Most sales onboarding advice is written for companies with a dedicated revenue enablement team, a learning management system, and a six-week ramp budget. If you're a sales manager at a 15-person company who is also the enablement team, that advice is close to useless. Here's what actually works at that scale.
Set a real ramp timeline — and write it down
New reps without a clear 30/60/90-day plan default to shadowing whoever is nearby and improvising the rest. Even a simple one-page milestone list — first cold call by day 5, first discovery call solo by day 15, first proposal by day 30 — gives a new hire something concrete to aim for.
Separate product knowledge from sales skill
These are two different curriculums and they get conflated constantly. A rep can memorize every spec sheet and still not know how to open a call, handle an objection, or ask a second-level discovery question. Build (or buy) a skills curriculum separately from your product training.
Make the first two weeks about listening, not pitching
New reps who are pushed onto live calls too early develop bad habits that are expensive to unlearn. Recorded call reviews and role-play against real objections — before unsupervised calls — pay off within the first quarter.
Build in accountability from day one
A scoring system or simple dashboard that tracks completed modules, calls made, and meetings booked keeps onboarding from quietly stalling out. What gets measured in week one tends to get finished; what doesn't, tends to get abandoned by week three.
Borrow a system instead of building one from scratch
You don't need to build a curriculum from a blank page. The Condor Club gives small teams a 24-month-access, self-paced sales system — 8 modules, 23 lessons, and built-in action items — designed for exactly this situation: no enablement team, no six-figure LMS budget, just a new rep who needs a real process. Take a look at what's included.