New sales employees: 5 tips for their proper induction

It is said that there are quite a few people who regretted the change of job on the very first day. The computer was not set up. The office chair was defective. The access card was missing. IT had forgotten to set up an email account and the supervisor was surprised at the new employee. These are the classics of the first day. Yet it only describes the mandatory program, which many companies already fail at. This article is about the free program that begins afterwards and on which depends, for example, how quickly new sales employees are integrated into the new working environment and how productively they can contribute in the future.

Care instead of haste

Companies strive for optimization and efficiency, and this is often reflected in the onboarding process for new employees. The new employee should become productive as quickly as possible. The shortest path then often leads through the ice-cold water into which new employees are pushed, out of thoughtlessness, out of organizational incompetence, or out of the mistaken idea that this is the first reinforcement test. On the first day, a mug with the company logo, a process manual, a brief introduction to the highly complex CRM system, and tightly scheduled interviews with colleagues and key contacts in other departments. On the second day, product training and on the third day, an initial overview of the sales territory. On the fourth day, two customer appointments with a colleague. The week ends with a team meeting and the team leader asking if you've arrived safely and a warm "We're glad to have you on board. Good luck." How close is this description to the practice in many companies?

Companies are highly complex organisms. Sales is a highly complex activity. Customer relationships are also usually complex. Developing the necessary understanding in these three areas requires time and support, diligence rather than haste. Onboarding is not a catalog of tasks to be completed in a week, but a longer and more time-consuming process, which, however, represents an investment that pays off because new employees are more closely tied to the company, are better networked, and have the information, i.e., the prerequisites are met so that they can really make their skills effective for the company and their customers.

New sales employees: Not at the workplace for the time being

They still exist, the lone wolf organizations, with individual goals, racing lists and other competitive elements, where each individual seeks his fortune in his own way. My sales territory, my customer, my commission. But sales in B2B markets is increasingly becoming an interdisciplinary team effort. Providing customers with satisfactory support at the various points of contact with the company requires a division of labor and cooperation. For a new employee, this means that initially he or she does not belong at his or her workplace, but rather in the various departments with which he or she will be working in the future. Salespeople are internal customer project managers who depend on not only knowing who can help, but also mobilizing and coordinating the support they need. He or she must get to know the way his or her teammates work, understand the mechanisms of cross-functional collaboration, establish personal contacts and network. So that later the small official channels work, the assistance on call, and the right contact person is quickly found to solve a problem for a customer.

Many companies cultivate team rhetoric, preach cooperation and demand thinking beyond departmental boundaries. But the forms of internal collaboration are always a product of active design and carefully developed corporate culture. The best way to get there is to first increase mutual understanding. Who does what and how, with what self-image and with what goals? Where do I get what, and how can I help others improve their contribution to the overall process? The best way to learn this is to have once worked in another area. In keeping with the advice of management mastermind Peter Drucker: "To make knowledge productive, we must learn to see both the forest and the individual tree. We must learn to see connections."

This type of networking not only has the advantage that new employees quickly gain an overview, their ability to organize themselves is improved, and they work more independently, but also their loyalty to the company increases because it naturally also creates a wide range of personal relationships within the company. Of course, this takes time, but the path to a culture of cooperation and a structure of smooth knowledge transfer knows no shortcut.

Really getting to know customers

The journey through the departments has another serious advantage: The new sales employee gets to know different perspectives from which customers are viewed. After all, after the company, the customers are the second major topic of the induction: Who are the customers? What are the customers for us? And what are we to our customers? What are the characteristics of our most loyal customers?

It is not so much a matter of communicating what technically distinguishes one's own products, but rather of demonstrating their benefits for the customer and the added value in comparison with competitor products. It is less about presenting the company's own more or less standardized sales process than about explaining how customers proceed in their purchasing process, what questions customers ask that sales must answer, and in what ways the decision-making and purchasing process can be facilitated. It is less about customer segments, into which customers are divided for better structuring of support, than about the idea of personas that are as tangible as possible, with their problem, interests and work contexts, which sales employees encounter with customers.

The most important perspective is, of course, that of the customers themselves, which is why the familiarization phase also includes as many contacts and discussions with customers as possible. In this context, the opportunity to exchange ideas with long-standing customers is particularly important, because they are best able to explain why they buy the products or services from their own company and not from others. Even if new employees come from the same industry or even from a direct competitor, this does not mean that they therefore have a precise understanding of the special interaction between product benefits and customer needs at their new employer.

The tandem for new sales employees

Getting a foothold in a new company is not always easy. An employee should not be left alone, but ideally be assigned a mentor. The mentor does not necessarily have to have already celebrated 10 years with the company in order to have sufficient experience, in-depth knowledge of informal structures and a widespread network. It can also make sense to recruit employees for this task whose own induction was not so long ago and who therefore still know quite freshly and from their own experience what is important and what problems and challenges can arise. Even more important, however, are their attitudes and communication skills. Mentors should be people who embody the corporate culture that is to be conveyed, who are interested in sharing their experience, passing on their knowledge, taking time to listen, and who can perhaps even take on the role of a coach. A mentor is a guide, advisor, confidant and sparring partner. But he should not be a supervisor. In a way, he fulfills the same tasks as a salesperson in accompanying customers on their buying journey.

Onboarding as a mutual learning process

An onboarding process therefore needs a structure, time and defined roles, such as a mentor and area managers who take on new employees for a period of time, as well as the actual supervisor who seeks regular exchange with the newcomers and closely monitors the progress and development during the onboarding process. However, there is still one important aspect missing and that relates to the expectations and goals associated with the onboarding process. It makes a difference whether the induction process is seen mainly as an unproductive transitional period and a cost factor, where the aim is to make new employees productive as quickly as possible - whatever that means exactly. Mostly, this means the impression of being able to assign them specific tasks and impose goals.

In contrast, the induction process can also be viewed as a parallel employee and corporate development process. The starting point would then not be the question: What can this person not yet do and what information still needs to be provided? Although that is certainly one component of the onboarding process. However, it becomes more interesting when the question is also turned around: What can I learn from new employees? An onboarding process is always also a test for a company, with new employees as testers. How convincing is the sales strategy? How good are the processes? Are there elaborated personas? Is there a clear and consistent understanding of the customer value of products? How open and team-oriented are other departments? How customer-oriented is the company from an external perspective? A new employee is therefore an important source of information from day one, as long as companies are able to use it, encourage critical thinking, personal responsibility and customer orientation from the start and ask for their feedback. You can start with onboarding itself, which, like any other success-critical process, should be continuously improved.

Author:
Dr. Udo Kords is a lecturer in sales management at the FOM - Hochschule für Oekonomie und Management, Hamburg.