Congratulations! You have just hired a new or even your first sales person. How do you get your new sales person on-boarded and contributing quickly? One of the keys is to have a great on-boarding plan, coupled with a well thought-out training strategy. Most small startup teams don’t have dedicated training teams, or even full time HR. Don’t worry, there a lot of ways to help train your new b2b sales person.

Start With the Value Proposition

The most important part of the selling process is understanding the benefits your solution provides. Start with the benefits and elevator pitch and work backwards to the functions and features.

Split Apart the Sales Cycle

There are portions of the sale cycle that are easier than others. As an example, doing research and sending cold emails is fairly easy and low risk. Have your sales person start with items like those.

Document Processes and Best Practices

Create templates for things like email, telephone scripts, and the steps in the sales cycle. This will provide the foundation for the sales person to be able to use the guides before they have a good handle on the processes.

Use Active Learning

Having a three day on-boarding where your new sales person speaks to the whole time. Educate a little and then have them try and put into action what you talked about. That could be doing research on an account and then you reviewing it. Then, increase the complexity of the task and review it again.

Practice

You can practice different aspects within the sales cycle. As an example practice a cold call. Have the candidate research the target and try and overcome your objections. You can make the calls harder after the have mastered the basic fundamentals of a cold call.

Utilize Free Web Training

There is lots of great content available from social selling through to how to use a CRM, like HubSpot. These are free resources from subject matter experts that are available on demand.

Look For Coaching Opportunities

Take some time to go with your new sales rep to a networking event, to see how they explain what you do. You can also sit on a telephone call and just be a silent listener, or go to a meeting but have them lead the session. Let them evaluate themselves and then provide feedback on what they did well and what they can improve upon.

Celebrate the Early Victories

Sometimes is takes time to close that first sale. Celebrate their first meeting booked or demo booked. Have a challenge at a networking event to collect a number of business cards or new LinkedIn connections. This keeps it fun for the new sales person.

I hope this blog has been helpful when trying to think about how to train your new salesperson. For other great tips as you grow your sales team check out our white paper.