Cory Bray - Hiring, Onboarding, and Ramping Salespeople: The T.E.A.M. Framework

The T.E.A.M. Framework

BY CORY BRAY AND HILMON SOREY

FOREWORD BY DAVID BLOOM

AFTERWORD BY JODI MAXSON

Copyright 2019 Cory Bray and Hilmon Sorey

All rights reserved.

ISBN 13: 9781706730989

The evolution of modern sales is rarely sparked by a truly new idea.

Mobile phones didnt invent selling on the go, any more than CRM invented customer relationship management or dialers invented the cold call.

Sales onboarding is no different.

People have been looking to make sales reps better at their jobs ever since the first caveman sales manager got his first caveman direct report. Weve just evolved.

First, we had sales methodologies. Then, a CRM. Then RevOps, sales training, proper coaching, and readiness programs specifically for go-to-market teams.

Now, its time for sales enablement to takes its place where it belongsa strategic business function that improves top-line revenue and bottom-line growth by maximizing sales rep profitability.

Rep profitability should be the north star for leaders in charge of making new hires successful. And the #1 way to do that is to reduce ramp time.

Dont get me wrongevery salesperson goes through some sort of period where they are getting up to speed. Zero to quota in sixty seconds or less is an insane pipedream. But, rather than cramming onboarding into a one or two week boot camp, we should design programs that reflect the experience of the reps that were onboarding.

Now normally, forewords dont have graphs, but hey, Im a maverick. Take a look at the graph in . Salespeople transition through what I call the J-curveat first unprofitable for the business as they learn, and then delivering increasing value over time as they hit their sales milestones, like first activity, first meeting, first pipeline, first deal, first quota, and first consistent quota.

Figure 0.1: The J-curve for sales rep productivity

If our goal is to improve rep profitability, then we need to onboard and ramp faster. We need to cut the curve and shift the whole thing left, hitting each sales milestone sooner to achieve sales objectives earlier. After all, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to know that if salespeople find pipeline faster, theyll get their first deal faster. If they can book a meeting in week two instead of week three, theyll probably get to pipeline in week four instead of week five.

And if we can embed these milestones directly into programs, we can optimize those programs over time, giving teams a clear mandate for onboardingif a program isnt impacting the time to a specific milestone, then the program shouldnt exist.

Imagine: instead of looking at vanity metrics like quiz scores and how much content gets consumed, what if we focused on the outcomes of our programs?

What if whoevers leading onboarding could definitively prove how much revenue the company realized for every dollar they put into their programs? Because I know one thing for sureif theyre going to get a seat at the table, they had better have the numbers more meaningful than certification metrics. No VP Sales ever walks into the boardroom and says: Hey, great news! We all missed our number, but quiz performance is up 22%!

No. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to move the metrics that matter and generate the revenue outcomes that executives care about.

Think back to the Kirkpatrick Model. For years weve been so focused on reaction and learning at the bottom that weve forgotten about the outcomes were supposed to drive at the top: the behavior and results that matter most to sales leaders.

Salespeople want to know that their enablement team understands what it takes for them to be successful. They need to understand both the outcomes being driven, and that the outcomes being driven matter to them.

When we talk about outcomes instead of inputs and quotas instead of quizzes, I call it outcome-based enablement. Its the next evolution of the readiness function.

If we can tie program inputs to revenue outcomes, then hire, onboard, and ramp against those outcome success metrics, we can elevate the profession from a tactical component of the RevOps toolkit to a strategic business function thats critical to success. Management will finally have a quantifiable answer to the question Are my reps getting better, faster, and if so, why?

This story will always start with hiring, onboarding, and rampingand Cory and Hilmon have developed a complete strategic and tactical guide for leaders who are in the trenches. They explain not only what leaders should be doing in terms of onboarding and ramping to pivot the function toward real outcomes, but they get into the details of how to get it done.

Cory and Hilmon turn their countless consulting hours into an indispensable handbook on how to build a repeatable hiring, onboarding, and ramping enginean engine that can (and should!) be an essential component of any growth machine.

Enablement isnt a new idea. Onboarding isnt a new idea. Helping salespeople be better isnt a new idea. But linking program inputs to the sales outcomes that executives actually care about? That very well might be.

David Bloom

We developed the T.E.A.M. framework after having worked with hundreds of companies and thousands of salespeople, with the goal of providing a robust framework for organizations to attract, grow, and retain top talent.

Many sales leaders are adept at identifying talented candidates and successfully recruiting them, only to watch the dream fizzle as month six approaches and the individual has not yet attained quota.

Some managers can take a recent graduate right out of college, train and coach them into becoming a high-performer in their first sales role, only to have that sales rep stagnate and eventually leave due to a lack of professional growth, or readiness for the next opportunity.

Start-up founders frequently struggle to make their first sales hire. Should it be someone I know? Someone who has a rolodex? Should I pay a fortune for someone with experience at one of the top companies? Should this person be more strategic or tactical? Then, they realize months later that they have made the wrong decision, and its back to square one, with increased pressure to get it right the second time.

Hiring, Onboarding, and Ramping Salespeople is the key to unlocking and applying the T.E.A.M. framework used by organizationslarge and smallto drive repeatable growth, hiring rigor, accountability, and professional development. The framework includes the following components:

Talent Acquisition: Identify, interview, and hire the right people, at the right time, to achieve business goals.

Engage New Hires: Convert candidates to producers, quickly getting them up to speed and executing revenue-producing activities.

Accelerate Performance: Drive continuous improvement around competencies that lead to consistent results.

Mastery and Progression: Achieve mastery in the current role, and develop both strategic and tactical competencies for future positions.

All of the technology, data, systems, and product features in the world cannot replace the need for a consistently high performing team. Heres who will find value in this book:

CEO, COO, and Founder: Move from a reactive organization that grows unpredictably to a proactive organization focused on the application of frameworks that drive repeatable success.