After an unspectacular rugby career that ended aged 40, a friend of mine suggested we have a go at a triathlon. “Fantastic”, I said: I can’t swim, I’m a lumpy runner and haven’t ridden a bike since my paper round – hardly Ironman material (although I’m proud to say that I did subsequently finish an Ironman).

So back to swimming and sales – much the same way if you can’t swim you have to start somewhere, and the same can be said about sales. To do this you need to find a group that will make you feel welcome, have people around you that are prepared to help you, and have a coach that often ends up telling you nothing more than ‘you’re not as crap as you think you are’.

You go through a process of swallowing your pride, putting away the ego and coughing and spluttered up the slow ‘beginners’ lane with both hands on a float, then one hand on the flat and one trying to swim.

Eventually after 2 coached sessions a week and another practice session on your own you start to get better. One length turned to ten, ten to 50, and you eventually find a groove where you can swim for long periods of time.

When I first started selling it was commission-only selling life insurance – a tough gig by anyone’s terms but it taught me a huge amount. Yes, it was tough and yes there were many times I had to pick myself up after disappointments but I most certainly never felt like I was left to sink or swim.

I had a good induction, I had great training, I had a mentor who took me under their wing (someone I’m proud to stay I still stay in touch with), and I learned a lot about myself along the way.

Be under no illusion, sales is tough and don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. However, the archaic notion that salespeople are a disposable resource, placing all the emphasis on them being able to sink or swim to me is naïve beyond belief and something business needs to get a firm grip on.

With average tenures of sales resources falling, businesses have to make sure they provide great onboarding, solid training with clear development plans, all backed up with good coaching and mentoring.

Taking on sales resources is no different to any other human capital investment that you make, and just because it was ‘the way you did it in your day’ doesn’t mean it’s right for now. Adopting this approach is nothing but foolhardy and likely to cost you far more in the long term.

It’s inevitable that businesses will see staff changes through downsizing, re-imagining how they work and the usual ebb and flow.   Good onboarding will be even more important when hiring new salespeople.  Businesses will not have the economic capacity to wait for their new hire to get up to speed.  A new salesperson will need to be fully conversant with company values, products, sales processes and best practice in the shortest time possible.

It is always good practice to introduce a new hire to your business products and process ahead of their first day.  I call this DMINUS30.  Literally day 1 in your office, minus the thirty days while they serve out their notice.  To get them embedded quickly into your culture and business, make your sales information available and include them in communications to staff.

DMINUS30 gives them the luxury of time to absorb what you do, how you do it and what will be expected of them.  It allows the new starter to be highly proficient in your products and services and speak your language.

Slow or poor onboarding is costly, ineffective and soaks up the time of your management team and top performers while a new starter ‘learns the ropes’. DMINUS30 onboarding allows a new starter to have a great foundation on day 1 – they can still shadow your top performers, but they won’t be a drain on their patience.

Statistics report that 1 in 3 sales hires fail and poor onboarding is a common reason.  While this might have been accepted as a calculated risk before the current challenges, it certainly can’t be accepted now.  Businesses will have to be super careful in their expenditure, curtailing anything without a demonstrable or quick return, if they are to start recouping the extreme losses from the last three months.

So how do you organise a new starter to get on board before their first day?

Ideally, you send them a logon to your SalesEnabla with their letter of offer and when they accept the position, you give them access to it. SalesEnabla allows them to see your best practice in every customer scenario, your values and beliefs, your competitors and in depth, current information on your products and services.  Everything they would start to absorb on their first day, while trying to look like they knew what they were doing and coping with the reality of needing to prove their worth quickly.

DMINUS30 gives them free time to learn your business in the safety and calm of their own space. No pressure, no interference, no juggling new personalities and trying to fit in. It gives them a minimum 30 day start on regular onboarding starting on day 1.

Whether you have SalesEnabla or not, every business is able to practice good onboarding.  SalesEnabla makes it easy, one logon for access to everything you want them to know but even without it, it’s important to provide as much information as you can, in whatever format you have.

A new starter who presents on the first day primed with your business information, knows what’s expected of them and their role in your business is set up for success.  When you give your new starter the confidence and ability to succeed by giving them the tools they need before they start as well as a clear roadmap, you’re also giving your top performers support and helping your business to grow.

Now, more than ever before, it’s vital to make sure every pound spent is meaningful. There’s no economic room for risky behaviour and good onboarding will help ensure every new hire pulls their weight and adds value to your business.

Statistically, 1 in 3 sales hires fail and that is costing businesses a fortune in lost revenue, lost management time and business operation. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to speed up the process of sales on-boarding, but at this challenging time, on-boarding new starters seems very far away.

While taking on new staff might be out of the picture, our furloughed staff are certainly going to need a form of on-boarding. Perhaps, re-boarding is a better term and we need to be helping our furloughed people by re-boarding them.

Re-boarding will make sure they know where we stand in the current market, it will refresh and update their knowledge of products, services and pricing strategies, which for a lot of us, will have changed. Our furloughed workers are out of the loop, they’re not allowed to work, not allowed to use their skills. We know their knowledge is declining with every day that passes and this lost time is taking an emotional toll which shouldn’t be underestimated.

When we’re separated from our colleagues and out of touch with the everyday turmoil of business, we lose motivation. If this is not addressed, we will be in all sorts of difficulty. We don’t know when day 1 is going to be, nor what the competitive landscape will look like, but we need to be ready to face what is coming.

A huge part of that is making sure everyone feels in control of their part in the success of the business. Communication has never been more important. Collaboration and knowledge sharing will be crucial to make sure all staff are included and engaged in the drive to get back to a profitable future.

When we open the doors again, I suspect general anxiety will be heightened as the true picture is revealed. There will be many businesses having to make the difficult decision to lay off workers in the short and long term. Tightening up processes, reviewing and downsizing is likely, as we work to survive the first critical quarter.

Re-boarding should start now.  Prime your staff with your key sales information and refresh their knowledge of your best practice. It will help to get them feeling positive and back into good shape. Update your processes and start refresher training.

Look at your market and understand the changes you’ll need to make to compete and win. Share what you know with your furloughed staff, invite their input and listen to what they say. Remember that your sales team are your front line, they need to feel involved in the strategy you’re putting in place, because they’ll be executing it. If they can understand how it helps achieve their targets, they’ll want to do it.

Start regular training. Fill their diaries with online meetings to train and practise sales skills. Seize the opportunity to ensure they’re using your CRM and other technological tools effectively. This is a critical time to have everyone’s skills in top shape. Give them the chance to excel, give your business the chance to bounce back.

As we continue to read in the news differing estimates of when business will open again, it’s reasonable to assume it will happen gradually and the landscape will look very different. Stay smart, keep your staff engaged with great re-boarding and set your business up to succeed.

Forbes Magazine (and other sources) suggest 1 in 3 sales hires will fail and they highlight poor sales enablement as one of the main reasons for this.  Sacking an employee is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks in the management canon. There are many answers to the question ‘when?’ and not one of them is clearly right or wrong.  Many factors enter into the decision. First is the impact on the rest of the team, because perception is vital to overall morale and making sure that the sales performance does not suffer. If the perception is the dismissal is unfair, then you might end up with more problems than those caused by the person staying in a role for which they are unsuited. The ideal is to look for the sweet spot in the process, right between ‘what took you so long?’ and ‘whoa – that was a bit quick!’

Did you make a good decision when you hired the person? 

Interviewing is stressful for all parties. It’s natural to want to hire someone you relate to. Someone on your wavelength who seems to understand what you want. However, in the desire to get the whole process over and get on with business, it’s easy to forget that a candidate is out to impress you. If they’re friendly and have all the right answers, they might simply be telling you what you want to hear.  You may warm to them, they may have a great CV, good recommendations and a good reputation or maybe they just ‘feel right’. A keen candidate who’s full of energy can skim over their lack of relevant experience or a shortfall in skill, and still present as the perfect hire.

Miscommunication at interview, what they say/don’t say and what you hear/are led to believe, will put everyone at a disadvantage from day one. You’re expecting them to hit the ground running and they’re expecting training before they start.

Having a good on-boarding process should pick up any shortfalls of training or experience and allow you to organise what they need. If you don’t have the time or budget for it, you might decide a quick dismissal, due to the mismatch of experience and skill, is the best way to go. The candidate and your sales team, should understand the decision, with little lasting damage to their morale. It’s also possible to discover shortfalls in your new starter, but feel strongly they are still the right fit, and give them the training they need to bring them up to speed.

It’s worthwhile remembering that a good reputation is not always a reliable indicator of performance. Experience, skills and reputation can be linked to a specific role or company and may not transfer to a new environment.

It’s impossible to predict how a new hire will turn out, but having a good job description to attract good candidates and hiring for attitude (providing they have the experience and skill you want), offers the best opportunity for success. No-one should be told or attempt to ‘hit the ground running’ you’ll likely end up with a poor fit who’s a disruptive influence on your whole team.  Expect to coach and train them, provide proper sales tools and give them time to settle in.  These steps are essential to set them up for success.

For info about building a best practice sales function go to  www.salesenabla.com

Start by identifying that you do actually need new sales people. Make absolutely sure that you’ve exhausted your internal skillsets before starting on the expensive journey of hiring, have you considered all the options?

• Additional Sales Training
• Clearly communicated Sales and Marketing Plan
• Individual and Team goals aligned to your company vision
• KPIs that encourage the sales behaviour you want to see
• Getting an external eye to evaluate the team

Before you pick up the phone to the recruiter, set up a role/responsibility matrix; the who does what in your current sales set up and get down to the granular level to clarify the strengths and weaknesses in your sales process.

It you’ve made the decision to hire new people, it’s vital to be clear about the role you’re offering. Sales roles are notoriously varied and without clarity about what you need, candidates will be able to fudge their way into a role that might be unsuited to their training and experience. There is a world of difference between building leads and managing/upselling existing customers.

Be clear about why someone would want to work for you – remember that competition for good sales people is fierce and hiring is a two-way street, they choose you as much as you choose them.

Create a job description that clearly outlines the role being offered, and spells out the essential skills and training you expect candidates to have as a minimum. It is unlikely that a candidate will be an exact fit, so it’s prudent to review their current skillset and assess if the training you’ll need to provide will get them up to speed.

To help you construct a job description to attract the right sales person for your company, examine your sales staff, assess them objectively and think about who has the best track record and the most consistent selling ability and why. When creating your job description consider:

• What specific skills and training does a candidate need to have as a minimum?
• What personality characteristics will help them achieve results?
• What style of sales do your customers respond to?
• Check the sales environment – is a different style required to meet current expectations?
• Think about whether you want to replicate the type of sales people you already have
• Do you want to add a different style of person to your team to appeal to different customers?

Think outside the box, there has been significant movement in workforce patterns towards agile and flexible working methods.  Perhaps your ‘role’ could be filled by one or more part time people. And don’t lose sight of the fact that you’re not just advertising a position you’re looking for a solution to achieve your sales objectives.