Why a Quality Sales Onboarding Program Isn't Optional
By Troy Harrison
What does "onboarding" mean? If you said that "onboarding a salesperson" consists of doing the HR paperwork, giving a facility tour, a few days of shadowing existing salespeople, and then expecting the salesperson to "hit the ground running," you're not alone. Entirely too many sales managers feel that way – and then they wonder why they don't get the results that they want.
Onboarding is defined as "The time period, processes, and activities to prepare your new hire to make a quality sales call on your behalf." Doing it properly requires 90 days – not nine.
The first 30 days of onboarding should be focused exclusively on Knowledge. During those first 30 days, your salesperson should be a sponge. You should be focused on teaching your new salesperson everything that salesperson needs to know in order to make a quality sales call and answer at least the most common customer questions.
That means teaching:
- Your products and services and the problems they solve
- Your target customers and prospects
- The specifics of their territory
- Your internal processes for order processing, shipping, billing, and profit generation
- Your sales culture and your sales training system
And yes, it takes a month to do that correctly. Anything you short-cut here will come back to bite you and cost you money. During this time, you should have no metrics for sales or sales calls; in fact, you shouldn't even have a salesperson making a sales call, with the exception of shadowing a current sales rep.
The second 30 days is focused on Activity. Now that your salesperson knows enough to make sales calls, it's time to get that salesperson out in the field (or on the phone or video).
The purpose here is to have that salesperson ramp up to your normal required weekly run rate for activities – number of discovery appointments, solution appointments, proposals, LinkedIn activities, etc. You do have those numbers, right? If not, you should. During this time, you shouldn't put a sales quota on your salesperson. Instead, the first week should be aimed at achieving 25% of the normal weekly run rate; the second should be 50%; the third should be 75%; and by the fourth week and ongoing, the salesperson should be hitting their normal weekly activity run rate.
The third 30 days should be focused on Achievement. This is where the result can vary widely. If your sales cycle is 30 days, it's completely fair to expect your salesperson to sell some business during this time period (the expectation is that some of the proposals from month 2 will close). On the other hand, if your sales cycle is long, you may want to measure "achievement" by viable proposals, funnel size, etc. What's important is that you have a standard and are willing to live with it.
You should have checkpoints for each one of those first 30-day periods. After the first month, some sort of "graduation exercise," such as a quiz with a pass/fail number, or a presentation, or a facility tour that demonstrates learning is appropriate. The second month can be rated based on achievement of the activity numbers, and the third measured against whatever metric you have put in place, based on your own sales environment.
Here's why this matters. Most onboarding can be summed up as, "Here's your book, here's your desk, here's your phone, good luck, you're on your own." Many managers like to say that "good salespeople – the ones worth keeping – figure it out on their own." That's an ineffective and costly approach, and it's a great way to lose a hire that you should have won.
New sales hires typically fall into three categories:
1. Those salespeople who are so naturally gifted that they will, in fact, "figure it out" and succeed, no matter what you give them or don't give them.
2. Salespeople for whom quality onboarding, training, and coaching can have a great impact on success or failure.
3. Salespeople who just aren't going to "get it" regardless of how much training you give them.
The bad news for the "figure it out" managers is that most sales hires – about half but maybe in some candidate pools as many as two-thirds – fall into category No. 2. When you don't do a quality onboarding and training, you're going to lose on a lot of these hires, and then you have to go back to the well, do another search, and hire again – and your next hire has the same probability of success as your first hire.
But what about the other two categories? A good onboarding program helps with these hires, too.
For Category No. 1, the "naturals," quality onboarding and training gives them a much better basis to launch into their success. The Category 1s who would have been at quota in, say, six months will be at quota in three or four months. That's a win in anyone's book, and it will help them hit their performance ceiling quicker. That means strong ROI, because usually Category 1s will make better use of training.
For Category No. 3, the monthly checkpoints let you know that you're on a path to failure. In this case, the philosophy is, "if you're going to fail, fail quickly." This still saves money, time, and effort over plodding along for a year or more.
Of course, a failed checkpoint doesn't necessarily have to lead to termination – use your best judgment. Sometimes, a little coaching or even remedial training can overcome obstacles. If you determine that you have a Category 2, coaching is a great investment.
Sales hiring is getting harder, and candidate pools are getting smaller. Once you've made your hiring selection, it's incumbent upon you to make the most out of that hire. Shifting away from "I want someone to figure it out themselves and hit the ground running" toward the mindset of "I've won a good candidate, and now I'm going to take the time to lock that win in through quality onboarding" is an essential part of effective sales management in 2026.
And you don't have to depend on "good luck" for your results.
Troy Harrison is the Sales Navigator and the author of “Sell Like You Mean It” and “The Pocket Sales Manager.” He helps companies navigate the Elements of Sales on their journey to success. He offers a free 45-minute Sales Strategy Review. To schedule, call 913-645-3603 or e-mail Troy@TroyHarrison.com.
INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY MAGAZINE
The November/December issue of Industrial Supply magazine features an in-depth cover story about Applied Industrial Technologies. Plus, we're featuring articles by contributing writers Dr. Bharani Nagarathnam and Frank Hurtte, as well as interviews with numerous product and distribution industry experts.
