So many leaders these days are penny-wise and pound-foolish.
I recently had a prospecting call where the head of RevOps at a 300-person company needed to create an onboarding program for new sales hires. If you don’t know anything about sales, the ramp time of new hires is a big deal - you have to start paying back what you’re spending on 300 people, and the sooner you do that, the better. This head of RevOps had no capacity to do it internally. He didn’t even think his team had the experience to do well yet.
But here’s the kicker:
His CFO gave him $5k-$10k to spend… on a 6-week onboarding program that, if done well, would ramp up new sales hires quicker and generate more revenue.
No money, more problems
How much do you think that onboarding program could be worth? Let’s say we have a company with 10 reps, each with an annual quota of $1M. What if your onboarding could improve their ability to sell by just 5%? That’s $500K right there. And that’s just the most conservative, simplistic illustration.
Opportunity for improvement exists everywhere. You can improve your productivity and organizational skills to crank up activity in your pipeline. You can improve how you send emails to get more opens. You can improve curiosity to qualify leads quicker. You can improve your empathy and storytelling ability to close bigger deals more often.
There is enough opportunity for positive improvement to make Arnold Schwarzenegger sit up and take notice.
So what are we going to do?
I feel sorry for this head of RevOps. It’s not his fault. He knows what good looks like but doesn’t have the bandwidth to execute it. He knows we can help him, but an unrealistically low budget ties his hands.
My worry for this company is that they might save money in the short term (penny-wise). But in the long term, they might end up spending way more (pound-foolish) on the opportunity costs of lost revenue and the attrition costs of low morale from an underdeveloped salesforce.
It’s a tough one for sure, and honestly, it’s why we guarantee our work at Curious Lion. We are expensive, but we know what we’re capable of. I get where the CFO is coming from too, but let’s not lose sight of the enormous value of doing this right.
How to create a world-class onboarding program
Let me end off with some recommendations here, for my head of RevOps friend, but also for you in case you’re building onboarding from scratch.
Here’s what I would do:
Establish clear onboarding objectives and metrics: Align your onboarding program goals with your company's mission and values, and identify KPIs like productivity, engagement, retention, and satisfaction to measure success.
Develop a comprehensive onboarding plan: Include tactical and strategic elements, such as pre-boarding activities, orientation, training, mentorship, and social integration. Make the plan adaptable to new employees' diverse backgrounds and skill sets.
Assign dedicated onboarding coordinators or mentors: Their job is to guide new hires through the process, provide support, answer questions, and serve as a point of contact for the team.
Leverage technology and tools to streamline the process: Consider digital platforms for communication and collaboration, e-learning tools for training, and HR software for tracking and documentation. Prioritize user-friendly tools that integrate seamlessly with your current systems.
Continuously evaluate and improve the program: Analyze data to identify program areas for improvement. Stay current with industry best practices and trends to keep your onboarding program competitive.