Successful onboarding prioritizes real, but supervised, selling activities early on. It avoids long, theoretical classroom sessions and instead uses top performers to demonstrate best practices, making training more practical and aspirational for new hires.

Instead of easing new reps in, immediately immerse them in realistic role-plays with difficult objections. This builds resilience from day one and prepares them for live calls in week two, allowing them to practice in a safe space rather than on real prospects.

Remote work eliminates the energy of a traditional sales floor, increasing call reluctance. To combat this, have reps hop into a shared Zoom room to make calls together. This creates a sense of community, allows for peer feedback, and normalizes the 'suffering' of cold calling, making it a shared activity.

Instead of a multi-week classroom training, run a one-week bootcamp and then immediately put SDRs on the phones. This is not to test the reps, but to test the training program. The questions they ask in a dedicated Slack channel provide a real-time readout of where the training was insufficient, allowing you to iteratively improve the onboarding process.

Junior SDRs get overwhelmed by complex processes. Instead of providing numerous options, give them a simple, 3-step framework for core tasks like cold calling. High compliance with a simple process yields better results than zero compliance with a complex one.

Bridge the gap between mock calls and high-stakes territory calls. By week three, give ramping reps a queue of lower-value leads, like SMBs or disqualified prospects. This provides invaluable, real-time experience and 'at-bats' without risking major deals, accelerating their learning curve.

Have new SDRs draft their own cold call script very early in onboarding. Although the script isn't final, the act of writing it makes them listen to subsequent live calls with a more focused, analytical mindset, accelerating their learning as they compare their draft to real conversations.

Cold calling is often isolating. Partnering with a teammate for scheduled prospecting blocks provides accountability, sharpens focus, and creates opportunities for immediate feedback, transforming a lonely grind into a collaborative and more enjoyable activity.

When doing outbound recruiting for sales talent, flip the script on the first call. Instead of grilling the candidate, treat it as a sales call where you're selling them on the company. The goal is to determine if it's a "great or terrible use of time" to continue, with the promise that the grilling comes later.