Onboarding techniques that work

KyleJepson
HubSpot Employee
HubSpot Employee

Most sales jobs have very little onboarding. The new rep might get a little bit of instruction and get to do a "ride-along" with an experienced team member, but then they're usually put on the frontlines and left to fend for themselves. Have a story of an onboarding experience that went well? Share it in the comments below!

 

*To learn more about this, check out the Secrets of Sales Onboarding Success lesson via HubSpot Academy. 

51 Replies 51
RMullen
Member

Part of my role in my last Sales Manager position, I onboarded and trained new reps as part of a new Sales department. This included visual PowerPoints with information as well as guided worksheets to practice using that information. I tried to make the learning enjoyable by making Jeopardy games to quiz their knowledge as well as Inbound Sales Bingo to mark off certain calls. 

stacy_jenkins
Contributor

I could see a visual bingo game based on certain tasks completed in HubSpot. This would be very trackable and manageable. Nice idea! 

0 Upvotes
CGuzman2
Member

tener una conversacion con los compañeros de trabajo y con el jefe para poder conocerlos y tener la confianza de incorporarme al grupo

LMarval
Member

In my recent role as Sales Manager, I participated in the selection, recruitment and onboarding process of account managers. The first step was to make known the KPIs of the position, then develop soft skills for negotiation, presentation and then strengthen the technical knowledge associated with the position. In a matter of weeks they were already with clients, creating opportunities and prospects.

Sales3
Member

1. Buddy program.
2. Real-case scenario with small or low-quality prospects that otherwise you won´t deal with.

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SMiddlebrook
Member

Selling hearing aids online is a bit niche and does require quite a bit of knowledge - so first month is like drinking from fire house- no way to really avoid that. Three months to ramp up though is great to then get comfortable- has been very successful!

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AMangena
Member

I think 1 on 1 onboarding is effective.

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LBJR
Contributor

Based off what I learned collab programs between reps and 1 on 1 coaching along with mentors watching during the collab programs between reps roleplaying.

Then as you do it link chunks seperately as you got through each part of onboarding not at once maybe like a overview(syllabus to get rep mentally ready) but give the reps one chunk at a time during onboarding.

Each chunk brings em in as they get it down so its great for coaching while onboarding and or Training while onboarding at he same time so rep is ready faster

VAriquez
Member

Always have 1 on 1 coaching in your reps

0 Upvotes
YSivaldayeva
Participant

1. Area of responsibility: what the employee will do, what tasks he will take
2. Corporate playbook ( presentation of the company, products, customers, etc.)
3. KPI for 3 months or a quarter, as well as weekly sprint goals
4. Accesses and links necessary for work
5. Cultural assimilation
6. Buddy programs

KeithIgoe
Contributor

A great intro to the onboarding process is a video featuring one person from each department in which key department personnel briefly describe their department's function and processes. For onboarding sales professionals, the segments that feature marketing, sales and customer success functions should speak to their dependence on -and collaboration with- the sales team. 

Getting a high-level overview like this is an effective tool for orienting a new hire into the organization and is a welcoming way for an onboarding salesperson to gain quick familiarity with company culture.

Martin_Brand
Participant

I thought the practical part of onboarding was a hassle every time, so I made a spreadsheet containing our onboarding plan - and I really think it does the job of creating an overview and good introduction for the new hire. 

Tab1:  2 weeks calendar with all scheduled onboarding meetings and other mandatories

Tab2: Inventory of systems, platforms, drives, support contacts, how to book your meeting rooms, set up your company email etc

Tab3: An overview of recurring meetings for the specific role (1:1's etc)

Tab4: Links to materials such as Playbooks, company policies etc. 

Tab5: Dictionary - industry related overview of abbrevations, industry lingo, sales & marketing stuff etc. Complete with links to further descriptions etc. 

Hope it's helpful to others
 

 

DTrujillo
Member

I've yet to have an onboarding experience that was actually helpful. Most of the time you're given very little direction and left to fend for yourself in order to find the information you need. Or, you're overloaded with a bunch of information, but over half of it is irrelevant and lacks training on essential information to do your job, once again left to fend for yourself to find the information or what works. 

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FKhadraoui
Member

fOR ME I WANA THEM TO WELCOME ME THEN TRAIN ME GUIDE ME AND THEN INVOLVE ME ND EVALUATE MY PERFOMRANCE THEN TRY TO TEST MY CAPACITIES AT THE END BRGDGE THE GAPS FORWARD BETTER SLAES FOR ME AND THEM

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MOjeomere
Participant

Onboarding is very tricky, I was hired as a beauty consultant without proper Onboarding,  I have an advance experience in the industry, buy I didn't know about the workings of the new company.  What I did was watch how the other reps were carrying out their daily activities, and i was able to go on from there with little or no coaching.  

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carias
Top Contributor

Well, the best onboarding experience that I have, when I started to use an  educational software for learning math, was awesome

0 Upvotes
JoeBurchard
Top Contributor | Elite Partner
Top Contributor | Elite Partner

Providing resources via a centralized repository that go in-depth about each skill the sales person will need to succeed enables empowerment and understanding!

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PComrie
Participant

Shadowing another sales rep worked well. 

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ashraf072
Member

give time to spend for fresher,

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YHamdi
Member

i was pushed up to supervisor when the previous employee was to drunk to come in to work it was my first time expediting an i wanted the raise even tho it was scary at first i faced my fear and assured myself i was capable of of maintaining a good work flow before i knew it my shift was up  i made a pretty good leader

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ktcap360
Participant

Hi Kyle, I was just watching the videos on onboarding and training sales people. I've been doing this role and have a mess of docs, excel files, pdfs, random bits of instructions, etc. all over, and I'm trying to compile it all into a playbook as suggested. But I've also been wondering if there is a software that would integrate with hubspot so that I can create training videos, etc. for onboarding rather than doing live one-by-one training with each new rep. Basically create something like what you all have done for Hubspot academy, but for our internal system (and not so fancy).  Does Hubspot have anything like this already built in or a proven or trusted (affordable) software suggestion for doing somethign like this? 

0 Upvotes