To grow a business, you need to hire quality sales representatives. This guide lists 5 tips to successfully onboard new remote sales reps.
It’s no secret that having a team of high-quality sales representatives is one of the best ways to increase your company’s revenue. This is even true for remote sales reps, which have become increasingly commonplace due to the complications associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
But, not every entrepreneur knows the best way to onboard their new remote sales employees.
Not sure where to start? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
Let’s take a look at everything you need to know.
1. Set up an Introductory Call (Or Series of Them)
One of the most stressful aspects of remote work from an employee perspective is feeling isolated from the rest of the company due to being physically distant from the office. Over time, this can significantly impact morale and cause sales reps to feel less motivated to strive toward outstanding performance.
Instead, make time in your schedule to have an introductory call with your new sales hires.
Ideally, this would consist of multiple one-on-one calls to introduce yourself, welcome them to the company, etc. But, not everyone is able to allocate this much time.
As an alternative, you could schedule a conference call that includes all of your newly-hired sales reps and key members of your company. People will have the opportunity to briefly introduce themselves before moving forward with essential information.
This typically includes details about your company culture, what’s expected of your sales reps, etc.
It’s crucial that you inform them as thoroughly as possible to avoid any complications from arising in the near future. You should also encourage them to take notes and provide them with a recording of the conversation once it has concluded.
2. Walk Them Through Your Sales Platform and other systems
As you may expect, one of the most important aspects of the employee onboarding process for your sales employees is getting them up to speed with the sales platform you use within your company. While these will vary from business to business, they typically include a form of chat-based application, customer relationship management, etc.
For instance, a typical company may use chat software for general communication between coworkers but use more formal software to submit projects, schedule calls with executives, etc.
Additionally, you should provide detailed information related to file storage/access so that they’re able to acquire documents that they need. This is particularly useful for accessing a training manual or brief at a later date.
Regardless of what you use, it’s imperative that your sales reps become fully efficient with your preferred software as soon as possible.
3. Streamline Training
While there are plenty of benefits associated with working remotely, training can sometimes be more complicated than it needs to be due to the lack of in-person communication (or even communication in real-time).
Fortunately, this issue is relatively easy to resolve.
In order to help make this process as intuitive as possible, you could provide them with a series of training videos that showcase your company’s different products/services, what information should always be included during interactions with clients, etc.
You could also include a short test or quiz at the end of different training segments to ensure that your sales reps fully understand what their responsibilities will entail.
It’s also important to be open to feedback that you receive from your sales reps so that you can optimize the training process. This will lead to an overall increase in revenue.
With basix.ai, sales users only need a few clicks to engage prospects on the platform due to our automation. Sales user training is the fastest our clients have ever experienced with any other tool.
4. Schedule Days Where You Get in Touch
Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs tend to simply let their remote sales reps go off on their own once the introductory phase has been completed. Not only will this lead to an inevitable roadblock in performance, but it can also potentially isolate the employees that you just hired.
So, it’s recommended that you come up with predetermined dates where you touch base with your sales reps. These could be as frequent as weekly calls or something more along the lines of a quarterly performance review.
Regardless of what intervals you contact your employees, they should remain consistent as time goes on. Having eight weeks of calls with your sales reps and then a month of radio silence isn’t conducive to your reps’ overall performance.
5. Help Your Reps Complete HR Paperwork
Even the average company has a large handful of documents that need to be looked over and signed by your new hires. Businesses in notably-convoluted industries (such as law or medicine) will often have even more paperwork that your sales reps need to complete.
One of the most inefficient ways to satisfy these obligations is to let your reps look through everything on their own without offering them any form of guidance. Although modern software has reached a point where you can remotely sign agreements, this doesn’t mean people are comfortable doing so on their own.
So, it’s worth arranging a time where you walk them through their contract, various agreements, etc. You’ll also be able to answer any questions about sections they don’t understand, if necessary.
Afterward, you’ll be able to ensure that nobody on your team of new hires has any unanswered concerns that could potentially impact their sales performance.
Onboarding Remote Sales Reps Can Seem Difficult
But it doesn’t have to be.
With the above information about onboarding remote sales reps in mind, you’ll be well on your way toward making the decision that’s best for you and your employees.
Want to learn more about how we can help? Feel free to get in touch with us today to see what we can do.