There’s a lot of buzz today around sales onboarding and sales enablement. You may be wondering if sales onboarding should be on your executive team’s priority list of corporate initiatives. Here are nine reasons why it belongs high on your list.
1. Investment Protection
When companies hire sales people, they are making a significant revenue investment. Onboarding not only protects the investment, but also helps to ensure a high rate of return on it.
2. Reduced Ramp-up Time
One of the biggest executive complaints about new sales people is the amount of time it takes for them to produce meaningful revenue for the company. By having a structured onboarding experience, this production timeline is reduced, meaning that the money invested before seeing a return is also lessened.
3. Increased Revenue Performance
Executives also complain that their sales people cannot sell the value of their products which means they sell at a less than desirable price point. Onboarding provides you with the opportunity to teach sales people how to properly position your products with prospects.
4. Improved Client Experience
We’ve all been on the other side of the desk dealing with inept sales people. Because of our frustration, we were open to discussions with the competition. Onboarding ensures your sales people are equipped with the knowledge your clients expect to glean from them while delivering a fantastic experience.
5. Brand Protection
When sales people cannot speak knowledgably about the products, the industry, etc. it creates a negative reflection of the corporate brand. Onboarding protects your brand by teaching your sales people what the marketplace expects them to know.
6. Turnover Reduction
In the first year of employment, the most common reason for turnover on a sales team is that expectations are not met. Either the sales people quit or you let them go. In both cases, it is bad news for the revenue investment.
Onboarding helps to minimise those instances, which impacts both the top and bottom line of the company.
7. Increased Candidate Pool
How does onboarding increase your candidate pool? Many companies limit their hiring scope to just those sales people with industry experience. Yet, there are only so many people in your industry and only a small subset you would want on your team or who would want to be on your team. Onboarding empowers you to broaden your candidate scope to include strong sellers from other industries as well.
8. Recruitment Tool
As you look across the desk at a candidate during an interview and wonder how this individual will get up to speed selling for your company, guess what? The candidate is wondering the same thing! Onboarding becomes a selling point in the interview as a way to attract top talent. It demonstrates corporate commitment to their success.
9. Hiring Mistakes Found
Sometimes, you can get bamboozled during the interview process. After all, sales people know how to sell themselves. Onboarding gives you the opportunity to identify concerns early on with new sales people and take action. This is true investment protection.
