How to Prepare the First Day of your Sales New Member?

The first day of a salesperson’s new membership is essential. There are many things the new member should do to prepare for the meeting, including preparing a briefcase with the company’s information, reviewing the company’s policies and procedures, and rehearsing their pitch.

Onboarding is necessary because it’ll help both the employees and the organization. For employees, it is a time to learn about the company, their new roles, and what are expected of them on the job. For sales organization, it is a time to ensure that the new employees have an excellent first impression and are provided the right resources to set them up for success.

Based on research, 46% of new sales employees leave their job within 18 months. The good news is that there is a way to minimize the risk of early departure. In this article, you’ll learn the tips for making the first day of your new sales hires a great success. These tips include:

Tips ♯1: Make Learning Easier For Them 

New hires often show great enthusiasm towards absorbing many information about their new company and roles that can help them integrate into the company culture quickly. This is why it becomes necessary for you, as a sales leader, to have the employee handbook on ground for them and make them read it. 

The handbook caters to the human resources section of the company. It might not be possible to retain 100% of the knowledge you accumulate during the employee onboarding process. Thus, the company can provide some resources and reference guides that you can use to refresh the new employee’s memory on the fly.

Before a new rep comes on board, the company should work to build a document detailing everything about the company and the job responsibilities. With this, they won’t be surprised by any responses from potential customers and can respond more positively to many objections. 

With a sales playbook, the new sales rep will have all the tools they need to succeed on the job. In the document, you should cover all the job responsibilities and examples of sales scripts that your leading sales reps have utilized successfully previously.

Tips ♯2: Explain the Issues and Goals

It’s vital for new hires to feel comfortable in their new position. There’s a need to understand the company’s issues and goals. Explain to new employees where to get more information about the product and the company in their sales calls. It’s assumed that engaged sale members (new or existing) are more likely to be more productive in any sales organization. 

You can also emphasize your company culture and cover foundational lessons about your sales organization. Creating time to have in-depth conversations about the essential issues early in the onboarding process will achieve a better long-term result. 

Put in place step-by-step directions to provide regular guidance on your company’s sales process. This will help increase their understanding of your processes and implications of a sale. It’ll also increase their sense of belonging and connection to the new sales environment which nullifies the fear of dismissal in their minds.

Tips ♯3: Prepare Answers To Potential Questions

You need to understand that your new sales hire come from different companies, and they’re used to different styles of selling. To have a successful onboarding, your existing employees should treat their fellow new salespeople as they’d treat a prospect. Your experienced salespeople who have been on the job could be a great source of information and support to the new hires. 

Pairing them with these knowledgeable salespeople on your team to train them will allow them to look for common areas to help build rapport. At the end of the first day, you can ask them questions about the training given to them to assess their sales knowledge level. The new hire should be able to answer your questions easily using the provided responses from the manual.  

New sales reps can also ask questions such as what your customers are like, which sales strategy works and doesn’t work, how performance is measured, the goals of the week, and the best way to communicate. It’ll help them understand how the company’s product works and how to present it to potential customers. It’ll prevent them from being vulnerable, out of their element, stressed, and eager to please. 

Tips ♯4: Start the Sales Enablement Process Before Day One

It would be best to prepare your new sales member to hit the ground running right from day one. Part of an effective onboarding process is sending your recent sales hires a welcome package with a sketch of how their first few days will be and adequate resources to prep them ahead.

On their first day, every new rep should understand your company’s culture and leadership, offerings, values and mission, critical differentiating points, and other important information.

You can message your reps to come to their first day of work with intelligent questions for their superiors based on your company’s research. This will help them to get to know their manager better. With a prior conversation, you’ll be able to establish a strong foundation for the coaching relationship.

Tips ♯5: Follow a Formal Onboarding Process

For your new salespeople to be effective, you should avoid throwing them into the pool and expecting them to swim. Create a formal, milestone-based onboarding process that’ll provide the framework which will enable them to succeed within your sales organization quickly. 

A successful onboarding process should include:

• Setting time-based goals for content and skills mastery.
• Establishing expectations for new rep participation in the process.
• Guiding both the representative and the manager through the process.
• Entailing clear checkpoints to measure progress.

You can also give them a solid setup by configuring the new employee’s email accounts and getting their computer ready before their duty resumption date. This will help them focus on selling rather than worrying about administrative tasks.

Make use of 30, 60, and 90 days plans in your onboarding program with scheduled check-ins. It’ll enable you to evaluate the new rep’s progress and determine what’s going well, what’s not going well, and what type of targeted coaching will help improve them further. Not only that, you should show your new employees their workstation on Day One. It’ll help communicate to them that you want them there.

Tips ♯6: Establish Expectations and Provide Training and Support

For members of your sales team to be influential, they need to know what defines “success” in your organization. Ensure that your sales leaders set expectations and communicate them clearly to new sales reps at the onset and enforce them continuously.

To ensure that your team members meet their objectives, you must provide them with adequate knowledge and tools needed to be successful. A training program must educate new sales hires on an unswerving sales process. You can also use videos and collaboration tools to encourage conversation and interaction.

The world is now global, and you can move with the trend by putting in place quality online sales training. It’ll help train new hires and update them with the rest of the team. Not only that, you can teach them social selling skills – that is the practice of using social media and social networks for selling. It’ll help to drive more leads and prove authority. When you can prove authority to your potential customers, they’ll consider you a thought-leadership in the field. 

Tips ♯7: Have New Reps Shadow Senior Reps

The first six tips should have given you an insight into how the onboarding process works. The last step is to provide some time for your new reps to shadow experienced representatives on sales calls. They can serve as a mentor to them and allow them to see your processes and systems in real-time. It’ll also make them feel comfortable with your work environment.

They can follow the senior reps around while going about their daily sales tasks, chatting with prospects, proffering solutions to issues, sending cold emails, or cold calling potential customers. It’s, however, advisable that it should last throughout the first year. It’ll motivate the new hire to strive to be a future mentor.

Brief your current team members on how essential it’s to participate in the sales onboarding process and encourage new hires to observe. Notify them that they can ask questions from their sales manager later without the fear of ridicule or dismissals as they all belong to the same place. Afterward, you can tell them to draw their conclusions and practice customizing things their way.

Takeaway: Create a “welcome” meeting for your entire sales team. Tell them to write a story or tip on “What I wish I should have done better when I was new.” It’ll expose new reps to motivating stories and helpful tips directly from the field.

Conclusion

In conclusion, making a great first impression on the members of your new sales is essential to their success. Planning and preparing for the first day will help them feel welcome and confident in their new role. Setting some goals and establishing a routine will help them feel like they are part of the team and make them more productive right from the start.

Interested in learning more about scaling your sales team while successfully maintaining your conversion rate, team motivation and engagement? At SaleDeck, we provide you with tools and resources to improve the efficiency of your sales team. 

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