The first 90 days of a sales rep’s tenure at a new company are likely the most important 90 days of their career at that company. Not only does it set the tone for their work ethic and effort level, but it’s also when they are building their funnel for the first time. Don’t wait until the end of the first 90 days to check and see how they’re faring; instead, use these 30-day milestones to evaluate their sales performance and how they are ramping.
30-days
The first 30-days of sales performance should be measured by two points — are they retaining the information from their sales training, and are they doing the basics. This is an observational period where you’ll want to see if they’re showing up on time, paying attention during meetings, retaining the sales training materials, asking thoughtful questions, and starting to build their sales funnel.
Asking thoughtful questions and following up after meetings is a good sign they are learning and eager to succeed. Be wary if they are asking too many questions that are covered in your training or repeating questions you’ve already answered, it might be a red flag that they aren’t engaged or adjusting well.
For more quantitative sales performance data, measure with more structured quizzes and tests on the sales training materials. Or, if you have a shorter sales cycle, they might already be interacting with and building the top of their funnel by making cold calls and sending cold emails. Set those benchmarks based on your top performers’ ramp up.
60-days
Within 60-days your new sales rep will be settling in, and sales performance should be trending upward. If your business is SaaS, they should be actively utilizing their training, call scripts, and cold email templates to build their sales pipeline.
The focus has now shifted from top of funnel to mid-funnel activities. They might be scheduling and hosting their own sales demos now. If they are, sitting in on the demos is a great opportunity to see how they are applying their new skills. You also want to ensure that they haven’t forgotten about the top of funnel activities. Top sales reps should be able to balance progressing existing opportunities with generating new ones.
Having face-time, and giving timely, actionable feedback in the moment is invaluable. Don’t wait for the end of the month, or the end of the onboarding process to give them that feedback. Have regular 1-1 meetings and check-ins throughout the months.
90-days
Hopefully, by now, your sales rep is in the swing of things, building their pipeline, managing their funnel, and integrating with the team.
If you have set a 90-day quota, they should be working on hitting that, but if not their pipeline should have deals in later stages by the 90-day mark. They should also have healthy pipeline coverage, at least 1-3x their quota. And the funnel should have a widespread, covering all stages of opportunity.
If your newly hired sales reps are following all the guidelines at each of these milestones, they’re on the way to becoming successful at your company! Don’t forget that even tenured sales reps need help and coaching. It’s an ongoing process to improve your reps, so don’t skip trainings, 1 on 1s, and call reviews.
We write a lot about hiring and training sales reps, everything from what interview questions to ask and recognizing top candidates, to incentivizing performance and even how to appropriately fire a sales rep if it isn’t working out. No matter what stage your sales team is at, QuotaPath can help you do sales quota management. Sign up for free today.
