4 Proven Methods for Rapid New-Rep Onboarding
Speed and impact are two critical and decisive factors when you are in the sales profession, especially when your activities are being scrutinized by the ‘time-is-money’ shot-clock. Your reps must consistently be on top of their game if they want to meet or exceed quota. On a revenue-weighted scale of all-out performance, what you really want for them is to have the maximum amount ofimpact in the least amount of time. Andy Paul refers to this as MILT in his book Zero Time Selling. Mr. Paul discusses his MILT concept in detail with regard to interacting with prospects.
If MILT is an irrefutable requirement for interacting with prospects, the next logical question becomes,”how can you on-board new reps with MILT”. The answer is to give your new reps the right tools and methods. Here are 4 proven “MILT” methods for rapid new-rep onboarding.
1. Ensure Relevant Person-based Conversation
New reps will not know how to ‘personalize’ their conversations to make them relevant to each prospect. With persona (buyer type) pick lists, they can quickly view call prompts that are appropriate for each prospect they call. Incite2 provides persona-based call scripting. When Sales reps speak with the right language and demonstrate familiarity with the prospect’s situation, they can build vital credibility and gain invaluable trust. Not only is the pertinent level of impact quickly established, but it is extremely time-efficient from the prospect’s viewpoint. This makes it more likely they will make a good first impression and convert the call to an appointment.
2. Give Reps the Right Qualification Question
Reps will need the skills and knowledge to guide conversations and quickly capture important information. That means they will need to know the right questions to ask to cultivate more meaningful and productive call outcomes. Maximizing the relevancy of those questions will positively impact the prospect’s perceptions and interest level so your reps can get to the next sales stage in the least amount of time. Make sure your CRM system is setup to support your specific buyer types, along with key qualification criteria, such as BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing). Incite2 provides persona-based and stage-based questioning prompts.
3. Provide best-practice voicemail and email follow-up message & sequence
Standardize on the most effective words or phrases for each situation and each stage in the contact sequence. Do not make reps re-invent the wheel, or re-calibrate what already works. Determine the best sequence of email and voicemail messages and set your system up accordingly. With unique but relevant voicemail and email sequence messaging, reps can easily follow best-practices for fast and proven results. This procedure will positively impacttheir sales-cycle time-line, along with maximizing their efforts to meet quota. Your sequencing process should also move call prompts and other follow-up dialogues ahead – ready for the next interaction.
4. Help Reps Focus on the Right Things at the Right Time
Make sure your Salesforce implementation can automatically create a daily activity list for each salesperson. They should be provided with, or have access to, a full list of phone calls and other activities in one, easily accessible, location. To reach peak productivity, they will need to quickly proceed from one task to the next without clicking through to multiple screens. Maximizing their capacity to acquire and analyze important data more efficiently willimpact their productivity, reserving precious sales time for quality conversations with prospects.
There is no question that new reps have many important processes to learn, and often an overwhelming array of new skills to master in order to ramp-up to peak productivity. You can help them by giving them the right tools. As outlined above, these certainly include the appropriate, attention-getting messaging components for each stage in the follow-up continuum, and the relevant messaging for each type of prospect profile, whether it’s by job title, industry, or other persona types.
By any measure of performance or productivity, new reps also face the added pressure of ‘making the grade’ established by their fellow colleagues. By giving all of your new reps the means to maintain the right focus on the desired objectives, the resulting impact on their collective efforts will put them and you, on track to produce themaximum amount of revenue in the least amount of time.
