Managed Services Provider (MSP) 90-Day Sales Training Plan
Let’s assume you’re a managed services provider (MSP) that hires a new sales team member. Instead of sending that new sales hire out into the field to pursue revenue, CharTec CEO Alex Rogers recommends a 90-day plan to train that new hire — with zero revenue responsibility during that window. And every 14 days or so within that plan, you decide whether to keep or fire the hire. Is Rogers on the mark or missing the mark? Here’s his 90-day plan.
First, a little background. Rogers is one of the most outspoken voices in the managed services market. CharTec focuses on several areas, including hardware as a service (HaaS) and MSP training. ConnectWise Capital made some sort of funding investment in CharTec in January 2010, though I don’t have a feel for the specific terms.
CharTec has a sister company, called ARRC Technology, that ranks among the top MSPs in California. Rogers certainly understands technology but his energy typically kicks into overdrive when he starts talking about sales strategy — including hiring and training new sales employees.
His 90-day plan for training a new sales hire includes ZERO revenue engagements and regular feedback. The milestones include…
- Teach the hire about company culture
- Have the hire master the company intranet/internal systems
- Offer line of business training and testing in such systems as PSA software.
- Department shadowing, where the hire follows and learns from key employees.
- Early failure decision: Decide whether to keep or fire the employee on day 14.
- Product education
- Company tools education
- Managed service education
- Competition
- Books and tests
- Demonstration of LOBs
- Early failure decision: Decide whether to keep or fire the employee on day 30.
Days 31-45:
- Sales process studying
- Sales presentation studying
- Sales shadowing
- Books and tests
- First role play on all offering presentation
- Early failure decision: Decide whether to keep or fire the employee on day 45.
- Creating sales proposals
- Sales shadowing
- CharTec Academy — admittedly this is self-promotional for CharTec, which offers a two-day training event to MSPs.
- Books and tests
- Role play proposal presentation
- Early failure decision: Decide whether to keep or fire the employee on day 60.
- Study the QBR process
- Role play the QBR
- Books and tests
- Update social media
- Sales shadowing
- Create own sales track
- Identify a leads group
- Early failure decision: Decide whether to keep or fire the employee on day 75.
- Role play to officers
- Managed services
- BDR offering
- Telco offering
- Network offering
- QBR offering
That’s a pretty intriguing list. How many MSPs are willing to hire sales folks who generate NO revenue during their first three months on the job? How many MSPs are willing to really offer a training program that empowers sales team members? I’m all ears….
Hey Joe,
Sure we’d love for the sales person to make new sales day 1, but the expectation is that they need to learn the environment. I work with MSPs that are looking to hire sales people and once we find the right person they will be successful. A problem I see often is that the owner(s) who are typically technical don’t know how to hire a sales professional even worse, when they do make the sales hire they expect the sales person to bring business, contacts and start signing new business after HR orientation and the ink is dried on the W-2 form.
To wait 90-days for a sale in my opinion is not too far out of the ordinary. While I may not totally agree with Alex’s complete time line, I think that the first 45 days that he outlined above is 100% on the money.
Thanks for writing this, keep up the great stuff.
All the best,
Stu
Selling in the tech space isn’t easy, especially if you’re brining someone in with no experience, I agree with the 90 day timeline but think that it would also be a good idea for MSP’s to give new hires at least six months before they start brining in deals.
Stu: So after the 45 days are there any additional steps you’d recommend?
Astoundcom: Six months? I think that’s about $15K in base salary for a beginner sales person. Do you think MSPs can afford to invest a $15K base payment to a person who delivers zero sales for six months? (I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you; just playing devil’s advocate.)
Best
-jp
I think the reality is that whether you have them on a dedicated training plan or not the likely-hood of them closing any MSP deals in that 1st 6 months is pretty much slim to none anyway. When hiring a sales rep, experienced or not there is typically a 9-12 month ramp time where you are not going to cover the rep’s base salary.
During this time they should certainly be going through a training program similar to what Alex outlines. However they will also be working on their pipeline, this involves creating a list of prospects, calling into the list and cleaning it, scheduling appointments, building relationships, etc.. This takes time. It also takes dedication and someone willing to make dozens of calls a day for weeks at a time.
The real mistake I see most MSPs make when hiring a sales rep is that they hire a new rep and expect them to get out and generate their own leads. Lead generation is the job of the marketing team not the sales team. Without a solid marketing program in place and leads coming in, a new sales rep will have a very very long ramp time.
Lane Smith
4-Profit
Lane,
I hope all is well. Thanks for extending the conversation from sales to marketing and lead gen. Great points. But I think some of the smaller MSPs can’t get their arms around marketing.
-jp
Joe,
That’s true, though with a small MSP the owners are still the primary sales people. Often they hire a sales rep in hopes that they can back away from this role. My recommendation is hire a marketing person, keep doing the sales and when the demand starts to pick up from marketing efforts then hire a sales rep.
Lane
Great plan Alex – Marketing is awesome but no sales person worth their pay needs to wait for leads to come in. Great sales people act and believe they are running there own business and they will have a plan to meet and exceed quota – Most great sales people will never need a quota as they have set their own goals and they will find a way to make the comp plan work for them.
Take the time to make sure new members fit into your culture (culture trumps strategy), understand your products/services, and let them fly (one way or the other). Lane nothing against marketing – I live and breath it but a great sales person will not care – they own their future and nothing will stop them. Also as a business owner I want sales people so that I can work on the business and not in it (just me)Thanks for sharing – awesome stuff.
Cheers
Sean
Lane: Sorry for my super-belated reply. The whole “marketing” discussion among MSPs has always been a challenging one for me. I wouldn’t hire a marketing person until I was sure I was comfortable with all of my branding. In other words: Don’t market yourself until you’re proud of all your branding — including your website. Might be best to start with a consultant who can polish your the company website before hiring a marketing person that brings more eyeballs to the site…
Sean: Culture trumps strategy? Really? Actually… I agree fully. If you have a great culture you’ll be inclined to have people who offer ideas that — when pieced together — becomes a strategy.
-jp
I don’t necessarily believe that waiting 90-180 days is the right way to onboard anyone. I think we have all seen the ‘talkers’ who we know are BSing… and the people who talk and actually sound good. But until they are in front of a customer/ prospect– how do we really know how they will act/ respond? How do we know if they can handle pounding the streets? I was a copier sales rep who got brought into an MSP and I had a quota from month one. Trust me when I tell you I am no genius- but have an amazing company who supports me. By the time the first 6 months was over, I hit over $15k in MRR. Not that it is amazing- but i was on plan. All it was was a lot of work. If an MSP is willing to put in the work to support a rep- waiting 6 months is atrocious is my opinion.
-Alex