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ATD Blog

Building a World-Class Sales Onboarding Program

Tuesday, April 25, 2017
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Sales Onboarding
There’s a lot of focus (for the right reasons) on onboarding. The global economy is thriving, and new tools and methodologies are emerging every day.  Not to mention, budgets are loosening up and companies are in hyper-growth mode. This environment is the golden opportunity that sales enablement resources have been waiting for. But it has also created the perfect storm of confusion, fear, and uncertainty.

What Does World-Class Sales Onboarding Look Like?

How many times have you been asked what world-class onboarding looks like? Were you so shocked by the question that you didn't have a clear, concise answer? Don't worry. If this is you, you're not alone. 

I remember the first time that a senior executive leader asked me this question. I was so stunned that I replied with the old tried and true answer: "That's a really good question…" We all know that my reply was code for, “I don't have an answer that will make me sound credible, so let me get back to you on that.” 

I quickly realized that I better be prepared with an answer the next time I was asked a tough question! This epiphany was the genesis of my 20+ years in sales enablement. That day, I came to understand that building a world-class sales enablement program meant more than just knowing what world-class sales onboarding looks like, it meant that I would be helping to craft and define the future of the field!

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Blueprint to Success

Companies are asking sales enablement professionals to focus on decreasing ramp-up time and speed to productivity for their sales new hires. The issue with fulfilling this need is that no one provides a blueprint to success. This leaves folks to their own devices to find the answers to the critical questions: 

  • What are the components of a world-class sales onboarding program? 

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  • How do you build a partnership with sales leadership that will ensure that onboarding is a mutually equitable experience? 

  • What metrics are required to show positive traction and true ROI? 

Want to learn the answers to these questions? Join me at the ATD 2017 International Conference & Exposition for the session: Building a World-Class Sales Onboarding Program. You will learn what is required to create a successful sales onboarding program and how it sets the stage for a long, fruitful selling career.

About the Author

Roderick Jefferson is the vice president of Marketo’s Global Enablement organization, where he is responsible for setting the readiness framework and strategy to support the enablement plan across all corporate learning and development, professional services, as well as internal and partner sales roles across all skills and knowledge disciplines. In this role, Roderick leads the planning, direction, and execution of global enablement with a scope that spans business planning and strategy, enablement, events, communications, and productivity tools. Prior to Marketo, Roderick held a variety of management, sales, sales training, L&D, and customer experience roles for Oracle Marketing Cloud, Salesforce.com, 3PAR/HP, Business Objects, NetApp, PayPal, Siebel Systems, & AT&T.  Roderick is an acknowledged thought leader in the global enablement space. With 20 years of leadership experience he has built enablement organizations, covering the enterprise and SMB space. He has extensive experience in creating specialist sales productivity organizations and has been responsible for the successful delivery of a series of integrated cross-sell/up-sell methodologies, enablement, and sales execution programs that drove significant incremental revenue. Roderick has won numerous awards, including being selected as the 2015 Sales Onboarding Program of the Year by SiriusDecisions. 

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