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Design an effective sales onboarding program to ramp up faster.

Best practices can boost employee productivity quickly.

Time to read: 6 minutes

A sales onboarding program can have a big financial impact on a business in both the short and long term. However, most companies fail to follow best practices, resulting in ineffective and costly onboarding programs.

Research on the performance of onboarding programs shows effective onboarding services can improve quota attainment by 17%. On the flip side, an ineffective onboarding service can increase your voluntary turnover rate by 79%.

To succeed, sales leaders need to understand the biggest challenges organizations face when onboarding new reps, the benefits of faster ramping, and more. In this article, you’ll find concrete examples of onboarding program guides you can start using today.

What You'll Learn

How to build an effective and engaging onboarding program to boost ramp time for reps
How to provide the right information at each step of sales onboarding
How to coach your reps and overcome challenges during the onboarding process
How to get your reps to exceed their quotas quickly and consistently

A study by the research firm Bridge Group found that the average ramp time of SaaS reps increased in 2022 to over five months. That means reps spend less time at full productivity, causing significant strain on the business.

Astro stands in front of a smiling woman with the equation for employee productivity in the corner: productivity equals tenure minus ramp.

When new sales reps join an organization, they are often confronted with more playbooks, manuals, and training videos than they can absorb. The problem with too much information being shared too quickly is that it can distract reps from their main focus: the buyer.

Successful sales onboarding programs recognize that sales reps only need the most relevant information to get started. It is your job, as a sales enablement leader, to determine what your new hires need to know (and when) so they can deliver the best possible customer experience.

The most effective onboarding programs have three things in common:

They are highly engaging. You don’t want to bore new hires with endless hours of training videos and materials in the first weeks on the job.
They are ongoing. Active involvement and meaningful activities are a way to make sure reps are continually engaged.
They show clear ROI. Successful onboarding programs show a positive return on the metrics you want to drive the most.

It takes time before new salespeople are able to meet quota and begin to close deals regularly. Improving how fast you onboard makes that shift happen sooner and increases the odds of reps paying for themselves before they exit the business.

The Sales Onboarding J-Curve

Astro stands next to a graphic representation of the J-curve concept. The left side of the graph, or x-axis, is labeled “Profitability,” the bottom side, or y-axis, is labeled “Time,” and to the right of the graph are seven colored ovals representing the 5 stages of employee onboarding. The line of the graph starts by going down before curving back up.

How to Design an Effective Onboarding Program

We’ve looked at the reasons why an effective onboarding program is critical to business success. Now, let’s take a look at how you can ramp reps faster by:

Training reps on your CRM, focusing on measurable KPIs, and prioritizing buyer immersion.
Investing time into prospecting and building a pipeline.
Practicing prospect conversations and closing the first deal.
Reviewing sales performance so reps can close their second deal quicker.
Identifying ongoing coaching and enablement opportunities.

Stage 1: CRM Training, KPIs, and Buyer Immersion

The first stage is all about building a strong foundation for reps by introducing them to your CRM, spending time with buyers to understand their wants and needs through buyer immersion, and setting measurable goals.

CRM Training

Start building your reps’ CRM experience early, and get them comfortable with its functions and workflows as part of their day-to-day operations. You can also get them active early in their training by setting up prospecting calls. The earlier they’re comfortable being on the phone, the sooner they’ll start adding leads to their pipeline.

Focus on KPIs

Ensure that reps understand the right goals. You’ll have passionate reps who want to hit the ground running and immediately exceed quota. However, be sure to have them focus on their goals and KPIs. Whether connecting with customers, booking meetings, or building their pipeline, identify some of the things they might be nervous about and focus on setting small goals that build up confidence and get them their first deal.

Buyer Immersion

Buyer immersion is a more effective way to introduce new reps to their jobs than lengthy product reviews. It’s critical for reps to quickly understand who the buyer is, why they buy, and what’s important to them so they can curate a personalized experience with relevant information.

After the first stage, they should have a strong understanding of the buyer, as this will serve as a critical foundation for every sale they make.

A computer screen displays a dashboard featuring the activities sales reps typically complete during the onboarding process.

Stage 2: Prospecting and Pipeline

In the early stages of their training, it’s not uncommon for new reps to express concern about the job, their skills, or their sales outlook. The key to getting past this is to focus on prospecting as soon as possible. Talking to real prospects will help your reps to learn faster, add leads to their pipeline, and get them comfortable with the relevant tools, such as lead management software that supplements your CRM. Offer microlearning opportunities like videos on how to best use the sales tech stack at your organization.

Tools like Einstein Conversation Insights, which allows you to gather the most relevant customer data from every interaction, and Revenue Intelligence, which can make possible predictable revenue with AI-driven insights and analytics, can also give reps the power to identify important sales trends and accelerate their pipeline.

Astro stands beside a phone screen that shows a completed list of sales onboarding training tasks, with the “First discovery call” milestone emphasized.

Stage 3: Prospect Conversations and First Close

By now, reps should have a few meetings booked and the beginnings of a sales pipeline. It’s important to get your reps to close their first deal quickly and take advantage of this momentum.

Encourage them to practice prospecting by role-playing with peers and managers. Have them listen to customer win stories and submit recorded calls for their peers and managers to review using a tool like Einstein Conversation Insights. Give them a few key resources — one-pagers, case studies, quick sheets. You don’t want to overwhelm them with too many how-to guides, but you want to offer support. This way they begin to develop more advanced sales skills that will boost their confidence and ultimately get them to quota faster.

A computer screen shows a completed list of sales onboarding training tasks, with the “First deal closed” milestone emphasized.

Stage 4: Review Performance and Close the Second Deal

New sales reps hitting their first deal is a great accomplishment, so take the time to have reps share their win with the rest of the team. How did they do it? What was the use case? How can the incoming cohorts learn from their experience?

Now, it’s time to have them focus on going after the second deal. The feelings from the first deal will quickly fade and, if they don’t focus on winning that second deal, they may lose momentum.

Arguably, the time to second deal is the most important metric in onboarding. A shorter time to second deal demonstrates that lessons learned during the first deal have become ingrained. It also makes it less likely the initial “win” is a one-off, indicating predictable, repeatable success.

Astro stands beside a computer screen that shows a completed list of sales onboarding training tasks, with the “Second deal closed” milestone emphasized.

Stage 5: Ongoing Coaching and Enablement

Once reps have closed their first few deals, you want them to turn their attention toward consistent quota achievement. Focus your reps on setting bigger goals in the areas they want to improve.

To put a plan in place, have reps talk about where they may have fallen short, and how they can learn from that to improve. Do deal reviews, get them to discuss lost deals, and do pre- and post-mortems.

It’s also a great time to start challenging reps. Experiment with different metrics. How can they build a pipeline faster? How could you shorten the sales cycle? This will help them hone their sales strategy skills.

Once your cohort is ramped, it’s also a good time for sales enablers and leaders to understand the trends for the sum of your reps. Use enablement to start looking at every milestone in onboarding, from first meeting to first deal and quota achievement, and see if any programs, certifications or coaching could help reps ramp faster. Is there something missing? Or are there activities you can cut? You can pull average metrics for your cohort, and understand who’s ahead and who’s falling behind so you can quickly course-correct to avoid quota slippage.

Astro appears next to a smiling sales representative who is wearing a headset and holding a notebook.

Conclusion: Getting Started with Effective Sales Onboarding

By equipping reps with the right assets, training, and coaching at the right stages of the sales onboarding process, you’ll speed up your ramp time and build a confident sales force.

It’s important to remember: Treating onboarding as a one-time event can limit learning opportunities and growth for your reps. Start by getting your reps familiar with the buyer and your CRM. Then, help them set goals, fill their pipelines, and begin practicing sales calls.

Once the first deal is closed, review their performance together and identify ongoing coaching opportunities so they can close their second deal quickly and start exceeding quota consistently.

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