Sales Machine - Onboarding 90 Sales Consultants in 96 days

Sales Machine - Onboarding 90 Sales Consultants in 96 days

Hey Åsa Dahlberg, Learning & Development Lead, and Sven Eklund, Sales Communication Lead, and welcome to #BehindTheGrid, where we put the sunlight on our Power Shifters!

You are part of the HR project Sales Machine, with the goal of building the strongest sales team in the business. Can you tell us about your roles in this project?

Åsa: In my role as L&D Lead for Sales, I have been working closely with the sales management to identify the capabilities we need moving forward and to evaluate the current sales organization to identify knowledge gaps and areas for growth. With that data in mind, we created an onboarding program that aligns with our strategies. I have also spent a lot of hours in the classroom. 😊

Sven: As Sales Communication Lead, my role has been to provide technical expertise as well as practical sales experience, as I have spent many years selling the very same solutions and products that we are selling today.

Just to make sure I got this correct… you’ve been onboarding 90 sales professionals in 96 days!? That’s huge! What have you learned during this period?

Åsa: A lot! Every new hire brings in their specific knowledge and experience. This has enabled us to really test our onboarding and adapt it according to individual needs, as well as the organization's needs.

Sven: I think one thing that was a true learning experience was how to be agile and adaptable throughout the process. We thought we had a near-perfect onboarding journey in January, yet if we compare it to what we have now, it is vastly different. It was challenging yet engaging to make changes on the fly based on the valuable feedback we received from the learners!

90 salespeople must equal almost 90 learning styles. How have you taken this into consideration?

Åsa: We have designed an onboarding program with a mixture of classroom training, digital training, self-studies, group studies, role-playing, and shadowing peers. Everyone also gets a full day at our training center, learning about solar panel installation.

The purpose of the onboarding is to ensure that it suits most learners' needs and preferred styles of processing information. Since Svea Solar has been growing so fast, the onboarding needed to be scalable.

What’s the goal for a sales professional during the onboarding, and what has been key for the onboardees to reach this goal?

Åsa: The goal is to make sure the sales consultants are confident in themselves as experts in solar energy to have a successful sales career. The key to achieving that is practice, practice, practice. By the end of the onboarding, we have a sales assessment covering technical knowledge, sales knowledge, and knowledge about the potential customer. This serves as a first status check before letting them operate more independently.

Sven: We can proudly say we feel like we have the most comprehensive onboarding for solar sales consultants in the country.

The cooperation between you two during Sales Machine is a real #DoItTogether inspiration. What has been key for your cooperation? And – is there a good cop/bad cop situation here? 😉

Åsa: I say Sven is the nicest, kindest, and greatest “cop” there is. 😊 He is also a living Wikipedia when it comes to the solar industry. What do you say, Sven?

Sven: The nicest way to put it is that Åsa and I have great personalities and expertise that complement each other in exciting ways. I think it’s more fun if we let them find out themselves! 😉

What are the plans going forward for the sales onboarding?

Sven: We only have plans for our summer vacation! 🏝

Åsa: Yes, summer holiday! But on a more serious note, we are implementing the onboarding in the organization, supporting the managers to know exactly what to do when hiring a new star for their team.

Take a minute or two to reflect back on this project – what are you most proud of?

Sven: Having 90 wonderful individuals, all with different needs and learning styles, and still receiving an average of:

4.7/5 on our onboarding surveys.

And 8.4/10 on our onboarding reflections.

Those numbers really showed us that we were doing a great job, that these 90 learners enjoyed the experience and learned valuable skills.

Åsa: I can only agree with what Sven says, and also add that I’m super proud of our teamwork. We have had a lot of fun and learned a lot from each other. This project has been very important for Svea Solar and it’s a joy to have so many great new Power Shifters onboard, ready to make a difference.

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