What’s the best way to measure ramp effectiveness?

It's essential to first understand the expectations of your sales leadership, common denominators between successful reps who achieve those expectations, and availability of data to your enablement program. Here are a couple of questions to ask before you get started in creating a measurement plan:

• What types of habits do they need to be able to do their everyday work by Day 30-60-90 days?
• What are the expectations of your leads? Compare this to enablement insights on what can reasonably be achieved based on historical benchmarks.
• Which reps have the most successful ramp numbers? What's the common denominator between all of them?
• How long is your onboarding program, including reinforcement training after boot camp?
• Do YOU have the data and reports that can show comparative data between reps?

A lot of these questions really focus on setting benchmarks on four factors which I've seen are generally performable by many teams:

1. Confidence levels (Subjective): What are your reps' confidence levels around knowing and selling your products increasing over your ramp period? Is there improvement over time? Are you asking this based on various categories such as product, sales skills, and tool usage?
2. Lead Assessment (Subjective): Have their leads fill out a scorecard with guided skill categories based on your sales methodology following your reporting cadence. Make sure that there is guidance on what each category means to minimize the need for calibration.
3. Tool usage (Subjective and Objective): Do your reps know how to use their tools? Do they know where they can access the supporting documentation and guidance after their onboarding program? Are they accessing these tools and using them in the first place? How do they measure up to usage benchmarks - focus on effectiveness later after ramp as I recommend that these should be measured after reinforcement training past onboarding/ramp.
4. Activity, Deal Velocity and Attainment Benchmarks (Objective): How many calls are they making? How many prospects are they sourcing and reaching out to? How many deals are at various stages by 30-60-90 days - are they building and moving deals through their pipeline? Are they achieving the benchmarks/objectives your team has set for win rate and ramp attainment numbers? 

Hopefully, these categories help to start somewhere. Curious to hear what other enablement leaders have used as well.

Begin by baselining critical metrics for new seller success. It could be things like: time to first deal, deal velocity, time to pipeline, etc.

Then:

• Divide new sellers into 'cohorts'
• Measure their metrics against more tenured seller cohorts
• Understand trends that support or refute your hypotheses
• Draw correlation where you see it to infer if your programs are working

Causation is near impossible but with large enough data-sets, you can find correlations & trends that will help explain and direct future learning.

Measuring seller ramp is key to understand if your enablement is effective, but it's one factor into the seller's ramp. You need to consider the individual's prior experience, tenure in the organization, understanding of your market and product, as these can all factor into how quickly your new seller ramps in their role.

When measuring enablement's effect on seller ramp, consider the following:

1. Benchmark the average time for key seller metrics (whatever those may be for your organization). How long does it take for your top seller and the average seller to hit those metrics? For example:

   1. Activity metrics/efficiency: lead conversion rates, call volume, meetings held, etc.

   2. Sales stage success rate: time in each sales stage, % of pipeline in each stage, etc.

   3. Quota attainment: avg. attainment, time to reach 25% and/or 50% of attainment

2. Once benchmarks are established, compare new sellers against these data points. Are they reaching average seller levels in a similar or shorter time frame?

3. Also, compare new sellers against each other, considering their prior experience with skills, your organization, products, or the market. This comparison can reveal areas where additional enablement efforts are needed and where ramp time can be accelerated.

You

make more succinct: With submissions due last Friday, March 8, we are now shifting to the ‘manager review’ portion of our program. Over the next 2 weeks managers will be reviewing stories & will be serving up their teams strongest submission - Artur is very much looking forward to seeing some ‘gold standard’ storytelling from the field!

ChatGPT

ChatGPT

Submissions closed on March 8. Now, managers will review stories over the next 2 weeks, selecting the best submissions for their teams. Artur eagerly anticipates seeing top-notch storytelling!

You

make more succinct: Shifting focus to ‘Golden Selling Time’ so our next Scoop (3/180 will be ‘newsletter only’. In this time we are working closely with PMM to finalize the exciting enablement programs for ‘Compute’ & ‘Bbots’ that will be launching in April 2!

ChatGPT

ChatGPT

Focusing on 'Golden Selling Time,' our next Scoop (3/180) will be 'newsletter only.' During this period, we're collaborating closely with PMM to finalize exciting enablement programs for 'Compute' and 'Bbots,' launching on April 2!

You

make more succinct: Crowdsourcing Help! Good morning/Afternoon leaders, In Q2, we are rolling out a monthly 'on demand' video program called 'Conversations with...'. These short, bite-size, 'interview-style' videos will showcase internal teams & individuals from Fastly that our sellers will likely come across in their deal cycles, such as Procurement, Legal, Executive Admins & more. The aim is to understand what is important to them - when to engage, how to get them to be an advocate, how they can unlock access to decision makers & much more. In addition to the 3 teams/roles highlighted above, who else would you & your sellers like to hear from in this series, so we can ensure we get them lined up? Thank you very much

ChatGPT

ChatGPT

Leaders,

Introducing 'Conversations with...'—a monthly 'on-demand' video series launching in Q2. These brief, interview-style videos will feature internal teams and individuals from Fastly encountered in deal cycles, like Procurement, Legal, Executive Admins, and more. We aim to glean insights on engagement strategies, advocacy, accessing decision-makers, and more.

Apart from the mentioned roles, whom else would you and your sellers like to hear from in this series? Your input will help us line up the right participants.

Thank you.

You

make more succinct: Hi leaders, please thank your front-line managers (I'll insert names) whose teams met the Friday, March 8 deadline for the ‘Fastly Advantage’ Story Course. We now have two important asks of you: For AEs, AMs, SDRs, CAMs, and front-line managers who have not completed the course, please have them schedule 1:1 time with their manager this week to conduct their personalized story live via Zoom. They should record this session and use it as their video submission in Highspot; managers should then score that submission in Highspot for tracking purposes. Please encourage your managers to use the next two weeks score all of their reps’ submissions and serve up the ‘winning video’ from theirs team via the enablement-managers Slack channel by EOD Friday, March 22. Thank you for your partnership and continued attention to this!

ChatGPT

ChatGPT

Hi leaders,

Please extend gratitude to your front-line managers (insert names) whose teams met the Friday, March 8 deadline for the 'Fastly Advantage' Story Course.

We have two important requests:

1. For AEs, AMs, SDRs, CAMs, and front-line managers who haven't completed the course, kindly arrange 1:1 sessions with their manager this week to deliver their personalized story live via Zoom. They should record this session and submit it as their video entry in Highspot. Managers should then score these submissions in Highspot for tracking purposes.

2. Encourage your managers to score all of their reps' submissions over the next two weeks and submit the 'winning video' from their team via the enablement-managers Slack channel by EOD Friday, March 22.

Thank you for your partnership and continued attention to this matter!

You

For our team, measuring ramp effectiveness typically involves a combination of quantitative and qualitative metrics. Here's a breakdown of areas we focus on:

1. Time to Productivity: Measure how long it takes for new hires to become fully productive in their roles. This could involve tracking the time it takes for them to close their first deal, achieve certain sales targets, or demonstrate proficiency in their tasks.

2. Sales Performance Metrics: Compare the performance of new hires to established benchmarks or the performance of experienced sales reps. Look at metrics such as conversion rates, average deal size, and revenue generated to assess whether new hires are meeting expectations.

3. Training Completion and Assessment: Evaluate how well new hires are engaging with and completing training programs. Assess their understanding of key concepts and strategies through quizzes, assessments, or role-playing exercises.

4. Feedback from Managers and Mentors: Gather feedback from managers, mentors, and peers on the progress and performance of new hires. This could involve regular check-ins, performance reviews, or informal feedback sessions.

5. Customer Satisfaction: Monitor customer satisfaction scores or feedback related to interactions with new hires. Positive feedback from customers can indicate that new hires are effectively representing the company and its products/services.

6. Retention Rates: Analyze the retention rates of new hires compared to established employees. High turnover among new hires may indicate issues with the onboarding process or a lack of alignment between expectations and reality.

7. Onboarding Survey Results: Conduct surveys to gather feedback from new hires about their onboarding experience. Ask about the effectiveness of training programs, support received, and overall satisfaction with the onboarding process.

By combining these metrics, organizations can gain a comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness of their ramp-up programs and identify areas for improvement.