This deck shares the common issues faced by organizations in inducting senior lateral hires in sales and how to tackle them. A poorly done induction could lead to disengagement or premature exit.

1. Inducting Senior Lateral Hires
Sales Design Inc

2. Why induction for lateral hires? Aren’t they mature enough to adapt on their own?
Lateral hires in sales are likely to come from a different company. Some even belong to a different
industry. Which means that they will have to adapt themselves to some major changes in the new
company:
❏ New Product
❏ New Customers
❏ New Team & Culture
Even with high experience and maturity, they are likely to fail at adapting without an induction plan
and support. Failure to adapt to any of the three elements could lead to a “false start” and
eventually result in voluntary or involuntary termination.

3. The pressure of fast “ramp-up”
In modern organizations / funded start-ups, the pressure to adapt, “ramp-up” and show early signs
of success is critical for founders. It is not unusual for first-time founders and VP-Sales to have
“buyer’s remorse” within one month of the person joining. There are great expectations from the
“costly” lateral hires and even the slightest hint of deviation from that expectation sets off alarm
bells.
The pressure exists from the lateral hire’s point-of-view as well. She has arrived with a point to
prove and question status quo. More often than not, she tends to overcompensate by pushing hard
for “quick-wins”. In this process, if she isn’t well versed with product, customers or culture, it can
backfire very quickly.

4. The lack of “hand-holding”
Founders and VP-Sales tend to have endless priorities and crazy schedules. Rarely do they find
time to handhold the lateral hire in the early days. But why is hand-holding required?
The lateral hire is likely to have lots of questions around product, customers and culture which may
go unanswered or less-than-satisfactorily answered by any peer or reportee.
Please remember - lateral hires tend to be more critical and opinionated than existing tenured
folks.

5. The candidate goes through “Buyer’s Remorse” too
From Day 1, the lateral hire scans the working environment very carefully.
They need to know they’ve made the right choice.
They are likely to have lot of questions and doubts, as mentioned earlier. And the unfortunate part
is that not every lateral hire is forthcoming in sharing the doubts openly for fear of judgement.
Before founders or VP Sales can bat an eyelid, “buyer’s remorse” can set in on the lateral hire. And
more often than not, it goes downhill from there.

6. Peer talk
In early days, the lateral hire ends up spending a lot of time with peers - other lateral hires and
tenured “homegrown” sales reps.
She is still scanning the environment and peer talk is a good way to figure out ground realities of
customers, products and culture. They are likely to hear the good and the not-so-good stuff.
The latter feeds into her anxiety and makes the matter worse.

7. Now you can join the dots to see why a well thought through
induction is critical to making lateral hires a success
Now let’s see the elements of
an impactful induction

8. Elements of an impactful induction
We’ve found three major elements of an impactful induction
❏ Product Proficiency
❏ Familiarity with Buying Behaviour
❏ Cultural Assimilation
We’ve elaborated on these ahead.

9. (1) Product Proficiency
The lateral hire needs to know the product really well. Not just the features and benefits but also
the story around how it came into being and the vision going forward. Only then can it be
successfully transmitted to buyers. Sounds pretty obvious.
In spite of the obviousness, the major areas of neglect we’ve observed here are:
❏ Lateral hires getting trained solely by other sales reps
❏ No sharing of vision by the product manager or VP Sales
❏ Absence of training material on the product
❏ Lack of case studies, both success and failures
❏ Absence of competitive benchmarking of features

10. (2) Familiarity with Buying Behaviour
Left on her own, it will take your lateral lots of time to figure out buying behaviour. And the pressure
of fast “ramp-up” exists. These two are incompatible and often lead to the lateral hire looking like a
bull-in-a-china-shop in meetings / calls with buyers.
The major areas of neglect we’ve observed here are:
❏ Lack of reference documentation around buyer personas and profiles
❏ Leaving lateral hire to “shadow” other sales reps and figure it out themselves
❏ Lack of ability to deal with “buying committee” scenarios
❏ Lateral hire adapting slowly to “concept-selling”
❏ Inability to read “buying signals”

11. (3) Cultural Assimilation
Irrespective of the hiring process, the real culture of an organization reveals itself only once the
lateral hire joins the company. And there are obviously going to be differences in the way the new
organization conducts their business. Add to that the pressure of socially integrating into the new
peer group and being “one of them”.
The major areas of neglect we’ve observed here are:
❏ Unstructured, ad hoc and incomplete handover of existing business
❏ Absence of sensitization sessions about organization’s culture
❏ Over-scrutinization of lateral hire’s behaviour

12. How to implement an ideal induction process for a lateral
hire in sales

13. INDUCTION CALENDAR
Having a Calendar in place is the first step for impactful induction. A pre-decided calendar not only looks
professional but also helps in maintaining discipline in the induction process. The induction calendar
covers the key activities which help with product proficiency, buyer behaviour and cultural assimilation.
The prerequisite to an induction calendar is having the induction material in place for all sessions. These
are basically a set of presentations, videos and other collaterals that help in educating the lateral hire on
specific topics.

14. PRODUCT PROFICIENCY INDUCTION
❏ The purpose of the Product Vision session by Product Head is to “sell” the idea that (a) there’s a
roadmap, (b) it’s well thought through and (c) that the product will remain relevant in the future
❏ The purpose of Know your product session by VP Sales is to explain what customers are saying
about the product, why they buy it, common reasons for losing deals, pricing plan, terms and
conditions of sales, standard sales cycles, upsell strategies
❏ The purpose of the Product Quiz is to test the knowledge gained in the previous sessions
❏ The purpose of the Product Demo role-play is to test the ability to demo the product in a live client
environment and be able to answer frequently asked questions with clarity

15. BUYING BEHAVIOUR INDUCTION
❏ The purpose of the Know your industry session is to familiarize the lateral hire with various
industry players, their interests, motivations and, in general, the future outlook. This session helps
the lateral hire connect the dots on how the product fits into the overall canvas of the industry. It also
helps them have meaningful conversation starters / conversations with prospects and customers.
❏ The purpose of the Know your customer session is the understand the size of the total
addressable market, the typical buyers, buyer segments, current market penetration, forecasted
market penetration. This helps lateral hires become comfortable with the market they are going to
face very soon
❏ The purpose of the Competitor Benchmarking session is to draw out the strengths and
weaknesses of our product and prepare the lateral hires better for answering frequently asked
questions from clients

16. BUYING BEHAVIOUR INDUCTION
❏ The purpose of Buyer Profiles, Personas and Roles is to get deeper into the buying behaviour of
various client profiles, their expectations, frustrations, concerns, DOs and DON’Ts so that sales
conversations can be tailored as per the persona
❏ The purpose of Familiarization with Conversation Constructs is to get a deeper understanding of
the most impactful verbiage to be used while opening, discovery, solutioning and closing deals. It
also includes finer aspects of the conversation on use to tools, decks, etc to make the conversation
impactful.
❏ The purpose of Case Study Discussion is to marry the theory of sales with reality. It is very
encouraging for lateral hires to know success stories and vastly increases confidence from the word
go. However, stories of failure should also be shared to reduce element of surprise it happens to
them.

17. BUYING BEHAVIOUR INDUCTION
❏ The purpose of On field “shadowing” is to give lateral hires a second-hand feel of a real sales call
❏ The purpose of Training Sessions on Buying Signals is to ensure that the lateral hires do not
miss out of the typical buying signals from prospects in the market
❏ The purpose of Report Presentation from shadowing sessions is to close the loop on the
shadowing sessions by testing learning and absorption
❏ The purpose of the CRM Training is to help the lateral hire become adept at using the internal CRM
tool - its fields, reports, etc

18. CULTURAL ASSIMILATION
❏ The purpose of Know your organization is to understand the organization structure, roles and
responsibilities of people in leadership roles as well as Marketing, HR, Finance, Recruitment, Admin
processes. A lateral hire might have to frequently be part of these or access them.
❏ The purpose of Know your role is to help lateral hires understand their role clearly - KPIs, Rewards
and Career Path
❏ The purpose of Cultural Sensitization Sessions is to help any unresolved questions around
company culture in the short duration they have spent in the company. Cultural dissonance is likely
to be higher in the initial days than later.
❏ The purpose of Handover of existing business is to ensure smooth transition between an
incoming and outgoing sales rep / sales leader. This includes having a lead-by-lead / cohort-wise
discussion around the health of accounts and prospects

19. POST-INDUCTION PROCESS
❏ Make a credible and strong e-mail introduction of the lateral hire. A credible introduction creates a
locus standi for the lateral hire in front of their peers. Social acceptance usually goes up with an
introduction.
❏ Apart from revenue goals to the lateral hires, communicate input goals as well e.g. # of outreaches,
etc. Quick outcomes are rare. Inputs goals are the ones that will help the lateral hire aligned with the
speed of sales
❏ Coach the lateral hire
❏ to avoid being critical of processes or methods publicly. This can antagonize peers.
❏ to avoid playing bad cop with any reportee. All bad news to be broken by the VP Sales
❏ If hired for a team lead role, keep lateral hire in individual contributor role temporarily. Success
in individual contribution role improves credibility in a team lead role.

20. We’re here to take questions
saurabh@salesdesign.co.in