Onboarding new salespeople: the first customer meeting of their own belongs in week two
Why most induction plans in sales train for too long and measure too late, what a 30-day plan with four weeks and four clear purposes looks like, which pieces of evidence have to be in place at the end of each week — and what, under § 2 NachwG and § 12 ArbSchG, has to be on the table on the very first working day.
The short answer
The first 30 days have exactly one job: to get the new salesperson into a conversation he leads himself as early as possible — and then to build a feedback channel through which he can be corrected. Everything else is preparation for that. The plan has four weeks with four purposes, one piece of evidence each weekend and a decision on day 30.
Where the first 30 days usually fail
Three patterns I see again and again, and all three are well meant.
The full programme. Two weeks of product training, price lists, competitor matrix, systems briefing. At the end, the new person knows the range and still does not know which three sentences work at the counter. Knowledge that has never been called up under pressure is not available in a conversation.
The watching month. “Just ride along for four weeks first.” Riding along is right, the period is wrong. From the second week on, a passenger learns nothing new — he merely gets used to being a passenger, and the threshold before his first conversation of his own grows with every day.
No measuring point until the first settlement. The most expensive mistake: if the first reliable signal is the commission statement after month three, ten weeks have passed in which you could have intervened.
The plan: four weeks, four purposes
| Week | Purpose | Evidence on Friday |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Establish the ability to act | Access works, one product is explained without documents |
| 2 | First conversation of his own | An opening he led himself, documented in the CRM |
| 3 | His own appointments, with someone alongside | Three conversations held, three debriefs |
| 4 | Working alone, verifiably | Five contacts of his own, a week plan of his own |
The right-hand column is the actual plan. An induction plan without Friday evidence is a declaration of intent — you only notice at the end of the month that it was not kept.
Day 1 is not a welcome day but a day of obligations
There is little room for manoeuvre here, and small businesses regularly underestimate it. § 2(1) NachwG requires a signed written record of the essential contract terms; three of them — the name and address of the contracting parties, the composition and amount of the remuneration, the agreed working time — must be handed over at the latest on the first day of work. For remuneration, a single total is not enough: commissions, allowances, bonuses and special payments must, in the words of the statute, “each be stated separately”, together with the due date and the method of payment. Start, place of work, activity and length of the probationary period follow by the seventh calendar day, the rest within a month; an employment contract containing all of that satisfies the obligation (§ 2(5) NachwG).
For sales this is more than a formality: the most common source of dispute in the first year is not the level of the commission but the question of exactly what it relates to.
On top of that comes the instruction. Under § 12(1) ArbSchG it must be carried out “on hiring … before the activity begins”, geared to the specific workplace — in field sales, therefore, the vehicle, load securing, working alone at the customer's premises, not the general office presentation.
And then the unspectacular things on which the first week nevertheless hangs: CRM access, an email address, a phone, a sample case, pricing authorisations. A salesperson who is still waiting for access on the third day has learned that waiting is normal here.
Weeks 1 and 2: go along, but with a brief
Riding along without a brief is tourism. Before each appointment the new person gets an observation question and answers it afterwards in three sentences: “At what point did the customer tip from sceptical to interested — and what was the sentence before that?” In week two this is added: “What would you have said at that point?”
At the end of the first week comes the product run-through without documents, against a colleague playing the difficult customer. Not as a test, but so that the new person has once experienced what it feels like not to have an answer — with a colleague instead of with a prospect.
In week two he takes over the opening of a real conversation: greeting, situation questions, handover. That is the same cut as in the first meeting.
Weeks 3 and 4: leading himself, with someone sitting alongside
From now on the new person leads, the manager sits alongside and intervenes only when harm to the customer is looming — not when it gets uncomfortable. Three conversations in week three are enough; more cannot be debriefed properly.
The debrief takes 20 minutes and has three fixed questions in this order: “What happened?” — “What was your intention at that point?” — “What will you do differently next time?” The middle one is the most important: it separates a mistake in intention from a mistake in execution, and only the second can be trained.
In week four the accompaniment falls away and the new person plans his week himself: five contacts, chosen by him, scheduled, documented. What he chooses says more about his coming year than any conversation about target groups.
What is measured — and what expressly is not
| Is measured (day 1–30) | Is not measured |
|---|---|
| Number of conversations led himself | Revenue |
| Completeness of the CRM entries | Close rate |
| Quality of the debriefs | Pipeline value |
| Self-assessment after the conversation | Comparison with the predecessor |
That is the consistent application of the separation between activity and results targets: in the first 30 days, every results target is a measurement of the territory, not of the person. How the two levels relate to each other afterwards is set out in Sales targets: activity or result.
What the plan costs
The following calculation is a model calculation with freely chosen assumptions, not a measurement:
| Item | Assumption |
|---|---|
| Accompaniment by the manager, weeks 1–3 | around 6 days |
| Debriefs, 20 min × 12 conversations | around 4 hours |
| Preparing the plan and the evidence (one-off) | 1 day |
| Total on the first run-through | around 8 management days |
| For comparison: departure after month 5, fixed salary €3,500 | €17,500 plus replacement hiring |
The second run-through costs roughly half, because the plan is then in place. In any case the point is not the figure but where the days sit: at the front, where they can change something.
The 30-day conversation
It is in the calendar before the new person starts, and it has three questions and one decision. “What can you do today that you could not do four weeks ago?” — “Where did you wait in the past month instead of working?” — “What do you need from me for the next 60 days?” The second question regularly brings to light organisational problems that the new person is not responsible for and that the manager knows nothing about.
The decision behind it is binary and is spoken out loud: carry on with a 60-day target, or part ways within the probationary period, for which § 622(3) BGB provides the two-week notice period. Whoever decides nothing here decides anyway — only later and more expensively.
Action list
- Define four Friday pieces of evidence before the new person starts. One page is enough.
- Prepare the written record under § 2 NachwG, state the remuneration components separately, and have it handed over on day 1.
- Carry out and document the instruction under § 12 ArbSchG before the first customer appointment.
- Request all access rights a week before the start date and test them yourself the day before.
- Book the appointments for weeks 2 and 3 before day 1 — otherwise they get postponed.
- Debrief after every conversation led, 20 minutes, three questions, always the same ones.
- Put the 30-day conversation in the calendar on day 1 and treat it as a decision appointment.