New sales reps take longer than ever to become productive, and most onboarding makes it worse by front-loading information the rep forgets. The faster path to ramp isn’t more content. It’s more reps. Here’s how to onboard sales hires so they produce sooner, without burning out your team.
The short version
- Ramp times are climbing. The average AE now takes around 5.7 months to reach full productivity.
- Most onboarding front-loads content the rep forgets within days.
- Ramp is a practice problem: reps get productive by doing the job, not reading about it.
- Put new reps through the real conversations before they touch real leads.
- Practicing on your ICP and product beats a generic script.
Why is sales onboarding taking longer?
Products got more complex, buying committees got bigger, and onboarding didn’t keep up. The average AE now takes around 5.7 months to reach full productivity, and SDRs around three (The Bridge Group). That’s months of salary and pipeline pressure while a rep learns on live deals, often on your most expensive leads.
Why most onboarding backfires
Because it’s a content dump. Week one is a firehose of decks, recordings, and product docs, and the rep forgets most of it within days (the forgetting curve). Then they get thrown onto calls to “learn by doing,” which really means learning on real prospects, at the cost of real opportunities. It’s the slowest and most expensive way to ramp a rep.
Ramp is a practice problem
Reps get productive by doing the job, not by absorbing information about it. Skill comes from deliberate practice: reps, feedback, repetition (Ericsson). The fastest-ramping reps are the ones who have already run the cold open, the discovery call, and the top three objections dozens of times before their first real call. The content barely changes. The number of reps before it counts is what moves ramp time.
How to onboard for speed
- Turn your playbook into practice, not reading. A doc gets forgotten. A rep gets remembered.
- Have reps run the real conversations before a live lead. Out loud, with feedback, on your actual scenarios.
- Start constrained. One scenario, one goal, especially for brand-new reps who need something specific to aim at.
- Repeat. Three or more attempts per scenario builds the reflex that survives a real call.
- Graduate on readiness, not the calendar. Move a rep to real calls when they can handle the hard questions, not on day 30 because it’s day 30.
Want reps productive sooner? Use TrackPoint
This is exactly how we onboard our own reps at TrackPoint. Before a new rep talks to a real prospect, they run scenarios against AI characters modeled on our buyers, characters that quiz them on the product until they can answer cleanly. They do it in private, which our customers say matters, because people will fail and retry on their own in a way they never would in front of a manager. Most start under 40 percent and pass 80 after a few sessions. By their first real call, they’ve already earned the reps.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to ramp a new sales rep?
Longer than most teams plan for. The average AE takes around 5.7 months to full productivity and SDRs around three, and those numbers have been climbing. Structured practice before live calls is one of the few things that shortens them.
How do you speed up sales onboarding?
Replace the content dump with practice. Have reps run the real conversations with feedback before they touch a live lead, so they arrive ready instead of learning on your prospects.
Why do new reps take so long to hit quota?
They forget most of the week-one firehose within days, then learn the actual job on live deals, slowly and expensively. Reps before real calls fixes both.
Should new reps practice before taking real calls?
Yes, especially on high-value leads. Practicing on your ICP and product first means a new rep doesn’t burn an expensive opportunity while learning to answer a basic question.
Ramp is built by reps, not by reading. Talk to our team to see how your new hires can practice before they touch a real lead, or start free and run a scenario yourself.
