New Hire Training For Inside Sales – Week 1 & Beyond
Your new hire has made it through their first week of training, so what comes next? I was thinking back to a blog I wrote several months ago that highlighted ways to motivate new inside sales hires from the get-go during their first week of training, and it made me think about how important it is to continue the training process long after their initial week.
As an inside sales rep when you have initial discussions with an interested prospect, you don’t let the prospect disappear from your pipeline after speaking with them. Instead, you nurture them through follow up phone calls, emails, and marketing programs. This is a lot like how the training process should be with your new hires - after the first week of training, it’s crucial to follow up with continuous training to ensure they receive the nurturing they need to succeed in the inside sales role. I take the following steps to accomplish this:
1. Schedule one hour training sessions to not only listen to messaging, but also to review the rep’s usage of your CRM system. A lot of organizations underestimate the importance of proper CRM system usage and it could make or break the success of your rep. Make sure they are setting up follow up tasks, selecting proper lead statuses, and logging activity correctly. It is also a good idea to create your own reports to monitor their usage throughout the week when you aren’t sitting right next to them. An example of this would be to run an activity report that shows prospects in certain lead statuses that don’t have a follow up task associated with them. It is easy to forget to set follow up tasks, and it’s important to help your reps identify these individuals.
2. Conduct role play sessions and include other inside sales reps on the team. It’s important to have all reps involved because they are the ones on the phones in the trenches all day - they will have some great feedback and suggestions based on what they hear on a daily basis. Make it a fun experience instead of a dreaded one - try holding a session where you provide lunch to take the pressure off.
3. Involve the outside sales team. Your outside sales reps have so much knowledge about your product or service and have probably heard it all. A great best practice is to not only have them listen in on calls with your inside rep, but also vice versa. Now that your new hire has been on the phones for a few days, listening to phone calls with outside reps will really help to expand their knowledge further, especially when handling objections.
While keeping these three steps in mind, don’t forget the most important step of all - stay positive! Always give positive feedback to keep your inside sales reps motivated - whether it’s their second week or second year on the phones.