If you follow all 8 of these items for setting up a NEW sales rep, it's almost impossible not to have this person thrive.
I find most of my friends who run companies do not do one of these things as they onboard someone.
This assumes you've done your work BEFORE the hire, like double checking that they have REAL sales experience, plus you've done two reference checks and multiple interviews.
Now you are actually starting to work with them.
Let's get into the 8 key requirements for a new sales rep
1. You have CLEAR weekly KPIs on a Google sheet (or software)
Most sales reps will have these KPIs to track on a weekly basis
- Outbound Contacts Made
- Decision Makers Spoke To
- FTAs completed (First Time Appointments)
- New Proposals Added
- New Signed Clients
- Proposal Pipeline Total (for the year)
- Signed Clients Total (for the year)
These KPIs are easily findable and trackable.
You can put them on a simple Google sheet, and you can look at them together every week.
Each KPI has a clear AND realistic goal number for each week, month and quarter.
2. The Marketing List Is Ready To Go
Stop having sales reps WASTE their time creating (or data scraping) a list of companies or businesses, or individuals to contact.
Their unique ability is to MAKE the calls. Anytime they aren't reaching out to prospects, you're wasting your cash. You need to delegate data scraping to a lower-cost administrative assistant.
Quick example:
Do not have your sales rep who is calling hospitals to pitch a service spend hours finding 100 local hospitals to call. Instead, have your admin data scrape (using Google Maps or searches or a purchased list) and then upload them into a simple CRM.
You don't need more than 100 or 200 leads for someone to contact within your niche.
Also, with an admin off of Upwork, you can get this done in just a few hours.
3. Prepare A Sales Manuscript
The Sales Manuscript is a Word or Google Doc that's typically 3-5 pages and goes over
- How to begin a conversation with a prospect
- Bullet points on the unique benefit of your service (3 is the ideal number)
- Mindset tips and videos on how to succeed (like smile before you dial)
- Common Objections and how to handle them.
- Recordings of a good sales rep making calls (most likely this will be the owner)
This shouldn't take more than a few hours of work.
Just write ALL of the things you do when calling and following up with prospects.
- What do you say?
- What email do you send?
- How often do you follow up?
A manuscript that's 80% complete is better than one that is NOT done at all.
Just sit with a coffee and work for 2-3 hours and you'll get a good outline. Have this done BEFORE your sales rep starts.
4. Clear Weekly Meetings
You need to pick an exact day and time EVERY single week for your sales meeting. It should be 90 minutes.
Example: Mondays from 10:00 am-11:30 am. This is for the whole sales team, even if it's just you, one sales rep, and your assistant.
You'll go through everyone's KPIs, wins for the week, and problem-solve issues.
Your sales rep MUST bring 2 issues to discuss each week…because there is always someone to discuss
This one meeting helps prevent lots of small meetings.
5. Roleplay a lot in the first 1-2 months
You want to spend at least 30-60 minutes per day doing role play.
Simply have your sales rep meet you on Zoom (or over the phone) and pretend being a prospect.
The sales rep will have their script ready and just go through it.
If you can't do this every day, delegate it to your admin
You can even have the sales rep record themselves!
It's best done live on Zoom with you. And it's worth it! These are the reps needed to get the results.
6. Expect 2 full months of onboarding
I find it takes 2 full months to get a sales rep up and running.
It can be done faster if you've onboarded a sales rep in the past AND your sales manuscript is top-notch and refined from years of experience.
During these 2 months, your sales rep will shadow you on calls and Zoom meetings.
Your sales rep may even lead a few sales calls with you shadowing.
Then after 2 months, you can let them go and lead meetings on their own…but still you'll need to..
7. Review Calls
You need to use some type of recording software (I like
loom.com) to listen to their sales calls.
You should review sales calls 1-3x a week
You can even review them in the weekly sales meeting.
8. Have Conversation Recaps To Help The Sales Rep Improve
Your sales rep will make mistakes,
But the Conversation Recap will help them grow and get better.
(I go over Conversation Recaps in this post)
What happens if you send 2-3 recaps of the SAME issue and the sales rep isn't improving?
You fire him
It's kinda simple like that.
Send a Recap at least once every one to two weeks in the beginning.
It's a written, time-stamped email that tells them EXACTLY what to improve on.
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Want to scale your business from 7 to 8 figures, just like I've done? I run an 8-figure service company with a staff of 300 people that teaches 18,000 kids a week how to cook healthy foods…and it only takes me 8-hours a month. I help businesses with 1-on1 consulting, including aesthetic clinics and recruitment companies, among others.
Here's the link to hop on a consultation call to see how I can help you grow