Sales Manager onboarding plan
A new sales manager inherits people, pipeline and a forecast at the same time. Good onboarding gives them a clear picture of all three before they start changing process.
What good onboarding achieves
Lead the team to a reliable forecast, with a coaching rhythm and an understanding of each rep's pipeline and development needs.
Week one example
- Day 1: Meet their own manager and agree priorities; access CRM dashboards.
- Day 2: One-to-ones with each rep: their pipeline, blockers and goals.
- Day 3: Review the forecast process and last two quarters' accuracy.
- Day 4: Join deal reviews and listen to calls from several reps.
- Day 5: Meet marketing, customer success and RevOps counterparts.
30/60/90 progression
- Day 30: Knows every rep's pipeline and runs the weekly forecast call.
- Day 60: Has a coaching rhythm and development plan per rep.
- Day 90: Delivers a forecast within agreed accuracy and proposes process changes.
People to meet (examples)
- Head of sales or CRO
- Each rep on the team
- RevOps
- Marketing lead
- Customer success lead
Systems to learn (examples)
- CRM dashboards and reports
- Forecasting process or tool
- Call recording tool
- Compensation plan documents
Manager checkpoints
- Week 1: rep-by-rep summary
- Day 30: first forecast submission
- Day 60: coaching plan review
- Day 90: process change proposal
Common mistakes
- Changing the sales process in the first month
- Focusing on deals and skipping rep one-to-ones
- Not learning how forecast numbers are actually produced
- No introduction to cross-functional partners
Checklist
- CRM dashboards access
- One-to-ones with every rep
- Forecast process walkthrough
- Comp plan reviewed
- Deal reviews attended
- Cross-functional intros done
- Coaching cadence set
- 90-day goals agreed