How Long Should It Take
A New Sales Rep to Hit Quota?

Now, it is tricky to say exactly how long it should take for a new sales representative to be gelling with the company, and closing enough deals to be making quota. That depends on quite a few variables.

Jill Konrath mentions in a conversation with Jim Brown on the SalesTurners podcast, that it takes – on average – six months for a new sales rep to be hitting quota.

Jim’s reply to her was that it’s been his own experience as a sales trainer and coach that it could as long as three months of building the salesperson’s pipeline before hitting quota at six months is even a real possibility.

And it is this comment from Jim that should remind sales leaders of the how important it is to consider whether a new salespeople is being inserted in to a lead-rich environment or if they’ll be responsible for developing their own. When anticipating how long it will take the new-hire to ramp up to full productivity and for the company to start seeing an ROI, this is a huge factor.

As you might imagine, in a lead-rich environment where Account Executives are kept busy servicing sales-qualified leads supplied by a sales development team or inbound strategy (or both), the time frame in which they might be able to hit quota would be shorter. You could think in terms of weeks.

Where as, full-funnel sales reps who have to develop their own interest from prospects, qualify those prospects, and then service them through an entire sales process will have a ramp-up period of several months, not weeks.

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Of course, this kind of oversight by business owners is pretty common. In this interview Jill notes that a lot of sales managers and business owners expect too much too fast from their new sales hires.

If you quit on a quality sales hire after just three weeks, you’re setting yourself up for an endless cycle of hire, fire, hire, fire, hire, fire.

So, assuming six months is the typical ramp up period for a new hire in B2B sales, how can business owners, sales managers, and their sales reps win more than they lose?

3 Steps to More Successful New Hires in Sales

1. Be Understanding & Realistic – This is arguably the most important thing as a sales manager. You must understand that your new salesperson isn’t going to be closing a bunch deals or meeting quota right off the bat.

If you’re looking for one sales rep who can do it all, be advised: They don’t exist. Rex Biberston makes that case in his article, The MacGyver Sales Rep Myth. You CAN however, do your part to help new sales hires learn the ropes quickly.

 

2. Have a Sales Plan – Know what works in generating sales for your company. What’s worked in the past is likely to work again; At least some version of it will.

If you don’t have a playbook you can teach to incoming salespeople you’re setting them – and yourself – up for failure.

 

3. Sales Leadership is a Must – Not all sales professionals are sales leaders. If you don’t already have a fully capable director of sales and don’t want to be involved in the day-to-day of sales operations, it would be best to hire one BEFORE you hire any sales reps.

 

It is skipping these three steps that leads so many many owners and hiring managers into the kind of Hiring Traps That Kill Sales Velocity.

These approaches to hiring sales talent sound like great ideas, but rarely produce top performers or drive profitable revenue growth long-term.

 

Hiring Traps That Kill Sales Velocity

1. Hiring ‘Experienced’ Salespeople – Experience is relative. A top performer in a lead-rich environment might not be have what it takes to thrive in a role where they have to develop their own opportunities through outbound sales development.
2. Hiring Candidates That are Already ‘Connected’ to Your Target Buyers – It’s true that customers commit to a sale emotion first and logically second.  However, if your sales hire can’t build strong business cases to reinforce a prospects emotional impulse, the deal will die. Salesmenship (or the attitude and aptitude to learn it) is a have-to-have. Prior association to prospects is a nice-to-have.
3. Hiring Candidates with a Technical Background – This is most common in engineering fields but happens elsewhere. Even if a technical person is intrigued by the upside of working for commission, they almost always cycle out before the employer reaches a break-even on having hired them because they lack the attitude and aptitude to enjoy life as a sales professional.

Click Here to Learn More About
The Hiring Traps That Kill Sales Velocity

 

 

Who is Responsible When New Sales Reps Fail?

The success of a new salesperson depends on many things, but you can be absolutely certain they aren’t going to be hitting quota right away.

Sales is not magic!

Sales is a process that takes time and requires the effort and attention from many people on your team. If your sales process is not mapped out, chances of consistent and predictable sales success is slim.

Entrepreneurs love their businesses. It’s their baby and are surprised to learn other people don’t already love them and that their offers don’t just sell themselves. Business owners need to TEACH new salespeople how to sell their product to clients of all types and that takes time. Chances are it will take months, not weeks or days, for a new sales hire to hit their stride.

Salespeople can control their attitude and activity. They can’t control leadership. If your business isn’t prepared to train, lead, enable, or motivate salespeople then it is on you if they fail.

The good news is that as a business owner or sales manager you can do all of those things!

 

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About the Author: Carly Trombley is a writer and social media strategist living in Vermont with big dreams of moving to a more metropolitan area. She is a recent college graduate who loves photography/videography and the impact that they have on society. Follow her on Instagram or connect on LinkedIn to learn more.

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