The first pitch - and the first sale - are unforgettable for a sales representative. For a sales trainer or manager, the larger anxiety is the time taken for the employee to make their first sale from the day they are hired. That is a measure of how much the new hire (either individually or as a cohort) will contribute to the topline, and also on what further interventions need to be planned to help them sell better.

The time to sales revenue can be described as the time invested in the employee - from the date they are hired to the time they make the first successful sale. It is a highly variable quantity, ranging from a few weeks to a few months, and depends upon various factors:

1. The nature of the industry’s sales cycle
2. The total time the representative spends in training before they hit the road
3. The quality of the training
4. The amount retained by the representative when they make their first call (the ‘forgetting curve’)
5. The number of pitches they make before the first success

There are two definitions that are helpful - sales acceleration, and sales readiness. Sales acceleration is that part of sales enablement that helps new hires speed up their time to sales revenue. It is mostly a function of training representatives to use content, analytics, and resources strategically. Sales readiness is the preparation made by the sales representative, both in terms of their general training, and the specific preparations they make. The aim of both is to make  sales conversations meaningful to the buyer, bringing them closer to clicking the metaphorical ‘buy’ button.

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Challenges in Sales Acceleration

Since 2020, the sales process has changed significantly, with the end of time-tested tactics like in-person meetings, giving away complimentary gifts or wining and dining promising buyers. Instead, online selling has become the norm, and as a McKinsey report notes,  3 in 4 buyers would like that to continue. In essence, that means relationships have to be built on the strength of conversations, and the merits of the product or service being presented with conviction. And they pay off - where earlier buyers were reluctant to commit large sums online, now a sum like $50,000 is easily spent online. While that is not necessarily a sum a sales representative is expected to win over in their first call, it clearly indicates that they need to be prepared. Here are five ways that help your representatives elevate their game.

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1. Train new representatives for online selling

Some training never has to change - a seller still needs to build empathy and trust with the buyer in order to understand their needs, online or offline. Other lessons, like learning cues from the buyer’s body language, are no longer effective. Where content could be secondary to communication, now it has to be upfront, and personalized to be relevant to each buyer. Training needs to superpower the representatives, seasoned as well as rookies, to do precisely that.

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2. Adopt the right technology platform

The pandemic has changed the training environment as well - putting an end to the classroom, for example. It is now more reliant on technology to help the seller learn remotely. While a variety of Learning Management Systems (LMS) are available, it is pertinent to ask whether they are engaging, user-friendly and dynamic to deliver a comprehensive training which is absorbed and retained by the seller/rep. Alternatively, the LMS can be subsumed within a multifunctional sales enablement tool.

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3. Overcome ‘information overload’

Several LMSs use the ‘binge’ format - uploading training videos, long form content and assessments all at once. It can become daunting for the new learner to assimilate it all in one go - especially when there is pressure to finish training and start making calls.

Byte-sized content, delivered over a period is helpful. Another advantage that this approach has is to help beat the forgetting curve. A cyclical approach that includes alternate learning modules and practice calls (using AI-based role plays to mimic real-world situations) is another helpful way to stay ahead of the curve.

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4. Provide relevant content quickly

Product training takes its time, as representatives learn over multiple calls to anticipate customer questions. Having up-to-date content at their fingertips - through an easily accessible platform - allows them to a) pitch the right product and not share out-of-date messaging and b) quickly retrieve and share relevant information for every buyer question. This helps them build empathy and earn trust - the fastest way to close a deal.

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5. Deploy the right metrics

It must be remembered that the offline training-to-pitching model allowed a certain initial downtime to be baked into the trainees’ time to sales revenue. It can be tempting to cut down that time, by compelling sellers to make pitches before they have learned the basics fully.

It helps to have the right metrics. How much content is each representative being able to assimilate each week? How much of that content is being forgotten within a week? How many real-world situations have been practiced? What is the ratio of failed pitches to successful ones (in simulation)? And what is the stage at which the trainee can be certified sales-ready?

These five recommendations are only the tip of the iceberg. The real superpower is to assess the organization’s specific strengths and weaknesses, to find ways to accelerate the representatives’ time to sales revenue. Not only does that boost the topline, it also inspires confidence in the seller.

sharpsell equips sales reps with personalized content to engage with customers and customized presentations to share with customers as per their needs. All the content is accessible through a single source - the sharpsell platform. Companies using sharpsell have seen an increase in sales productivity with higher number of products sold, higher ticket size, increased visibility on prospecting, reduced content creation cost, reduced time to first sale, reduced costs of training, and uncovering insights on product feedback.