7 tips to onboard sales reps with ease
**Onboarding can make or break a new rep’s experience. The best sales enablement and management teams will focus on building a sense of inclusion from day one. They’ll point new reps to peers, tools and information in their first few weeks that will benefit them for years to come.
But onboarding can be an imperfect process. Each manager has their own approach, and reps have different preferences for how they digest information best. At Xpensme, we’ve uncovered a few tips and tricks to ensure everyone gets the essentials while also providing enough flexibility for reps to personalize their onboarding journey. Here’s a look at how we do it..**
Give new reps the keys to institutional knowledge Give access to team and account channels. They provide a rich history of institutional knowledge, and for example Slack’s and Salesforce's robust search feature allows reps to home in on the specific information they need.
Build a digital-first community Like many sales teams today, we’re onboarding new hires remotely, which makes building a sense of community and creating shared experiences even more critical. Give employees the chance to explore the tech channels they'll be using in a low-pressure environment and connect with other new hires from across the business, including engineering, marketing, product and more.
Create a white-glove onboarding experience with automation Once a new hire’s start date is confirmed, it’s entered into Donut. This kicks off a workflow that sends the hiring manager a link to the onboarding experience and resources for supporting their new team member. Donut continues to trickle out updates to the hiring manager over the next few weeks, including reminders to schedule check-ins and a list of topics to cover during each one.
Manage assignments with Jira boards and clips During the sales bootcamp, reps cover a new set of learning objectives each week and complete an assignment to demonstrate mastery. To standardize assignment submissions, we use Workflow Builder, a no-code tool for automating routine processes. Reps simply fill out the workflow with the necessary information and submit their assignment. This not only reduces new rep questions, it also helps the enablement team and managers keep track of who’s completed the work and who might need more time.
We also rely on clips, short video and audio recordings in Slack, for assignment submissions. For instance, if reps recently covered how to go to market against competitors, they might be asked to record and submit a competitive pitch. This allows the rest of the onboarding cohort to watch and learn from one another. Managers can be swiftly looped in with a mention to review a rep’s progress.
Clips and workflows not only make onboarding scalable and more convenient for new hires, they also ensure that hiring managers have full visibility into how their new reps are progressing and where they might need additional support.
- Let workflows do the heavy lifting for you To sell the product, our reps need to know the product—and exceptionally well at that. To ensure that all new hires have a solid product foundation from the start, we developed an interactive, self-paced Product 101 course in Workflow Builder.
By managing the content via workflow, reps can work through it at their own pace. They can review the material, apply their new knowledge and test their retention—all within the product itself, Xpensme.
- Integrate critical tools with Salesforce so reps can stay focused Whenever possible, we integrate our most critical tools with Salesforce so reps can maintain focus and find answers where they’re already working.
For instance, a new rep can use our integration with revenue intelligence platform Gong to set parameters for any recorded calls relevant to their line of business. When a call that meets their criteria is recorded, they’ll receive a direct message in Slack with a link to the recording. By listening in, they can learn how to position the product and what language lands with prospects.
- Create a safe space for questions with peer-sourced channels Sometimes questions crop up that don’t have easy answers, even with a decade of deals at your fingertips. For those, we create a channel where reps can ask their peers for answers. Whether they have questions about fair billing or need help crafting a pitch for a prospect in the logistics industry, answers are generally just a post away.
