Most training professionals dedicate significant time and energy to developing onboarding programs, and for good reason. Sales onboarding lays the foundation for a new hire’s long-term success (and satisfaction) with the organization. The pressure’s on to get it right.
But the harsh reality is, many companies are missing the mark. According to Gallup, a mere 12% of employees strongly agree their organization does a great job onboarding new hires. For sales roles especially, where it can take new hires a full year to reach full capacity, effective onboarding is essential. Sales reps at companies with a formal onboarding process reported reaching full productivity sooner than those with no formal onboarding. This means higher revenue for the company, and a more confident, capable sales team.
There are countless reasons why onboarding programs fail. But often, it’s because organizations are committing at least one of the five common mistakes of onboarding. This article will offer tips to help organizations recognize these blunders — and take appropriate action to overcome them.
The 5 Common Sales Onboarding Mistakes
1. There Is Only 1 Ideal Rep Profile
Effective onboarding depends on effective recruitment. If your organization doesn’t hire the right talent, your onboarding program is doomed to fail.
There are multiple sales roles within a given organization — from business development reps to account executives to solution engineers — and everything in between. Each of these roles requires a unique set of skills and competencies.
But all too often, organizations create a single, generic ideal rep profile (IRP) outlining key competencies necessary for success. During the recruitment process, candidates are asked a series of generic sales-related questions and recruitment doesn’t interlock with enablement.
Each sales role is unique. As such, it’s imperative to create an IRP for each role. In addition, these IRPs will serve as the north star for assessing new hires, delivering additional training and providing feedback throughout the onboarding process.
2. Customer Journey Training Is Only for Customer Success Teams
Revenue leaders want new sales team members up and running as quickly as possible. After all, the sooner a new hire is onboarded, the sooner they can contribute to revenue generation.
As such, sales onboarding often focuses on the seller journey, completely glossing over the customer journey. Their argument is that the customer success team is responsible for retention, so they (and only they) should be the ones focused on the customer journey. Sellers should stick to honing their business development strategies.
Sure, this approach may save time in the short-term. But the disconnect between sales and customer success is bound to have a negative impact on sales as well as customer satisfaction and retention. Instead, all new business sellers should go through customer success onboarding to gain a deeper understanding of the customer journey and how customer success teams work.
This can help sellers collaborate more effectively with customer success teams, resulting in better customer outcomes and higher sales performance. In a survey by Zendesk, nearly 50% of customers said they would switch to a competitor after just one negative experience. Strong alignment between sales and customer success leads to better customer experiences, which is critical for customer retention.
3. The Sales Process Is Seen as Dead Weight
There’s a common myth that great sellers are naturally gifted; they don’t need a structured sales process to be successful. Organizations that buy into this false notion feel that sellers should focus on closing deals, not on following a prescribed process. So, they don’t devote time to developing and training on a sales process.
This mindset is a huge barrier to onboarding success. The truth is, without a structured sales process, sellers struggle to consistently achieve their goals and close deals. They may also waste time and effort on ineffective strategies or miss important steps in the sales cycle. Furthermore, neglecting to properly train sellers on the sales process results in inconsistencies in their approach, which leads to confusion and frustration for both the seller and the buyer. This negatively impacts the overall performance of the sales team.
Of course, the sales process shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. Rather, enablement can work with sales leaders and representatives to develop a flexible sales process that is customized to the specific products, services and customer segments the organization serves. This can help ensure sellers are following a process that is tailored to their unique needs and circumstances.
The enablement team can also track sales performance metrics and provide regular feedback to sales leaders and representatives. This can help shed light on areas for improvement and ensure sellers are following the sales process effectively.
Remember: the sales process isn’t set in stone. Sales enablement must work with sales leaders and reps to continuously adapt and evolve the sales process as needed. This ensures the process remains effective and relevant in today’s rapidly changing business environment.
4. It’s Assumed High-Performing Reps Will Be High-Performing Managers
It’s common for a high-performing sales rep to get promoted to a sales manager role. The assumption is that if the employee excelled as an individual contributor, they’ll also be successful managing a team of sellers. But this isn’t always the case.
While high-performing sales reps possess valuable skills, effective sales managers have business acumen, training expertise and the ability to adapt as needed. Sales managers play a critical role in ensuring new salespeople are effectively onboarded and receive continuous training that ensures they’re always ready to sell. Without proper onboarding and training, new sellers often struggle to achieve their targets, resulting in missed revenue opportunities. In addition, a lack of consistency and structure in the onboarding process can lead to confusion, inefficiency and a high turnover rate.
Success as a sales rep doesn’t guarantee success as a sales manager. Organizations must recognize the critical role sales managers play in the onboarding process and invest in proper training and support for both new and existing sellers.
5. Technical Onboarding Is Reserved for Solution Engineers
It’s a common myth that technical onboarding is only necessary for individuals with highly technical roles, such as solution engineers. Some believe that technical onboarding is complicated, time-consuming and not worth the effort.
Other organizations do incorporate technical onboarding — but only for new hires. Or, they claim to do technical onboarding, but it’s limited to product features and functionality.
In reality, technical onboarding is an important process for all sales reps — not just those with technical roles. It provides valuable knowledge and skills to help sellers effectively communicate the value of the organization’s products and services to customers. Plus, it can be a key differentiator in a competitive market.
Effective technical onboarding should go beyond product features and functionality to cover a wide range of topics, including market trends, customer needs and the competitive landscape.
Finally, technical training shouldn’t be delivered solely to new hires. Ongoing technical training and support can help existing sales reps stay up to date with the latest product developments and market trends. This will empower them to better serve their customers over time.
Optimize Your Onboarding Program — And Start Driving Bottom-Line Results
Sales onboarding — when done well — sets sellers up for a long, successful career with your organization. But all too often, onboarding programs are missing the mark. The result is unengaged, ineffective sellers and increasingly high turnover.
It’s essential to recognize the common misconceptions that may be contributing to the failure of your onboarding program. Then, you can take action to overcome these challenges — and increase the effectiveness of your onboarding program.
