How to Create a Better Sales Onboarding Plan and Process

Your sales onboarding plan may be the reason why your reps are not meeting their targets.

A recent study by Spekit surveyed 500 people and found that 47% of salespeople quit their job because of poor onboarding and training programs.

That’s because most companies rely on ineffective or outdated onboarding methods that don’t properly prepare new sales reps for success.

If you want to make sure your sales team doesn’t become another statistic, it’s important to invest in a good sales onboarding plan and process.

Here’s how you can create an effective sales onboarding plan with takeaway checklists to help you through your 30-60-90 day plan!

First Day of Sales Onboarding

The first Day of onboarding new sales reps can be both exciting and nerve-wracking for everyone involved.

For you, it is a time to welcome a new member to the team and share expectations. For the new hire, it is a time to learn about the company, the products, and their day-to-day activities.

It’s really important that you create a positive environment from the very beginning. Make them feel welcome by asking them about how they are feeling and if there are any blockers they haven’t talked about yet or offer them a cup of coffee and introduce them to everyone on the team.

Once you and the reps are in a comfortable zone, you can start sharing what the company does, the products, and the current sales cycle.

You may as well give them an overview of where they will be at a 30-60-90 day plan.

Here’s a breakdown of what will happen during each 30-day plan.

First 30 Days of Sales Onboarding

The first 30 days of any onboarding process are critical in terms of building a foundation for success. During this time, the rep should be focused on gathering information about the company, the products, and the target market.

They will also be learning about the current sales process and how to work collaboratively with their colleagues. This can be made possible by offering in-person meetings, training sessions, and studying video modules.

By taking the time to focus on these important aspects during the first month, the new rep will be well on their way to achieving their goals.

Here’s a checklist to go through during the first 30 days of your 30-60-90 day plan:

1. Share company’s core values, culture, and goals
2. Talk about the product
3. Show your target audience
4. Visualize your sales cycle
5. Organize your sales goals and targets
6. Authorize new sales reps for CRM access
7. Introduce new reps to their peers.
8. Keep a consistent schedule of weekly check-ins

Second 30 Days of Sales Onboarding

This next phase in your sales onboarding plan should be all about putting those fundamentals into action.

Reps should be practicing demos and presentations, shadowing current sales reps, and meeting prospects and clients. They will also have the opportunity to further develop their understanding of the customer experience.

This is an important time for reps to learn from their more experienced colleagues and begin to build relationships with customers.

Here’s a checklist to go through on the 60th day of your 30-60-90 day plan:

1. Practice sales presentations and product demos
2. Mandatory shadowing their sales peers
3. Perform daily prospect outreach
4. Identify opportunities to support sales efforts (attend conferences, networking groups, etc)
5. Keep a schedule of frequent check-ins to evaluate their competency and provide support

Last 30 Days of Sales Onboarding

The goal in the final 30 days of sales onboarding is to help new reps reach a point where they are comfortable with the product and the sales process, and can successfully close deals.

This involves giving them the tools and training they need to be successful, as well as setting them up for success in their new role.

Reps may face some challenges in these final weeks, but with the right support, they can overcome them and become successful sales professionals.

Here’s a checklist to go through on the 90th day of your 30-60-90 day plan:

1. Have them make live sales calls on their own
2. Initiate reverse shadowing
3. Proactively contribute to the pipeline
4. Actively seek out and discover relevant opportunities to support sales efforts
5. Have frequent check-ins to evaluate their competency and provide support

Provide Product Training

It’s not enough for them to be familiar with your sales process – they need to know how the product works, what benefits it offers customers, and how to position it in relation to their needs.

Product training may include:

• An overview of the product, including how it works and what benefits it offers
• How to identify customer pain points and link them to the product
• What features are most important to highlight when selling the product
• How to overcome objections and close the sale

Training should be tailored to the needs of your reps and updated regularly as new features are added or changes are made to the product.

It’s also important that you have a sales content strategy in place to share the right resources to support your product training program.

Avoid Data Dumping

You may need to be careful with dumping too much information on your new hires during the early stages of the process.

You must train them to use the sales content that you organized in a centralized content library. By compiling all of your content into one easily accessible location, you make it easy for reps to find what they need and avoid overstimulating them with content that is all over the place.

By gradually sharing information you can help new reps better understand and remember the material.

This will help new reps be more successful in their role and contribute to the overall success of the sales team.

One-On-One Coaching

As a sales leader, you need to be an effective coach in order to onboard and help your new hires reach their full potential.

One of the most important aspects of onboarding is providing ongoing coaching to your new reps. This involves setting up a regular schedule for coaching and giving them the opportunity to watch your best sales reps in action.

However, during your one-on-one coaching sessions, you need to provide them with feedback and guidance so they can figure out their strengths and weaknesses.

Coaching can help new hires learn the ropes of the job and achieve their goals faster.

Coordinate Account Handoffs

Now your new sales reps are fully onboarded and now they are ready to go on to the playing field.

When new reps are fully onboarded and you’re handing off an account to them, it’s important to have proper processes and documentation in place to minimize any friction between the account owner and the customer.

A successful handoff between sales reps is key to a smooth transition for the customer.

This includes holding rep-to-rep meetings to ensure everyone is on the same page, storing account information in a central location, and providing extra support for big accounts.

Incentives can also help motivate reps to make the transition as smooth as possible.

By taking these steps, you can ensure a positive buyer experience and maintain relationships with key customers.

Final Thoughts

When your new hires are struggling to achieve their targets and allowing the leads to slip right through the pipeline, you need to figure out what more you can do to improve your sales onboarding plan.

A carefully planned sales onboarding process can enable your sales team to improve the overall sales performance.

Especially when you follow through with a 30-60-90 day plan using our careful crafted checklist to make sure you’re headed in the right direction.

What we discussed is just the bare minimum you can do to get the ball rolling.