The onboarding phase, in general, is the preparation and integration of a new team member in the organization.

Sales representatives are taken on board through best practices such as revising and attending guidance sessions, and preparation elements to accommodate new salespersons more closely to their environment and responsibilities. According to research by Glassdoor, organizations with good onboarding programs increase new employee retention by 82% and efficiency by more than 70%.

Ways to Maximize Efficiency During the Training and Onboarding Process

1. Have a Standard Process

According to Harvard Business Review, 22% of companies have no formal onboarding programs. A standardized program can help to have a clear image in your mind that is intended to be long-term. Questions such as, “What basic tasks would each recruit complete in the first week?”,“What training courses do they complete in the first month?”, and ”What do they expect to do in the first quarter?” need to be answered through the program. Therefore, analyze the current onboarding program (or the one you plan to introduce if your company does not yet have one) and define unique events that a new sales rep should go through, and make them the norm for all hires.

2. Document it

According to a study Human Capital Institute, 58% of company onboarding programs are focused on procedures and paperwork. It’s always a good idea to have some tools and reference guides on hand so they can update their memory on the fly. Creating sales processes and intelligence documents will save the new reps a lot of time and effort during their first couple of months on the job. Of course, you should provide your new reps with a comprehensive set of phone scripts and email templates that they can use right away; these scripts should cover the majority of the touchpoints in a standard sales cycle. Most good reps will later tailor these to suit their style, but supplying them with these tools upfront allows them to get up and start running much faster.

3. Set attainable goals and milestones for new hire

Consider the following scenario: you’ve just landed your dream job, but during the onboarding process, you find that the job goals are unclear and you’re unsure what is expected of you. When new employees enter the organization, they must understand the goals for which they are responsible. Provide them with insights into the company’s principles, priorities, and long-term goals. When you approach the sales onboarding program with a target in mind, you will be able to remain focused on providing workers with the right insights to keep them motivated and efficient. This approach will also help increase employee retention

Check-in every week 

According to a study done by Enboarder, 72 percent of employees, one-on-one time with the boss are the most critical aspect of any onboarding program. Nothing is more motivating for new reps than understanding that you, the boss, care for them and want them to succeed. A weekly five-minute phone call from you will do wonders for a new employee’s morale and effort. Simply get in touch: Inquire how he or she is doing and whether there is something you can do to assist.

5. Practice makes perfect

The stereotypical cliché hasn’t stopped being real, at least yet. The sales method, like any other part of life, can be mastered with repeated practice. This is particularly true for sales representatives since they learn at a faster and faster pace with repeated practice. As a result, ensure that the program contains a sufficient number of real-world practice scenarios.

Anything that has the new hires doing what they’re learning (while they’re learning it, not months later when they’ve forgotten it) will boost sales training stickiness and rep trust.

Conclusion

These five tips will increase the chances of your sales reps’ success, retention rate, and increase sales. Having an effective sales onboarding program is critical not just for the new sales reps, but also for the entire company. It may appear to be a lengthy and laborious procedure — and it is, but when done right, it will yield profits that are several times over. Standardization also decreases the amount of time put into daily tasks, and so, having a solid onboarding program in place will be beneficial for all organizations.