BTM Event Video: Handshake CRO Kiva Kolstein – How do you accelerate and measure sales training in the first 6 months?

Building the Sales Machine (BTM) Event Series: we post clips of the best questions that where answered during our live events, so you can take the best ideas back to your teams and companies for further discussion

Eric @ BTM: 

How do you accelerate and measure the new hire sales training ramp in the first 6 months?

Kiva Kolstein:

Before you begin to accelerate the ramp, you need to understand what to expect from the sales professional during that ramp.  One of the challenges that we all face as sales leaders is knowing in the first few months or year whether a new hire will be productive.   You want to hire quickly and let people go quickly that are not going to work out.

Determine the KPIs that you will be looking for over the first 6 months, thats really important.  Ultimately the way you model your business, and what you present to the board will be based on the new seller and where they are in their ramp.  If you got ramp wrong, all of your numbers will be wrong.  For example, in month four you’re expecting the seller to double their output, if this doesn’t pan out all your forecasts will be off.

As for accelerating that ramp, it comes down to sales enablement and sales training.  How you deliver to the seller in month 3, 5, 7, exactly the tools, resources, and support they need to be productive.