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In this episode of the Sales Management Minute, learn why your company may not be ready for a sales onboarding initiative.
In past episodes of the Sales Management Minute, I’ve touted the benefits of effectively onboarding salespeople, but onboarding isn’t for every company. Actually, it is, but you may not be ready for a sales onboarding engagement.
When executives hear the business case, financial impact and my unique sales onboarding methodology, they get excited and want to immediately implement the program in their companies. The question is whether or not they are truly ready for a sales onboarding engagement. Two indicators quickly expose the companies well-positioned and those who have pre-work to do before launching an onboarding initiative.
1. Does the company have a documented sales process?
Many small and mid-sized companies have not deployed a step-by-step sales process that is to be followed by the salespeople. If there isn’t process, in what will the salespeople be onboarded? A sales framework (sales architecture®) is needed so that the new salesperson can be onboarded into the role. The pre-work in this case is to document the sales process from beginning to end – from lead to sale.
2. Can the company adeptly evaluate sales talent?
All of the onboarding in the world cannot fix poor sales hiring practices. The expectation, when onboarding a salesperson, is that the right individual has been selected for the role. When companies cannot skillfully make selection decisions, the onboarding benefits become a pipedream. The pre-work for these companies is to identify the factors that affect sales performance in a specific sales role and evaluate candidates against those factors – so they hire the right people for these positions.
Only when these two foundation pieces are in place is a company prepared for a successful sales onboarding initiative.
See you next time on the Sales Management Minute.
AUTHOR: LEE B. SALZ
Lee B. Salz is a leading sales management strategist specializing in helping companies build scalable, high-performance sales organizations through hiring the right salespeople, effectively onboarding them, and aligning their sales activities with business objectives through process, metrics and compensation. He is the Founder and CEO of Sales Architects, Business Expert Webinars and The Revenue Accelerator. Lee has authored several books including award-winning, best-seller “Hire Right, Higher Profits.” He is a results-driven sales management consultant and a passionate, dynamic speaker . Lee can be reached at lsalz@SalesArchitects.net or 763.416.4321.