Sales Onramping: Pay Now Or Later

It has been a few weeks since we have touched on the subject of onramping of salespeople so it is time to return to this topic. All too often we see management waste an opportunity to set the proper tone with their new hire. They then spend months, even years, trying to correct bad behaviors they allowed in the first place.  If you do a search on onramping or onboarding on the web, you will find many articles and all of them at some point will discuss the fact that setting the tone early is very important. So why is this a reoccurring issue for so many new hires?  In my reading the… Read More

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Turnover Reflects Your Onramping Program

When you look at your employee turnover are you content or confounded?  If confounded, what have you done to improve it?  You may want to start by reviewing your onramping program.  Managesmarter.com had an interesting article on this subject and provided the following findings: 22 percent of staff turnover occurs in the first 45 days of employment. (The Wynhurst Group) 46 percent of rookies wash out in their first 18 months. (Leadership IQ) Companies that leave onboarding (ed. what we call onramping) to chance experience failure rates in excess of 50 percent when it comes to retaining new talent. (Egon Zehnder International, 2007) More than a 50% failure rate?  Ouch!  I have seen… Read More

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The Cost Of Underperforming Salespeople

Here’s an interesting little article I stumbled across this morning from Seacoastonline.com titled Get the most out of your sales team.  The premise is simple and accurate – nonproductive salespeople are the bane of any small (or large) business. A nonproductive sales team is among the top common dangers that cause many small businesses to fail. Analyzed studies reveal that a large percentage of small businesses are unsuccessful because of underperforming sales people who bring in, at a minimum, 50 percent less revenue than top performers, according to researcher Dr. John Sullivan, professor of Economics at San Francisco State University. … Studies indicate that a common reason for poor performance… Read More

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Press Box Management

I mentioned a certain manager last week in a post and his desire to be an “observational manager” of a new sales hire instead of a hands-on manager.  The problem is compounding itself this week as he contemplates firing the salesperson who started 1 week ago today. These are the headaches we have to deal with in the sales hiring arena.  The new salesperson has already had one face-to-face meeting with a small prospect he located and is on the trail of 5 other companies…IN THE FIRST WEEK.  He has even accomplished this using his own computer, cell phone and resources.  He has also been afforded only 1 or 2… Read More

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