You hired someone with five years in the business. They interviewed well. They talk the talk. So you hand them a login, put them on the floor, and figure they will pick up the rest. That is where it starts to go wrong. Training experienced sales reps feels like a waste of everybody’s time, and it is the exact step that decides whether that hire sticks or quietly washes out in ninety days.
Here is the thing. You do not actually know what their experience is. They might be great. But if they struggle on the procedural side of your business, none of that experience shows up on your numbers.
Experience Is Not The Same As Knowing Your Store
Think about the places we work. Wireless retail. Appliances. AV. Furniture. Small teams, small footprints, and a lot more asked of us as leaders.
In a lot of these shops the sale is only half the job. The other half is the deliverable. It has to get scheduled, delivered, installed, and closed out. Maybe your new hire came from a place with a project manager who handled all of that. Maybe their old shop ran it in a totally different order.
Those are the small differences that new managers skip right over. Do not skip them. Point at them. Say out loud, this is not your last company, and here is what is different here. That is not being harsh. That is how somebody actually gets on board.
If you want a fuller look at the pattern, we broke down why new hires wash out in an earlier post. It is almost never the hire. It is the handoff.
They Know The Pay Plan. They Do Not Understand It.
This is the hill I will die on.
There is a difference between knowing the pay plan and understanding the pay plan. Knowing it means, if I sell this, I get a percentage. Understanding it means, here is what I can make, and here is exactly how I get there this month, this week, today.
Those are not the same thing. When a rep cannot connect the two, you have a disconnect. And that disconnect is what takes people with real potential and turns them into quiet failures.
You would be shocked how many of your good sellers do not truly understand how they get paid. They just know they have to sell, and they hope it adds up to a decent check.
Give them real targets they can picture. Hit three, hit five, hit a thousand dollars, that sounds fine but it does not translate. Break the commission down until they can see it. If you need a starting point, here is how to explain the commission plan so it actually lands.
Once a rep sees it, something flips. Oh, I can make that. Nobody ever broke it down for me like this. I have watched it happen in wireless, in AV, in appliances. Every time.
The Four Camps Your Reps Are Sitting In
Every seller falls into one of four camps.
They do not know what they do not know. Brand new, or coming from another industry. Everything is unfamiliar and they cannot even name the gaps yet.
They know what they do not know. Now they ask questions. How do I get past this? What can I do here? They make mistakes and learn fast. This camp is good news.
They can do it, but it costs them. They get it done when they put in effort, and it drains them. Think about working out. It gets easier, but you still walk out exhausted. They are thinking through every single step.
They do not have to think about it. It flows. Sales close, customers are happy, projects get delivered. That is the goal camp, and most of your people are not there yet. It takes years, not weeks.
Here is where managers get it wrong. They want to drag somebody from camp one to camp three in two weeks. It does not happen. We forget how long it took us. Be honest with yourself about how long training really takes before you write anybody off.
And remember, all that training is not just repetition for its own sake. You are helping them build new paths in their brain so the work stops costing them so much energy.
Say This To Your Team
Here is the line I use with my sellers and my store managers. Steal it.
My goal is for you to make the most amount of money working the least amount possible.
They look at you sideways. You want me to make more and work less? Yes. Because I do not want you lazy. I want you so good at this that it stops feeling like work. That is camp four. That is second nature.
It takes some training up front. They have to unlearn a few things and stretch their skill set. But once they understand you are pointed at their paycheck, the pushback mostly disappears.
Action Comes First, Motivation Comes Second
Habits do not come from a rah-rah speech. Speeches do not create actions. Actions create results, and results are what make people motivate themselves.
If you motivate first and never follow through with the training, they never see a result, and the whole thing fades by Thursday. Flip the order. Bring the action. Train. Let them hit the result. Then watch them keep going on their own. That is the same habit loop that drives your numbers every month.
And watch what happens next. A rep who is winning starts pulling the rest of the floor up, because they know a weak store means fewer customers walking in, and that hits their check too.
Some things are out of your control. The install that goes sideways because of what the last contractor left in the crawl space. The delay nobody could see coming.
Training, developing, mentoring, and guiding your people is in your control. All of it.
Because when things hit the fan, nobody rises to the occasion. You fall back to your level of training.
Ready to start? Grab the free 15-Minute Coaching Framework and run one real coaching conversation with your most experienced rep this week. Fifteen minutes. No cost.