Quickly (and correctly) ramping new AEs is one of the most critical aspects of an FLMs job—especially in today’s frenetic, high-churn environment.
Instead of taking the default “Do-It-All” approach, world-class sales leaders of high-performing teams think and operate more strategically—like a GM.
When it comes to onboarding, instead of strictly outsourcing it to enablement or trying to do everything themselves, they employ a high leverage strategy:
They get their existing team to do most of the heavy lifting, while they manage the overall process.
In other words, they leverage existing team members’ strengths by tasking them with bringing new AEs up to speed in that particular aspect of the business or sales process.
Given that different team members inherently have different strengths, each top-performer is responsible for training new AEs in the core competency where they excel the most.
This highly leveraged approach simultaneously accomplishes a number of key objectives:
◆ Shortens the learning curve and accelerates the ramp period by enabling new AEs to observe / model key behaviors because they can see what “good” looks like in action
◆ Frees up bandwidth for FLMs so they can remain engaged with existing team members in weekly 1:1 coaching conversions ensuring that they are consistently executing at a high-level—and continuously learning, growing, and improving
◆ Provides an opportunity to showcase team member’s strengths— boosting their self-confidence and the overall morale on the team
◆ Gives ICs the opportunity to hone their leadership skills in a safe environment, gives you (FLM) the opportunity to assess their leadership ability, and develop a bench of potential back-fill candidates
◆ Fosters a high-performance culture based on tea unity and collaboration wherein everyone on the team is continuously sharing knowledge, best practices, and committed to helping one another get to the next level
To build a high-performance team that scales, don’t try to do it all yourself.
Start thinking and operating like a GM.
Leverage your greatest asset—your people.
