Teach the Basics: Onboarding Sets Sales Teams for Success with Hana Elliot

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Thank you so much. Glad to see ya.

Right this is a long time coming. I don't know why it took this long for this to happen, but here we are.

Here we are.

We did it. So. All right, well, we're going to dive right into this because I want to make sure we cover as much as possible. Right. So why. Why was this the topic? Like, when I ask, like, what you want to talk about, and it's SDR onboarding, sales reps, onboarding. Why is this a topic so near and dear to your heart?

Well, you know, the easiest answer to that is because it's what vendition does. Right? So I'm thinking about it 24 7, seeing thousands of SDRs go through it every year. But I think, you know, the. The next level to my response is what you just said. It's. It's that a lot of people get it wrong and they don't mean to. Everyone's heart is in the right place. Everyone wants their team to win. It's just a lot harder, I think, than most of us give it credit for.

Sorry, my dog's about to go nuts in the background trying to keep me quiet. You know, he's got to keep me safe. So let's talk about this. Right? So where do you think a lot of companies go wrong? Like, I don't know if I fully agree that. I think they're all their hearts are in the right place, but they. Different conversation. But where do you see a lot of companies go wrong with their onboarding? And then we can flip the script into, like, what are the things that they should be doing?

Man, I think it's really simple. I think it's not setting aside the time to do it right. You know, especially with SDRs, you have to remember that a lot of these folks are entry level. They're coming straight out of college, straight out of high school, straight out of a technical career. Maybe they're a total career switcher who just hasn't had the experience of working in a sales environment before. And especially, I think it applies across the board, but especially in remote environments, they don't have that benefit of being able to look over at the next desk and see, oh, Katie's doing it this way. That's what I should do. Right? Like, they just don't have that opportunity to learn that you and I had coming up. Right? And so. So I think the answer is super simple. It's just the intentionality of setting aside the time to be there every day, twice a day. Quick responses while someone's in that very critical first 90 days and I can't. I can't blame people either, because while you're onboarding a new sdr, you're also held accountable to a number. You're also trying to manage the, you know, your existing team and trying to be there for them as well. You've got so many other things going on. You know, I can't. I can't blame people who don't, who aren't able to set aside the time that's needed, but that's what it is.

So let's touch on that then. They're busy. I don't think that's an excuse. So what should they do? All right, I'm busy. But you're also responsible for these people. So what should they be doing to either get it done or to free up time to make sure that their people are getting onboarded the right way? Because it's one of those chicken or the egg things, like, I'm so busy that I can't onboard my people, but if I'm not onboarding my people, they're not going to succeed, which is only going to make me more stressed and more busy, and it's that never ending. So, like, what could they do to free up time or to make it work if they are strapped?

You know, first of all, I think it's a worthwhile exercise to look at the pipeline or revenue impact of not having a fully ramped SDR and seat, because that's what's going to help you prioritize your time. It's too easy to get caught up in the daily whirlwind, you know, to your point, and say, you know, I'm too busy. I just don't have time to do it. I have all these other things I'm doing. But once you see the financial impact of not having an SDR in seat, that's part of your forecast, that's part of your model, that's part of your, you know, revenue delivery for the rest of the year. Then it makes it a lot easier to prioritize because. Because it's very, very significant. I think most of us will find. So I think that's the first thing I would do, and then the second thing I would do too is, again, it's simple. It's. Before you even start hiring, make sure you have your first 90 days laid out. Go ahead and block your calendar for the first 90 days. Don't let other things creep up and take priority. And I say this because I've seen it, but I know how hard it is because I don't get it right all the time either. I'm onboarding people right now onto my team and I don't get it right all the time. It's really hard to do, but it helps have it, you know, before the whole thing's even started blocking your calendar. Going ahead and setting up mentor relationships, going ahead and setting up buddy relationships. Because when it comes down to it, the whirlwind's going to take over.

Absolutely. Something that rolled out actually. When I was at service tanks, I was in a very similar situation where I had a team of 20 and grew it to almost 100 people in a year. And I was like, how on earth do I onboard this many people? Right. I didn't have an enablement team at the time, was still ramping that up. So we implemented something called tribal training, where the first 60 to 90 days were fully mapped, but individuals on the team were responsible for different activities. And so we were able to like scale out like a heavy onboarding program, but everyone was only responsible for like an hour ish per week to make it run. And it really helped to scale things out and it touched on one of the things that you were mentioning. But I never figured this out really well remotely. And so I'm curious if you have some thoughts on this, because it helped with the culture, right? I'm learning from my peers. It helped with connection. I'm hearing it from people in my role. But that on the floor, hearing things that on the floor coaching, right? Where in the office you had disappeared remotely. Have you seen things to help bridge that? Have you done things or seen things? Best practice of like, how do you recreate that a little bit and I'll share this point and then pass the mic over. Ramp time was the only metric. I could not get back to its original form. Ramp time was the only metric. Once it moved fully remote, I could not get back back to its original form. And that was with all the things and all the tactics and all the things. I could never get it back there. And I think this was part of it. What have you seen around that kind of on the floor learning remotely?

There are a couple. I mean, I'll be honest, I personally haven't cracked the code either. But here are some things that we know and have seen worked again. We're working with thousands of SDRs a year. We're working with hundreds of employers and hiring managers a year. Here are some things, things that we do know work. So I love that, like tribal learning that you mentioned that matters. Right. And ideally your SDR is on the floor listening to, you know, all the calls going around, going on, around them. And then same thing, you as the manager are, you know, walking the floor, hearing the conversations, able to drop in feedback on the fly. Um, but when you're in a remote environment and it has to be one to one and it has to be intentional and scheduled, that gets a lot harder because, you know, you just don't simply have the time. So of course, like a call conversation intelligence software, call recording software is important for that Gong, chorus, exec vision, whoever, when it comes to delivering feedback as a manager. And then when it also comes to SDRs, listening to how other people are doing it. But you do lose the element of being able to shout shadow on the fly. And so that's another place where, looping back to what I was originally saying, that's another place where I think the rest of your team can play in. Is having more experienced AES or some of your senior SDRs who have done it and are showing great results, have them listen in and shadow and give their feedback. Chances are if you've been coaching them all along, they'll also know your mentality and be able to pass that along and re emphasize. And honestly, like, sometimes it helps to, to hear it from somebody else, not just your direct manager. Right? Like that's how it is drilled into your brain, is when you hear it on repeat, is when you hear it from multiple sources. And so, you know, kind of along along with that, I'd say, and I mentioned this really kind of in passing earlier, but I'd say making sure that your new SDRs have a buddy on the team, which is not only great for shadowing, feedback, coaching, etc. But just when it comes to human connection. Right? And having someone that they know they can go to, whether it's like a personal thing or a work thing, that's not you, I think is important. And then I think similarly, and additionally it's not either or. I think you need both, is making sure that they have a mentor again, who isn't you. My first job out of college was teaching swim lessons. And actually I did it through high school and college, but I may be minimizing it. I ran the aquatics program at a local facility.

There you go, say it all.

Yeah, I taught swim lessons, but teaching, creating the curriculum and teaching them was definitely part of it. And we always said, parents, you can be here, but we don't want you to be the ones teaching the lessons because your kid is maybe going to act out in Front of you, your kid is maybe like too attached to you and they don't want you to see them fail. So we're the unbiased third party that's going to teach them how to swim because you need that support. We're helping you teach your kid how to swim. And so having that like unbiased third party, I think is also really important. And you know, one cool thing about being a sales leader is we're all super active on, you know, many of us are super active on LinkedIn and in our networks and connections. Like those are your people that you can ask to help, mentor, to check in once a while, once in a while on your reps, who may be too scared to say something to you, no matter how trusting your relationship is, who can look for red flags that maybe you're not able to see. So sorry, I went a little off topic. I got, I got up on my.

You were on all the topics. What are you talking about? Right. It was there. You're just connecting dots from different industries, which I think is important because if sales looked at literally any other industry, swimming lessons, nursing, like, whatever, like the amount of practice and structure that they get to learn a skill is immense. And then in sales we do the opposite. So I actually love the correlation of like running an aquatics center. Right. Teaches you how to build out training, how to deal with difficult people, AKA parents, how to deal with different skill sets because they're all different. Right. Put me in the slow lane for sure. You know, you got differing, varying experiences there. But like, I think it's important because I wish people in sales thought about onboarding the same way they thought about other skills they've built. You would never ever throw someone into the pool and then expect them to win a race in three weeks.

Right.

And that's how we train a lot of our people. So like, let's talk about the elements of a good onboarding program because you've talked about, okay, like the first 90 days block the time, right? But what are the things that a good onboarding program should have over those 90 days to get the most impact? Because there's plenty of people listening right now that go, oh yeah, we have a 90 day onboarding program. You know, they learn the product the first week and then, you know, they have a mentor meeting the third week and then, you know, we check in on them. That doesn't pass it. What should a great onboarding program have, include or be done?

Great question. I'm just trying to think of like how to concisely respond, which as you've seen, I'm not great at the concise responses.

So give me the first one. First thing that popped in your head when I said, what does a great onboarding program need? What's the first thing that pops into your head?

Man? First thing is remember again that a lot of the majority of SDRs are entry level. They may not have been in a sales role, a tech role, a business world. They don't have the person next to them to learn from. So start from the very beginning. Be aware of the jargon that you're using. Be aware of the language that you're using. Start before you ask them to get on any kind of phone call, just make sure that they understand their surroundings. They understand what your tools are and what they're used for and how to use them. They understand deeply who your Personas are and not just what a Persona is, but like actually who yours are. Make sure that there's some element of tying them into the company culture too. Right. That can't be underestimated. Again, particularly in a remote environment where you can't just see it, you have to live it and feel it and be extra intentional and go the extra mile to make sure people understand like what, what your company is all about. If they haven't been in this kind of work environment before, they don't know the cues to look out for. And you know, the other thing I think and hope is kind of a duh thing, but is making sure that you're abundantly clear on expectations from metrics, through activity, through professional behavior, meeting etiquette, slack etiquette, email etiquette. Again, those are things I think that sometimes get over. You know what I think most people do have is month one, here's the number of meetings you set. Month two, here's the number. But three, here's the number. But I don't think we're supporting our SDRs enough and like how to get to that number with those other expectations. Like this is what your month one is going to look like. You. This is when you need to be at every single meeting on time or early. You know, this is how you respond to someone who helped you out. This is, you know, this is how quickly I expect responses on Slack. All those little things that add up to not only making sure someone really understands their job, but they understand the company and they understand what you're definition of a successful employee is. Because it isn't always just about the number. Right? Obviously that's a enormous part of it.

A Thousand percent. Right. And that's where I do think people forget, especially with fcr, is like for a lot of them, this may even be their first job job. And so like teaching them how to be a professional, right? Like what professional communication sounds like what it means to have a full time job job, right? Like you have to teach all of that. And I think that's where a lot of people miss is they forget all the things that they need to know in order to succeed. Like it's overwhelming the amount of if, if anyone listening, if any, y' all sat down for just a second and wrote down all the things a rep on your team needs to know in order to succeed, you would change your onboarding tomorrow because if you're not teaching it. And then also the next point I want to get into here, which is practice, right. If you're not teaching it and you're not practicing with them, how are they supposed to learn it? Like no wonder it takes five, six months to ramp them up because it takes five, six months to learn these things if it's just happening through the grapevine or like, you know, randomly versus being intentional. So, so where's that?

I think, you know, I think too, it's again, it's hard when you're in the whirlwind to do this, but man, really think deeply about it too. Right? And because I think there's so many things baked in there, response times on slack that we take for granted maybe, but you know, just keeping keeping in mind that they're. That a lot of them are entry level and that you do, it's not just teaching somebody how to pick up a phone and call.

Yeah, well, even then I think it's hilarious how little training they actually get on how to do that. Like then that's where I want to go in this next one, which is practice. Right? Because same idea. Did you do an instrument or sport swimming? Like what was your sport or like hobby growing up?

Yeah, I grew up swimming competitively. I practiced from 5:30 to 7:30am and 4 to 6pm and Saturday mornings we had a special three hour practice. Right?

Oh, see, you took it where I wanted to go without even having to ask the question. Y' all rewind this episode and go ahead and listen to that again real quick. How many hours per week she was practicing her sport. Right. But then we get into sales. You know, the thing that actually makes us multiple six figures per year and we don't practice at all. Right. So where should practice? Show up in the onboarding program? Because I do not believe in putting someone on the phone to learn. I don't think that's where you learn. That's me getting thrown in the pool with you to race. Like, I conceptually know how to swim and I'm kind of okay at it. But you've been practicing for years. I've never practiced. So where does practice come into the onboarding program to help them actually learn the skills?

Every, every day. But yeah, I'm with you. I, I'm not a, you know, second week throw somebody on the phone. That's not my approach or preference. But you have to hit it hard at the beginning. That's where you can take advantage of your mentors, of your buddies. That's where you can do a lot of like, group online at the same time, cohort writing workshops. But I'm, I'm with you. And you know, one other thing too that we've been playing with is, you know, and it'll depend for every single company what your channels are and where you, where you work that way. But one thing I've seen too is like, as you've so first, you know, you've covered your basics, your fundamentals, they know what sales is, they know what your tech is, they know what your business does. You move on to the practice. A lot of role playing, a lot of recording themselves and you listening and coaching. A lot of buddy sessions, a lot of them listening to other calls. And then once you start to move into like actually practicing, one thing that we've been playing with too is starting in while you're continuing to practice the like, high adrenaline things like cold calls, those are scary for so many people. But while you're still practicing that, going ahead and getting your actual real world experience in on the slower response, things where you can, you know, I send an email, I get a response, I can't, I have time then to ask for help on it and to work on it then. And so like starting to build in your slower response, probably like lower adrenaline, fewer oh shit moment channels, and then like kind of amp it up from there, you know, that lets people just get comfortable with what they're doing. It's, you know, there's, there's of course an element of like pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone that is part of sales. But let's make sure we support people to get there.

Yeah. And what's your thought on ramping quotas? So like, because sometimes people's like, hey, Your quote is 10 every month. And you ramp up to it or month one, it's one, month two, it's three, month three, it's nine, and then month four. Like, how do you think about ramping quotas during the onboarding process?

Great question. I think especially that first month where there's so much learning and being a sponge involved as you're creating your, your quota for that month. Keep that in mind that they may not even get on a phone for two weeks. They might, they might not even be on all of their channels, full cylinders for a full month. And I know that's, that's a tough pill to swallow because we all want to see pipeline fast, but you also want people to be successful. The, the other thing I might consider too when creating ramp quotas is, you know, looking at your existing sequences and seeing at what touch point on what day do you normally start to see responses and meetings? Because one mistake that I've seen before multiple times is the second you, you start expecting meetings on day one while they're cold calling, while they sent their emails, while they drop people into sequence. You know, so this week we should have responses. But you know, if you have a longer, if most people are hitting on step eight in your sequence and that happens week two, you need to adjust your ramp quotas for that. So I'm not sure I like totally answered your question, but those are two things that I would consider when I'm setting up, especially those early, those early indicators. The other thing I think about too is like, you know, it's different if you have been prospecting every day and you have this mass of contacts that are currently at some phase in sequence, then it becomes a little more predictable. But just do the math on, you know, if I start day one and I drop in 20 contacts, how many of those realistically are going to turn into a meeting? Day two, I have 40. How many are realistically going to turn into a meeting? You can't just expect the full, the full thing right away. How do you look at quota, Katie?

So, I mean, Similarly, I have zero quota in month one. Zero, absolutely zero. My month two quotas for my STRs are laughably easy. Like, laughably like one or two, depending on the role that they're in. Because I want them to feel overachievement. I want them to believe they can get to their number and get past it. I don't care what they produce in their first 60 days to your earlier, earlier point. I care about what they do when they are ramped up. That's what I care about. Them getting one meeting or three meetings does not Change my org at all in their first month or two. But by month three to four, I want them at their full ramp so I actually slow down to speed up. Month one, literally zero. I don't even expect you to set a meeting to your point. You may not have made enough calls yet. You don't have enough leads in there yet, you haven't even sent out enough emails. Month two, I want them firmly believing they can get to that number and exceed it. Go get one. Like go get one or go get two. And that was it. While building up. So the vast majority of them would overperform in month two, which builds confidence going into month three when it ramps up a little bit more. And then by month four, you're fully ramped and good to go. So that's how I did my ramping quotas for SDRs.

I think that what you're saying about building confidence is critical and often overlooked because we are so focused on just the number. But early wins help. You know, A, you're building confidence. B, you're getting buy in for yourself as a leader and for your company. And you know, people like to win. They're happy and motivated when they win. When you start to see slowdowns, no matter how experienced you are, that's when you have motivation problems. That's when you have turnover problems. That's when people start doubting themselves potentially you. Because you're not able to lead them through it. And so I think those early wins are critical. That's. I love that. Thanks for sharing.

You just have to. Right. Like to set someone up and have them miss quota. Their first month on the job is a recipe for disaster. Absolute just. They're gonna fail. They already are doubting themselves. That's how you get rid of that like, you know, new kid enthusiasm is have them miss their quota in day 60. And then we wonder why they're already in their head. Right. So it's setting them up. But also, again, I slowed my people down. You weren't even making a call generally until month or week four. Weren't even making a call. You were practicing daily. You were getting hundreds of repetitions in before that first call. Right. I knew when someone was ready, when they were frustrated, they weren't on the phone yet. That's what I'm looking for is like I want them chomping at the bit like, hey, I'm ready. No, no, you're not. Put me on the phones. No, not yet. I can do it. I'm building up that confidence to then unleash them. I don't care what they do in their first two weeks. That makes zero difference to me at all. I would rather someone practice for an entire month straight and then get on the phone than put someone on the phone after a week. And I know people have differing views on that, but like, I'd put mine up against that any day. Someone's on the phone in one week with a one week of training. My person's on the phone in four weeks but have been practicing for a month. Let's see what happens in month two and three. I would put that up against any of those other processes.

Yeah. And you know, I think one other thing that's potentially a helpful tool to build into that because there's being ready is so subjective, you know, but you know, are there assessments that you can build in at checkpoints and milestones throughout their onboarding process to determine are they actually ready and you know, what are the. Make sure you know what you're looking for. Can they do X, Y and Z on a cold call practice with you?

Exactly.

You know, they can't do it in.

Practice, they can't do it in the game. Like the benchmarks are actually very clear. If you can't pass a role play with your peer, with your mentor, self recorded or with your manager. I know once you get a prospect on, you're not so you're going to freeze.

Yeah.

It was so easy to know if they were ready or not is because if you can't do it in practice, you're not going to pull it off in the game. And so as we wrap, as we wrap up here on this, right, like, because the name of this podcast is Live better Sell Better because I have this weird idea, right? Like if we took better care of ourselves, if we had more joy, more energy, more fulfillment, that maybe the sales would go up too. What would your live better advice be for people listening? Gosh.

You know, it's. I've been thinking about it a lot this week in particular. You know, we've had such tragic events happening in the world around us.

My.

My advice for managers is to take time to remember that your, your people are human, man. Especially in remote environments too. People are going through stuff right now. We had a kind of open optional session yesterday where we invited team members who just wanted a space to connect with others. And I learned things about what they were going through that I never expected. We had someone who grew up very close to a previous school shooting and so he was going through some stuff. I have a former Teacher whose mom is a principal of an elementary school. She's going through some stuff and worried about her mom. Not to mention, of course, all the care that people have just for everyone who's been directly affected. But yeah, man, I think that's my biggest thing is for the managers who are listening. Your numbers are important, but they're not everything. And your team are people first. And they're not going to win if they're not able to be their full whole selves at work.

I agree with that 1000%. Not only from the personal things I'm feeling from it. I actually shared that with my post today. I was going on stage for a speaking event five minutes before walking on stage, get the notification on the phone of what had happened. And all it said was a school in Texas. It's all said, I'm at. I'm in Texas. My daughters are at school in Texas. When that came through, and it was just like, I had to research and find out where it was and what was happening is just awful. And so I think checking in on our people and what I want to call out that you did there very well too, is like, check in with intention, not just, how are you doing? Like, create the safe space. Create like this. We know shit's going on right now. Like, let's talk about it. Like, in creating that environment, you know, to feel safe and heard is really, really important. So, no, I think that's a great way to end on this because it is like onboarding, management, leadership. It's about our people and remembering what they need and what they're going for is really important. Like, where can people get more of you, Hana? Where are you putting out info? Where. Where can they learn more about you and your. Your company that do, like, onboarding or, like, ramp people up the right way? Where can they learn more about what you got going on right now?

Love that question. Y' all connect with me on LinkedIn. I love to meet new folks passing through Nashville. Shoot me a note, I'll show you the good honky tonks. And then, you know, please check out Vendition. If you're building your SDR teams, we can help you build a diverse, productive, ramped SDR team. And we, you know, we're here because we want to help people launch lucrative, successful careers in tech sales because all of us have experienced how cool of an industry it is to be in. More people deserve to have that opportunity. And so that's what we're going for. And it's awesome. Yeah.

Especially if you're listening going, I don't have time to ramp up my SDRs.

Let me help them.

Like, because you're doing yourself and them a disservice by not, like, let somebody help you. So, Hana, this was phenomenal. Thank you so much for your time, energy and insights. I really appreciate it.

Great to see you. Love talking about this stuff. So really appreciate the conversation.

Oh yeah.

I.