Onboard a new rep in phases, with a test to pass each

1. What the first week is for

On one team, every salesperson hired goes through the same first week. In its manager's view, a lot of that week is mainly about getting the script into the new rep's hands, and about getting as many repetitions of it as possible.

The longer the manager thinks about bringing a rep in, the more it is, to a large degree, a matter of the right expectation being set.

2. Hiring in a batch

If you are growing the sales team at a more aggressive pace, this team has found one way works best: it likes to hire three reps and bring them in together as a batch. If you are hiring one rep, that is fine.

3. Day one: a one-on-one, then the handbook

The week opens with one-on-ones with the manager. With a batch, that first meeting of the day is one manager and the three new reps. It sets up the day (what they will do today, and what it looks like) and brings them onto the team.

Next, the reps go through the handbook, and a lot of the first day is spent in it. It is described as a guide to how to win on the team and how to be a very, very good rep there. In the manager's view, it does two things:

1. It shows the rep exactly what to do.
2. It gets ahead of the rep's own objections. The manager likes to see it this way: in the way a salesperson handles an objection from a prospect, the handbook handles the new rep's before they raise them, and builds the right habits of behavior and belief into them starting on day one.

It also sets out very clear expectations.

Study it; do not just read it. Asked whether the reps really read the handbook, the answer is yes: they will know it inside and out. This team's whole handbook takes like 90 minutes, an hour and a half, to read from start to finish. The idea, which the team even writes into the handbook, is that it is not something to read once and put down. It is something to study, and a rep should know every word of it. In the view here, ticking a box to say you have read it means nothing, and if you can know the script completely, every part of it, that is what makes you exceptional.

4. The rest of the first week

• Good calls, and plenty of them. The whole first week, on this team, is spent soaking in good sales calls: listening to them, and shadowing the best reps.
• In person. The manager loves having new reps there in person; the team brings in even the reps who will work remotely. They listen to the top people and ask what they did at a given moment, why they did it, and how it worked.
• Sitting in on the daily training. After the handbook, the reps join the team's daily training. They mostly sit in like a fly on the wall, especially during week one, watching what happens. The team really wants them to get used to its culture.
• Shout-outs. The team also wants new reps to be giving shout-outs before week one is out. Each sales meeting it holds opens with shout-outs, the group calling out each other. The advice if you are going to start this: start it yourself, as the manager, by stepping in front of your sales team and calling out the behaviors that make you more money.

The wider culture those shout-outs belong to is set out in SOP 257 — Name the rules your sales culture reinforces and tolerates.

5. The four phases

There are four phases of onboarding. For each: what the rep does on their own, what the team does to train them, and how the rep passes. Each phase has a span of days, and the spans overlap.

Phase	Days, as stated here	The rep, on their own	The team	To pass
One	the first two days	study the handbook intensely; memorize the script	meetings with the manager; role play; shadowing	memorize the script
Two	day two to three	keep studying the handbook; delivery; practice recaps; review game tape	role play; manager check-ins	perfect the script's delivery, then a test on recaps
Three	day three and four	study the handbook; memorize the objection loops; review game tape	role play; manager check-ins	all three together, end to end (see below)
Four	live calls from day four; a half calendar from day four to 14 if every test is passed	the handbook memorized by now; review game tape; rehearse every script alone	a manager check-in, now once a day; role play; live calls	meet the standards for live calls

Phase one. On their own, reps study the handbook hard and memorize the script. What the team adds is meetings with the manager, role-play sessions and shadowing, and that is it. The test is simply this: have you memorized the script?

Phase two. Reps keep studying the handbook and work on delivery, making sure they talk loudly enough, clearly enough and slowly enough. Then they practice recaps. A recap, in this example, tells the prospect what it sounds as if they are saying. What it means is lifting the particular pain the prospect names up to one of your solutions. Examples: a prospect not getting a lot of customers has a marketing problem; one who cannot get people to buy has a sales problem. It sounds simple, but pattern-matching has to be learned, especially by a rep, whatever you sell: a prospect arrives with a symptom, and the rep has to name the thing you do that fits it. That is all a recap is. Separately, the view here is that sales training should spend far more time on customers' problems than on the product: hearing their pain named convinces a prospect you can fix it (SOP 248 section 1). Reps also review game tape on their own. The team adds role play and manager check-ins.

To pass phase two, the rep perfects the delivery of the script, and then the team tests them on recaps: the team names a problem, and the rep says what it maps to. This matters for discovery, it is stressed. Matching problems to pain is one step in what is called, fundamentally, all the sale is: a run that begins with the opening and discovery and ends with the call to action.

Loud, clear and slow are set out in SOP 237 section 2. Recapping and matching the problem to your solution, on a live call, are in SOP 240 section 2 and SOP 242 section 1. The script as a whole, from the opening line to the ask, runs across SOP 238 to SOP 242.

Phase three. On their own, reps keep studying the handbook, memorize the objection loops, and review game tape. The team adds role play and manager check-ins again. Notice that every phase adds one more thing: first a memorized script; then the script with perfect delivery; then perfect delivery with recaps; and now all three together, perfect delivery, recaps and looping, the whole thing from end to end. Phase three's test is not worded the way the others are; that cumulative bar is what is given.

The loops themselves are carried by SOP 249 — Keep asking with the general closes, then book the next meeting.

Phase four. By now the questions are whether the handbook is memorized yet and whether the rep has reviewed game tape. Reps also rehearse every script alone: saying the whole of it out loud, without reading it. The team adds a manager check-in, now once a day rather than twice (twice a day at the beginning, once a day after that), more role play, and live calls. Live calls start on day four: this team gets people up pretty quick. To pass phase four, a rep meets the standards for live calls. What those standards are: Not established on this page.

6. Leads only after the test

Starting live calls on day four is contingent on passing. A rep who does not pass stays in training until they are up to it. Asked how you avoid burning through leads, the answer is this: the team keeps reps away from leads until they have passed the test.

A deadline for letting go a new rep who keeps failing a test is not covered on this page. In section 5 of SOP 157, a cut comes under strong consideration at the end of week two for a rep who is not yet productive; section 6 of SOP 43 has its own cut rule, for someone properly trained who still falls short.

7. Setting comes before closing

On this team, everyone who comes in starts at the bottom, as a setter, and you cannot close unless you have set. A hire brought on to close can be earmarked for the closer team: if they hit above the target, the team can pull them over. That case is given as a hypothetical, if they had hired a closer.

The reasoning: if a rep cannot set, they cannot close; and if a prospect will not agree to a call with them, that prospect will not pay them either. Asked whether all of this is the same for business-to-business sales, the answer is that this team itself sells to businesses: so yes, everyone sets before they close. A second reason given is that setting gives a closer an appreciation of the work that went into producing each lead.

Outbound, even for closers. That is why every closer on this team is expected, if they have open time on their calendar, to put in two hours of outbound daily. In the view here, this keeps them sharp and keeps them appreciating what outbound does. The strongest reps, in this example, do hours of outbound on top of their inbound calls, because they want to win. Leads come to everyone in about equal measure, so the one advantage a rep has over the others is the outbound they generate on their own.

The setter's own calls are in SOP 53 — Run the setter scripts. How much outreach to do, and how many leads one person should be given, are in SOP 29 — Set outreach volume.

8. How a new rep's calendar fills

From day four to 14, if the rep has passed all the tests, they get a half calendar of sets. They move to a full calendar as long as they keep doing well. When they hit the target, they are pulled over to closing.

Flag: which comes first, the full calendar or the target. Here the full calendar comes while the rep keeps doing well, and hitting the target moves them to closing. Elsewhere, a rep has to hit the target before getting full days (SOP 256 — Run ongoing daily and weekly training for sales reps, section 2). This page does not settle which reading is right.

This page gives no figure for the target that moves a rep to closing. What counts as doing well: Not established on this page.

9. What this page does not decide for you

• Letting a rep go. A deadline for letting go a new rep who keeps failing a test is not covered on this page.
• The live-call standards. What they are: Not established on this page.
• The target. This page gives no figure for the target that moves a rep to closing.
• Phase three's test. Only the cumulative bar is given, not a test worded like the others.
• Where each phase ends. The spans of days given overlap; which day a phase ends: Not established on this page.

10. The checklist

Step	What to do
1	If you are growing the team at a faster pace, think about bringing hires in as a batch; one team likes three at a time
2	Open the first day with a one-on-one: the manager, the new reps, and what the day looks like
3	Give them the handbook on day one, to study until they know every word, not to read once
4	Through the first week, have them listen to good calls and shadow the best reps, asking why
5	Seat them in the daily training as observers; if you start shout-outs, start them yourself, as the manager
6	Run the phases in order, each adding one thing, each with a test to pass
7	Give a rep no leads until they pass; keep them training until they do
8	Start every hire as a setter; on one team, closers put in two hours of outbound daily if they have open time on their calendar
9	Once every test is passed, give a half calendar of sets, then a full calendar as long as they do well, and move them to closing when they hit the target

11. What this page does not cover

• The drills. How to memorize a script and how to run role play are for SOP 250 — Memorize the script, then drill it in role play. Drilling a whole team on closing is SOP 108 — Drill a team on closing.
• After onboarding. Training a team once it is taking live calls belongs to SOP 256 — Run ongoing daily and weekly training for sales reps.
• Culture. The rules a sales culture runs on sit with SOP 257.
• The loops. Handling a prospect who does not say yes is SOP 249.
• Pay. Compensation and promotion are dealt with in SOP 251 — Set sales comp and a career path for reps.