activities she needs to do to get one conversation and she hits those numbers every single month."

"Wow, that sounds intimidating. I don't know where to start."

"Well, if I started off expecting you to be, Diane we'd both end up frustrated and you'd either quit or be fired. I believe you'll get to, Diane's level, but this is what we expect from you in terms of proactive activities, conversations and first appointments during your probation."

"I see it scales up pretty quickly, but it looks manageable."

"Yes, it does. Average salespeople in this company do the numbers we expect from you by the end of your first month. They often discover that they should go be more successful elsewhere."

"You fire them?"

"Some, yes, but we provide a lot of support in the form of coaching and role play until they show us that they're choosing to be average. 'Average' is code for 'poor.'"

"Ah, I get it. So what do you do for, Diane if she's got this system locked in?"

"I hold her accountable to those numbers and we have a weekly coaching session that's often mostly role play and we still do pre-call planning and post call debriefs."

"Cool. So where do I start?"

"I see you're expected to do 10 proactive activities this week including contacting your clients at your previous company. How's that sound?"

-fin-

Scene 2 probably sounds unrealistic. If you're starting at zero that's normal. Start by benchmarking your current team's activities to get a sense of what average and excellence looks like then build an onboarding schedule that you will iterate on with each new hire. "Set it and forget it" only works with a specific kitchen appliance. You onboarding, like your team, will grow and change over time.

Until next time... go lead.