Being an excellent sales leader is not easy. It’s difficult. There’s a lot of pressure to get new people performing fast. And, how you begin with someone affects turnover – even if they succeed. I know one large market within a company that loses 45% of their newly hired reps during training.
Research from Sirrus Decisions says that 49% consider onboarding to be very important or extremely important to their decision when considering a position.
Throw them into the storm without support, especially today, when most want integration into a community, and they do not like you or your company. Your brand may suffer as well.
What’s best practice for you when starting a new salesperson? Do you have an on-boarding process that ramps up the average person to a certain performance level? Can you quote the performance data for previous new reps?
What do better than average people earn in their first ninety days, six months or year? What do you expect the best to do?
On-boarding begins by recruiting people who are honest, conscientiousness about work and who will sell at high levels while creating customer advocates. For these new hires, you will help them:
- Calculate the appointment levels necessary to get the right amount of quotes at the closing percentage that allows them to sell enough stuff to earn an income for the lifestyle they want.
- Learn the approach methods and progress tracking for lead generation, prospecting for appointments and sales and income trends.
- Memorize the set of questions they will ask, the customized presentations they will do and the typical fears and questions they will handle to close the quotes they get at a respectable percentage.
And, you will show them how valuable they are by how you treat them as people.
Getting to Know Them
When we coach today’s new reps, we start by learning about them and their motivating reasons for hitting sales targets. If we have recruiting well, these reasons will be either competitive or income based. New reps will either like to:
- Beat other reps and receive recognition for their efforts, or
- Earn a specific amount of money for a specific reason.
Are they just starting to master sales? Do they help support someone else at home? Do they want to reduce or eliminate their debt? Do they want to save money for financial stability? Learn about them. Find out what they want from you? What do they expect? What will demotivate them?
Don’t throw them against a wall and see if they will stick! Don’t let them take on new customers without someone beside them. Don’t treat them like numbers.
Coach them into a better life and let them see that’s your focus. Keep this in mind, that at some point you want them to say to themselves or others, “Wow! This is better than they (the recruiters) told me!”
To get this reaction, treat them as individuals – each with a story. Teach them how to make money and keep their important sales activities high. Help them learn the face-to-face sales process necessary for success. Give them the map and the skills to find their way through the storms we all face in today’s marketplace.