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Sales Ramp is the single most important metric in 2022

November 21, 2021

It is that time of the year when Sales Leaders are hiring, Sales Enablement teams are planning their initiatives and investments, and Sales Reps are looking out for better opportunities.

Sales team attrition is at an all-time high at ~ 40%.

Now let's do the math. We will keep it simple. If you have a team of 100, chances are that you may be able to retain 60.

The average time to hire a good sales rep is more than four months.

So, when you hire back 40 you are left with 8 months of productive time, which means you have 30 sales FTEs if they are fully productive from day one. But, that is not the case. If it takes sales reps 8 months to be productive, the 30 FTEs are virtually nonexistent in the current year.

The cost of replacing a salesperson is 2X.

The cost of replacing 40 sales reps (30 FTEs) is equivalent to the cost of 60 FTEs. So, now your sales team cost is equivalent to 120 FTEs (60 new FTEs, and 60 incumbent FTEs)

Conclusion: While your sales team may have shrunk 40%, the cost increased by 20%. So you are paying for 120 FTEs for a 60 FTE team. Your sales costs have just doubled.

I will let you absorb this for a few minutes.

So, what do we do? With the great resignation baffling economists, governments, and businesses alike, our best bet is to reduce New Hire Ramp time, especially in a high growth forecast environment.

I will be publishing a 3 part series on

1) How to calculate sales ramp?

2) How to improve sales ramp?

3) A 30-day action plan to predictably reduce ramp.

If you are interested in learning more you can contact me at [email protected] or message me on Linkedin.