Sales Readiness
Help New Sales Recruits Close Their First Deal In Less Than 3 Months
%
almost 45% of B2B companies have a turnover of over 30%
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after 60 days, 80% of the content of a training course is no longer retained by the sales person
months is the average time taken to develop the skills of salespeople
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months is the time it takes for a new recruit to be fully operational
Find out the story of Laurent that have issues with the performance of his new recruits
Can we shorten the time it takes for new sales reps to close their first deal? Laurent asked Marcel.
“Our last hires took 4 months to achieve that”, he went further “$2,000 was invested yearly to train each of them, and when I checked, only 3 out of 10 hit their sales quota. And 2 of those left after their first 2 years with us, that’s hours of sales training they took along with them.”
The use case
Who is Laurent ?
Laurent is the VP of Sales of an enterprise SaaS company where Marcel works as a Sales Executive. He’s been at the company for years and watches on as sales reps walk in and out of the door despite investing heavily in sales training that yields little return.
Each rep invests hours into watching videos, reading books and attending events from sales experts. 3 months on, only a few of them can remember what was learnt. And the familiar “learn and forget” cycle repeats itself.
Not only is the company paying heavily for training, but the sales team is also wasting prime selling hours on workshops and sessions that don’t directly increase revenue.
The problem
This made Laurent woried
Perhaps you believe 3-month ramp time is a norm, and you’ve done great if your sales team can stick to this duration.
You might be shocked to know that sales companies are beginning to defy every odd to shorten customer ramp time to as little as one month.
A good example is Chorus.io, whose newest sales rep exceeded expectations in closing their first deal in 21 days.
And we have another example in ChowNow whose sales rep did the same in 6 weeks, according to a report from Revenue.io. Such results signify that 3-months ramp time is simply a myth that has to be debunked.
With the advent of advanced AI tools, it’s possible to cut expected ramp time by half.
But how can you do so?
Before we answer that, here are some interesting statistics you should know about sales training:
84% of Sales Training is Forgotten within three months – Spotio
Studies show that knowledge gained from sales training rarely sticks beyond 3 months. This is clearly a heartbreak for companies who rely heavily on training to prepare new hires for the job. Unfortunately, not all training can be transferred to the sales environment, and when that happens, salespeople are forced to rely on logic rather than strategy.
%
After 60 days, 80% of the content of a training course is no longer retained by the sales person
Quizzed on the secret behind their record sales time, Chorus.io newest sellers – Amanda Jones and Julie Cole, attributed their success to two factors:
In-depth customer and product knowledge
Collaboration with top sales reps
According to Amanda, the trick is for a new sales rep to align with the top performers in the team to identify sales emotions and behaviors that lead to conversion. Modeling off the activities of top performers minimizes beginner’s errors the same way mentees model off their mentors to shorten the learning cycle.
This way, sales teams can focus on the most critical aspect of conversion, rather than memorizing boring scripts that are forgotten as soon as they enter the meeting room.
While both factors Amanda mentioned are essential, it’s challenging to shorten ramp time by half without the help of an AI sales tool. That’s the difference between companies that take up to 3 months and those that do so in half of that time.
If you’re ready to let technology lend you a helping hand in onboarding new sales reps, SalesDeck is an innovative tool designed for that purpose. Not only does SalesDeck help provide the needed facilities for quickly getting new sales reps up to speed, but it also helps you deliver engaging sales conversations over videos.
SalesDeck
Core Requirement for Sale Readiness with SalesDeck
There are 3 items required to reduce ramp time with SaleDeck. They are – A winning sales process or methodology, a lineup of top performers and your new hires.
Winning Sales Process
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel; if you already have a proven strategy that delivers results, this will be the roadmap and playbook your new hires will follow during a sales meeting with clients. This pathway is designed in the form of a deck with cards that contain some bits of information that will be utilized during customer sales calls.
Our core belief is that if nothing is broken, there is no need to fix it – meaning, if a process is bringing the most conversion, teaching the same to your newest sales rep will help them minimize errors.
A lineup of Top Performers
Your top performers are those who have exceeded expectations. They’ve made all possible mistakes, and were able to figure out what works and what doesn’t. They were a part of the journey towards discovering the best conversion pathway for your business.
They’ve also closed the most deals and have the secret ingredient to converting leads to customers. They’ve done it so many times and have lost count. These are the guys that will design the process with the recruit on SalesDeck.
New Recruits
These are the receivers of the sales training and the ones who need to master the sales process designed within SalesDeck. The aim is to get them to full speed in less than 3 months.
The solution
Bringing New Sales Hires to Full Speed in Less Than 3 Months Using SalesDeck
You have all your requirements set; your high performers have committed to at least one month of training with the recruits, and your new reps just reported for their first day.
All is set; what next?
First, keep in mind that this training process will be different from the traditional method, where the learning environment is entirely different from the meeting environment. Since you will carry out all procedures on SalesDeck, it’s easy to transfer sales training into sales practice.
Our sales-readiness plan models the same one utilized by the new reps at Chorus.io to close their first deal in 21 days but we also made some additions that will enable your new reps to quickly go from learning everything about the product and customers to closing deals.
Since this is a practical hands-on onboarding process, sales reps hardly suffer from the forgetfulness curve, which hits 30 – 120 days after the training is concluded.
Salesdeck’s Sales readiness
Salesdeck’s Sales readiness plan is broken into 4 stages:
Product and customer intelligence, sales process design, role acting, and closing the deal.
Stage 1: Product and Customer Intelligence
In the first stage, the focus is getting your new reps familiar with the product and customer. The top performers make new reps aware of the customers’ expectations, objections, needs, and existing solutions.
This stage slowly doubles down on product offerings and the competitive landscape.
What does our product offer that the competition doesn’t?
What’s our unique selling proposition?
Who are our best customers?
And…
Why did our present customers choose us over the alternatives?
Since new hires won’t communicate directly with customers, the top performers will serve as their main information source by feeding them with customer data and critical insights gathered from hours of customer meetings.
Stage 2: Sales Process Design
Stage 1 ends with the lowdown about the product, but stage two is where the dirty work begins. The top performers work with the user of SalesDeck to represent their sales process in a deck while the recruits watch on.
The top performers design a deck that aims to convert leads to users or customers. Depending on the company’s sales process, some of the cards you will add to the deck includes the objection cards, meeting start cards, questions and answer cards, agenda validation cards, closed deal cards and host control cards.
There’s no use in memorizing scripts. Each sales rep will be given enough room to understand how the deck works and how to initiate deep conversations with customers using the cards in their deck.
But it doesn’t end with just showing the reps what to do, stage 3 is designed to test their understanding of SalesDeck.
Stage 3: Role Acting
After your new rep has been taught how to use the company’s sales process on SalesDeck, it’s time to have a mockup sales call. During this call, one of the top performers assumes the role of the customer on SalesDeck, while the new rep uses the strategy they’ve been taught in stage 2 to close them.
The top performer will mimic the behavior of idea buyers in this mockup call – common questions, objections, red flags and purchase signals they’ve seen customers raise in meetings. This mockup prepare sellers for the task ahead.
We believe if the sales rep can score a high grade from the mockup meeting with one of the top performers, they will have no issue closing customers.
Stage 4: Get into the Battlefield
In stage 3, the new sales rep had a mockup session with one of the top performers, but in stage 4, it gets real. They will come face-to-face with a real prospect for the first time, and they will need everything in their deck to convert them to buyers.
Despite the simplicity of this process, we don’t expect customers to get it all at once. New statistics and data will emerge from customer meetings and such feedback will be used to refine their deck meeting after meeting.
Conclusion
SalesDeck can change your processes
All Can Happen In 4 Weeks
And that is the 4 stages new reps have to pass through to close their first deal on SalesDeck. These 4 stages take less than 3 months to be completed. Ambitious businesses can take 1 month to complete the cycle, while others might take 6 – 8 weeks.
Why did we Adopt this Approach?
To minimize selling anxiety from new hires. We aim to achieve this by creating a seamless transition from sales training to sales meetings. Every step from stage 1 – 4 will be done on SalesDeck.
The interface for the training and live meeting is the same. This limits the sales anxiety associated with new hires. The week 3 role play with the top performer will serve as a confidence booster, and we want them to think – “If I can close one of the top performers, I can close even the most difficult customers.”
What’s the Next Step?
Congratulations! You now have a blueprint for shortening sales rep ramp time. This approach ensures you don’t have to wait for 3 months before closing the deal with your new hires, and in 9 months, the sales rep would be closer to meeting their full quota.
Meanwhile, we would love to recommend that you help new reps refine the system based on the feedback from customer meetings. This is the best way to increase conversion which reduces employee’s churn rate.
Finally, if you want to see our sales readiness system in action, request for a live demo.