How can you help new sales reps stay organized and productive?

Mentorship and Shadowing: Pair new reps with experienced salespeople for mentorship and shadowing. This allows them to learn from those who have been successful in the role. Regular Feedback and Coaching: Schedule regular one-on-one meetings to provide feedback, address concerns, and offer coaching. Constructive feedback helps new reps improve. Performance Metrics: Introduce performance metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress and assess success. Regularly review these metrics with new reps. Incentives and Recognition: Implement a rewards system to motivate and incentivize new reps. Recognize their achievements, both big and small.

📅 Structured Scheduling: Teach them effective time management and planning. 💻 CRM Utilization: Train on using CRM systems for tracking and organization. 📝 Checklist Creation: Develop daily, weekly, and monthly task checklists. 🔍 Prioritization Skills: Guide on prioritizing tasks based on urgency and importance. 🔄 Regular Review: Encourage frequent review of goals and progress. 🤝 Mentorship: Pair with experienced reps for guidance and tips. 📚 Continuous Training: Offer ongoing training for skills development. 💬 Open Communication: Establish a culture where they can ask questions and seek help. 🌐 Digital Tools: Introduce productivity and organizational apps and tools. 📈 Performance Tracking: Use metrics to monitor their progress.

My go-to strategy is to emphasize the power of a solid CRM system. It's not just a glorified contact list; it's your sales sidekick. Encourage reps to religiously update it after each interaction, track leads, and set reminders for follow-ups. Also, master the art of prioritization. Teach them to tackle the high-impact tasks first, like closing deals or nurturing hot leads. Time management is everything. Lastly, foster a culture of continuous learning. Provide resources and workshops to keep skills sharp.

To establish SMART goals that are simple to monitor and maintain motivation and focus. Always be receptive to advice and guidance in order to reach your objectives.

Setting clear and realistic goals for new sales reps is crucial for their success and alignment with the company's objectives. By ensuring these goals are SMART, you provide a structured pathway that enhances focus and accountability. Additionally, prioritizing tasks based on impact and urgency, and utilizing tools like calendars or CRMs, helps reps manage their time efficiently, reducing overwhelm and increasing productivity. This foundational approach not only drives performance but also fosters a disciplined and goal-oriented mindset.

Successful individuals maintain a routine of daily habits. Winners establish consistent morning disciplines that serve to start their day on purpose. This is a practice of intentional focus on what you want to accomplish and is critical to achieving daily results. Disciplines create momentum and motivation. Successful people are meticulous about what they do in the morning and what they avoid. Leaders and mentors should prioritize training and development of critical routines of the highest performers. Daily, weekly, and monthly reviews of results reinforce best practices and peak performance.

Overnight successes usually take a while. It’s not about knocking it out of the park everyday, that’s not sustainable. Pro tip: You will never achieve an end goal without a plan to get there. It’s about small, consistent steps. Every single day. Getting you closer and closer to your goal. Create an achievable plan, and stick to the plan!

Systems work, and putting strong logical systems in place ensure that the sales rep can perform. Sales is not just a game of chance, where we gamble for a close. Results can be achieved by a consistent development of skillsets, and finetuning of messaging. Consistent routines, via system, is one way to achieve this.

It is essential to conduct a weekly calendar review with your new sales professionals. I recommend conducting this review on a Thursday morning. The goal is to look at the coming week and help ensure they are focused to the right activities. If there are gaps in their upcoming schedule, you still have time on Thursday and Friday to make adjustments to ensure the coming week is productive. New sales professionals will benefit from weekly review sessions and will generally perform at a higher level as a result.

Time Management Training: Provide time management training to help new reps prioritize tasks and allocate their time effectively. Goal Setting: Assist new reps in setting clear, achievable goals. These goals can be daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly to help them stay focused. Effective Use of CRM Software: Train new sales reps on how to use your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software effectively. This tool is crucial for tracking leads, managing contacts, and staying organized. Account and Contact Organization: Teach new reps how to categorize and organize their accounts and contacts within the CRM to ensure they can easily access relevant information.

There are so many tools and systems to use to stay focused. I am a big fan of a combination of system AND executive coaching. Coaching helps people find the solution from within because there is nothing like having an AHA moment. They stick, are more valuable and productive, and the buy-in is instantaneous. Mindset is a must, then, the tools and systems can be put in place and help manage the principal.

In my role as a consultant and coach in the B2B SaaS sector, I encourage salespeople to quickly learn how to use Salesforce.com but to ignore all the fields that provide no immediate value to them. Then, learn how to use the content database (e.g. Seismic) and download the most helpful collateral to their device to make it easier to access. Note, that the internal Sales Enablement staff may not have experience with best practices, so it is helpful to ask one of the top-performing peers for productivity advice. I also coach on how salespeople should create a profile on LinkedIn that appeals to buyers. Do that by describing how you help them achieve their desired business outcomes.

Lead Qualification: Help new reps understand lead qualification criteria and processes to prioritize high-potential leads. Sales Automation Tools: Familiarize new reps with sales automation tools that can help streamline repetitive tasks, such as email outreach or lead nurturing. Effective Communication Skills: Offer communication skills training to improve their ability to engage with prospects and clients and maintain clear and concise communication. Regular Training and Skill Development: Provide ongoing training and opportunities for skill development, ensuring that new reps continuously improve their sales skills.

—> 𝗦𝗲𝘁 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿, 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹𝘀. Establish revenue targets. Prioritize time management. Identify key performance metrics. Create a plan to achieve these goals. Lay the groundwork now to reap future benefits. Above all else, accountability is key in developing the necessary discipline & work ethic to be successful. Celebrate the wins no matter how big or small, but learn the most from the losses.

Let them learn for 3 months, keep them into observation and then slowly set small goals for them, let them face some challenges and make sure they should become comfortable answering tough questions. Need to develop these things to prepare them for future. Also celebrate their small wins and make them confident and comfortable for big wins. Ensure to measure their eq and provide feedback on routine basis.

Shadowing and Mentorship: Encourage new reps to shadow experienced salespeople or assign them a mentor who can guide and provide support. Customer Research: Show new reps how to conduct effective customer research, enabling them to understand customer needs and tailor their approach. Sales Scripts and Templates: Create sales scripts and email templates that new reps can use as a starting point for communication with leads and clients. Regular Meetings and Check-Ins: Schedule regular meetings and check-ins to review their progress, address challenges, and offer guidance and feedback.

We have had associates become in-house domain experts that everyone looks to for expertise. It's a great way to empower someone who is learning to maximize their knowledge.

Continuous learning will keep them uptodate, Promote ongoing training, webinars, or workshops. The sales landscape changes, and it's vital to be updated. Encourage them to regularly update their product knowledge and be aware of market trends.

Performance Metrics: Share key performance metrics and encourage new reps to monitor their own performance to track progress. Time for Administrative Tasks: Allocate time for administrative tasks, such as data entry or reporting, and teach new reps to manage these efficiently. Customer Relationship Management: Stress the importance of building and maintaining strong customer relationships. This leads to repeat business and referrals. Adaptability: Teach new reps to adapt to changing market conditions, customer needs, and sales strategies.

The best salespeople are constantly learning: articles, books, podcasts, demos of new tools. At beehiiv, we foster a culture of continuous education with our “unlimited book budget.” Employees are constantly encouraged to buy and read books, and to share with each other what they learned and how it’s improving their professional and personal life. Particularly in 2023, as SaaS companies and AI tools are accelerating the pace of development, sales organizations should constantly seek to learn what’s new and reevaluate their current thinking and process.

At beehiiv we have 1 “monthly wellness” day per month, and we have unlimited PTO with a required annual minimum. The best people give the best work when they are given time in their lives to recover and regenerate. Sales is hard. It takes a lot from you and often requires being “on” a lot more than with other roles. Rest, mental health, and proper work-life balance all work in favor of a salesperson’s efficacy and overall productivity at work. Try it— it really does make all the difference.

Celebrate Small Wins: Recognize and celebrate small achievements to keep new reps motivated and confident. Encourage a Growth Mindset: Foster a growth mindset that encourages learning, resilience, and the pursuit of self-improvement.

Pair them with a seasoned sales representative. A mentor can provide guidance, share experiences, and offer invaluable advice. Self care, Stress the importance of breaks, exercise, and proper nutrition. A healthy body and mind increase productivity.

When starting in a new sales role- ask leadership who last years top performers were, and reach out to them to learn from their successes. Top performers learn from other top performers, and more often than not, they will be happy to share their learnings with you. Don't just learn from your current manager, current team, or even current business unit. Ask to interview the top performers across the organization and note down their key learnings. You will often receive key points that the top performers have in common, and these are especially interesting, as they show they have worked across the board.

Teach them how to use their calendar! Calendar blocking is one of the most underrated but impactful skills for any sales professional (or any professional at all for that matter). By allocating specific times for tasks, it minimises procrastination and optimises focus allowing sales professionals to be more effective across the day!

Become a lifelong learner, and you will be among the top-performing salespeople in your industry. You can gain new useful insight by learning how to use free tools, such as Google alerts, which automate the process of finding new data about your industry on a regular basis. Also, I coach salespeople on how to subscribe to the most helpful podcasts that I have discovered. Lastly, if the sales manager doesn't provide coaching to new hires, then I offer to help a salesperson find a mentor. Training can provide skills, and a good mentor can provide actionable wisdom.

Having met hundreds of sales people and Business development managers, it is very clear to me that most of the not so successful ones would not be able to tell their managers what they will be doing tomorrow, let alone next week. Most sales people I have met live in a reactive world, where everything is urgent. It is key to equip them with good time management and collaboration skills to help them take back control of their time.

By providing comprehensive training and ongoing support, new sales reps can develop the skills, organization, and productivity necessary to succeed in their roles. Effective onboarding and continuous coaching are key to their long-term success.