What are the key components to an optimal inside sales training/onboarding program?

I'm all about basics first, then ramp them up. When I say basics, I mean the low end, nuts and bolts. We have some low level list cleanup activities we assign them for a week or two just so they can learn how we use our CRM, auto-dialer, and basic oubound phone techniques and standards. During that time we start to do coaching with a "mentor" model for 1-2 hours per day.

Once they've proven the discipline and skills to perform the basics and maintain the standards desired, we open up the training:

- Deprogram their previous inside sales experience. Other people's techniques might have taught them something, but don't assume it. Get their bad habits out, then enhance the good habits.
- Maintain the mentor program. Nothing teaches good behavior better than working with a star.
- One topic per session. Keep them busy between formal training sessions on either the continued basics functions, or mentor work, but when doing a formal session, keep it focused onto one topic at a time.
- Realistic goals. Don't expect them to be at full production in two weeks. We actually allocate a 90 day ramp up period and find that it takes every one of those days to get someone to the level of service we demand.
- Incentives day one. They can be simple. "Master this and you earn free lunch for the team". "Cleanse 120 contacts in a day you earn X."
- Role play, double jacking, group calling... These techniques are priceless, but don't just listen in and move on. Dissect every call.
- Career. Many inside sales roles in the past were considered entry level or a stop over job. Try to instill the attitude on your team that the job and role is a career. It is important to the company and you will do what you can to make the reps succeed.

The rest is up to you. Just remember that without the basics, the smartest rep in the world is just a smart rep. If they don't use your CRM the way you want them to or if they use techniques from that outbound mortgage sales job they had 4 years ago, they are doing it on your dime. Get your money's worth.

Mike Damphousse
CMO/CEO
Green Leads, LLC
http://www.greenleads.com/b2b-blog/

Before you ever talk to a rep about your solution you need to immerse them in the lives of your buyers. It is all about the buyers people!!!

What does a day in their life look like. What challenges do they face. How are they currently handling those challenges. How are they measured by their boss, their peers. What language to they use..... You get where I am going.

After the rep completely understands the buyer then it will make the absorption of how you help that buyer so much more realistic. Please allow me to share 5 VERY short videos each that focused on a particular part of the onboarding process. Hope they help!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR8ftwaoVUw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYTafDaRZZI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbDiiR5unB4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwy9vBcPM0w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEV302PIKyk

Sorry.. found this quote and had to add it to my reply above. Here is a Tom Peters quote “If you went to a play, and someone appeared on stage and proceeded to read the play - with no acting - you'd say they missed the point of theater."

That is what it is like when you hire reps and then train them on scripts or use role playing or whatever and they have no context for the buyer's view. I am done now - thanks.

Lots of good advice already! Part of our on-boarding is a checklist of expectations and an "entry interview" at 45-days. The interview includes a review of the checklist each new associate is given on day one. Basically, we detail what the expectations are for the first 45-days so there is no doubt about how we evaluate new people. The interview also includes a lot of the same questions we ask in exit interviews. It has been very enlightening (how job meets their expectations, who has helped, what else they need...).

Hi Craig,

Love Trish's responses above. In one of her videos she states that companies make a Strategic decision to make the hire and then a Tactical error in onboarding them improperly. Right on.

Major Components:
1. Product and Company Training. What's our stuff all about and who are the players doing the stuff.
2. Sales Training. I don't care HOW much experience somebody has, how they sell is probably not how we sell HERE. So they need training on how selling is done at YOUR company. Sales process, scripts, playbooks, crm, tools, commission plan, listening to calls etc.
3. Role playing. 25% of the training time is ideally devoted to role-playing. Ideally with the manager or other sr. reps and then new hires doing it with themselves.
4. Other. This includes HR stuff, EXPECTATION SETTING, team meetings, etc.

But remember, just like when you were in college, you probably only remember 3% of what you learned "in class" and chances are you remember it improperly. So a training/onboarding plan MUST accompany a good ongoing coaching program to reinforce what was learned in training!

This is all amazing information - I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I've found recording (using Fuze Meeting) ever micro aspect of our business (Sales 2.0 tools, process map, calling techniques/tips) etc. has been far more fruitful than a traditional written "playbook".

These videos can be reflected back too time-after-time.

Jamie Shanks

A. What is working for your other inside sales professionals? Have you diagnosed and share the top three key components initially with your new hires? I always have sales professionals work closely with veterans on our team so they get just as much peer to peer interaction early on vs. a 100% management interaction.
B. Don’t overdo the training and or process education initially. Assume you hired them for very specific skill sets so you could only focus on polishing up the one’s that you felt were not there yet. I’ve seen plenty of sales professionals get cornered into a new process and they sink because it wasn’t why they were hired or why they took the job instead it was set up by the company because they felt it was significant enough to focus on right away. Not always!
C. Do train on CRM best practices so you don’t have to repeat over and over again. Once they create bad data entry habits or steps within the CRM you get into real trouble trying to break those habits.
D. Sales enablement is a great best practice in best of breed companies. What you give to your salespeople to help them enable a clean and successful sales process is critical in this type of economic environment.
E. Sales is about making money so give them the pathway to more commission quickly. I would say that if they can’t see commission of some type within 60-90 days that you’re on-boarding and training is hurting the rep and the company!

Hello everyone, I'm in good company and would like to weigh in on this very important topic.

I believe that building a sustainable sales training culture requires deeper attention to the entire inside sales organization. It must live a longer life and insert itself into the DNA of an organization. The key to sustainability is people: the managers/coaches and quality assurance folks must be committed to reinforcing it. They will be the ones keeping the system going long after we leave.

As the inside sales organization continues to build its complex structures, staffing the right teams and talent will help sustain its growth. We need to staff the right people to help with the training reinforcement such as Team Leads, Training Coaches, Quality Assurance, Managers, Directors— with some roles exclusively dedicated for training reinforcement.

It is important to provide an on boarding program that is flexible, scalable and provides a strong ROI to include:
• A training process that is sustainable and repeatable, and that builds on itself
• A universal training language that is reinforced from the team lead to the director level
• A skills-based program built on a customized sales process and methodology
• An implementation strategy that takes minimum time off the phones and has a big return on investment