You’ve hired a new sales rep. She’s raring to go. She’s so excited you can practically feel the passion. You know you’ve made a great hire, and you can’t wait for her to know everything she needs to start talking with prospects.
What do you do? Sit her in front of online training in your CRM for 5 hours, favorite sales trainer’s program for 10.5 hours and vendor partner videos for 3 hours. By the end of week one, she’s dragging.
You missed your chance to harness that excitement into quick wins for your new sales rep.
Set New Sales Reps Up for Success
While your new rep needs basic solutions and sales process information, they don’t need to know everything to start prospecting. When you consider that only 10% of calls will connect, and only a portion of those will reach the right contact, there isn’t much harm in putting your rep on the phone quickly.
The key is to turn your rep loose immediately – while she’s excited.
New reps don’t expect to be handed leads. They expect to work hard for new opportunities. Leverage it to your advantage and practice these 4 strategies to find quick wins for new sales reps.
1. Talk with Other Reps
Mission your new salesperson to speak with other reps and identify companies who might need your services. These could be vendor partner reps, salespeople in another division, department or sister company, or alliance partner reps. They could be salespeople of companies you work with who sell complementary services to your own, such as cabling companies or commercial real estate brokers.
You may also encourage your new rep to contact her own network. Be careful she doesn’t spend too much time here if the probability of uncovering new opportunities in your target market is low.
Even without knowing your full solution suite, your new salesperson can find quick wins in opportunities these reps pass. She’ll figure out how to position and sell it as she works the lead.
2. Get Referrals
Originating from clients who know and respect your company, referrals are the best lead source. Give your new sales rep a list of happy clients to call and interview to learn what they appreciate most about your services, then ask for a referral.
You’ll get two quick wins with these conversations. First, your new rep learns the value and differentiation of your services in your clients’ voice. Second, he secures referrals.
If your new sales rep isn’t sure how to ask or is uncomfortable asking, have him take our quick 2-part referral training. Within 2 hours, working one-on-one with an expert sales consultant, your rep will be ready to call clients and unleash a referral stream.
3. Contact Old Prospects
Most business owners expect quick wins for new sales reps to be hidden in cold prospect lists. But that’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. Save those lists for last and instead, begin with old prospects.
While you may not have won a proposal 18 months ago, and a prospect went dark on you 6 months ago, these old contacts could be ripe opportunities for your new salesperson. Have her call each prospect to learn what their current status is and where they may need help today.
Contacts who never made a change might be ready now. Not all companies who chose a competitor will be as happy as expected and could be evaluating new options. Your new salesperson can get in the door again.
4. Call Aged Marketing Qualified Leads
Let’s face it. While your tenured sales reps said they called all the marketing qualified leads from your lead generation campaigns, they didn’t. You have aged marketing qualified leads that may still have potential if someone follows up. Give them to your new salesperson.
Eager to call anything but the ice-cold list, your new hire will diligently follow up on every one, screening and cleaning, scouring and devouring, searching for new opportunities. Turn her loose. She’ll uncover something if only because she wants a quick win for herself as badly as you do.
Yes, new salespeople still require your planned solution and process training. It’s just not necessary to complete it before first speaking with prospects. Mix training with calling and create the opportunity for some quick wins for new sales reps. You’ll be rewarded by their motivation.
Need a better strategy like these tips to bring new sales reps to full productivity faster? Contact us. We’ll define a simple onboarding plan to get quick wins for new sales reps.