A sales onboarding checklist covers five things: access and admin, the team's sales method as a written standard, a live deal, coached calls on that deal, and a gate at the end of each month read on the rep's own deals.
- Access and admin
- The team's sales method as a written standard
- A live deal, from week one
- Coached calls on that deal
- A gate at the end of each month, read on the rep's own deals
Right items, wrong order
Most checklists carry the right items in the wrong order. Admin comes first, then product and process, then practice, and the live deal arrives somewhere after day 30. That order teaches the method weeks before the rep has a deal to use it on. The learning research our Game Winning Kickoffs study traced points the other way: people who were tested on material kept 56% of it a week later, against 42% for people who re-read it. Explaining a live deal to a coach is a test.
So keep every item and move one. The live deal and the first coached call go into week one, and the rest of the list is delivered beside them. Our sales onboarding guide explains the 90-day map the checklist hangs from.
The checklist by phase
| Phase | Items | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| Before day one | Laptop and logins tested; CRM, email and calendar access; first-week calendar sent; manager and coach named; payroll and benefits handled | The rep can sign in to everything on day one |
| Week one | The team's method on one page; a co-owned live deal; first coached call on that deal booked by day three; product story and ideal customer profile; comp plan walked through | The rep has briefed and debriefed one buyer conversation with a coach |
| Days 1 to 30 | About two coached calls a week, before and after buyer conversations; a second, early-stage deal by week three; each product or method topic tested on the next call | The rep states each deal in the buyer's words and names what is missing |
| Days 31 to 60 | Solo buyer conversations; a weekly coached call on the deal with the least evidence; objection patterns from the team's recent calls | Coached behaviors present on two sampled calls; every open deal has a dated next step the buyer agreed to |
| Days 61 to 90 | Full book or territory; first forecast call; negotiation and the paper process | The rep's stages hold in the forecast call |
Write the "done when" column down in a sentence per gate, with an example of a yes and a no, because a gate that lives in a manager's head will drift.
One SDR's first week (illustrative)
This example is illustrative. An SDR starts on a Monday. On Monday she gets the team's prospecting method on one page and a real account list. On Tuesday she drafts her first email and talks it through with a coach before it sends: does the opening name a problem this buyer has? On Wednesday she makes her first cold calls and debriefs one that went well and one that did not the same day. Product training runs on Thursday, and each point gets tested in Friday's calls. By the end of week one every checklist line is ticked.
The email review on her second day is the kind of session our AI sales experts run: on Replicate Labs a new rep can start a call from day one and talk the work through with an expert that runs the team's method. Day one shows the first session.
How to tell the checklist is working
Count four things for each cohort and compare them with the last one.
- Days to the first coached call. It should be inside the first week. If it drifts past day ten, the live deal arrived late again.
- Gates passed on time. Each month-end gate, read on the rep's own deals, either holds or it does not. Note which item failed.
- Time to the first deal closed. It lags, and it is the first result a new rep can point to.
- Ramp time to full productivity. Measure it the same way for every cohort, from the first day the rep owns a deal to the first quarter at the team's median attainment.
Ask each new sales rep at day 30 which item helped most and which they would cut. Their answers are the quickest guide to the next cohort's order.
Checklist mistakes that slow ramp
Saving the live deal for month two. This is the usual one, and the reason for the order above.
Ticking items without a "done when". "Product training: complete" says the session ran. It does not say the rep can explain the product to a buyer. Read each gate on a deal.
One checklist for every role. SDRs and AEs share the admin rows and little else. An SDR's live work is an account list and a first email; an AE's is a co-owned deal.
Ending coaching at day 90. The checklist stops there. The coached calls should carry on at the team's normal rhythm.
Related checklists and plans
- Sales onboarding guide: the full 90-day model.
- New rep first-week checklist: every week-one item by day, with an owner.
- How to build a 30-60-90 sales onboarding plan: each month's work and gate, step by step.
FAQ
What should a new sales rep do in the first week? A new rep should get access working, learn the team's method on one page, co-own a live deal, and brief and debrief one buyer conversation with a coach. Product and comp-plan sessions fit around those. The first coached call is the item most often skipped and the one that starts the rep using the method.
Who owns the sales onboarding checklist? The hiring manager owns the checklist and the gates; enablement usually owns the content and the schedule. An item with no name against it tends not to happen, so put a name on every line, including the first coached call and who runs it.
Should shadowing be on the onboarding checklist? Shadowing belongs on it as a short item in the first two weeks. Listening to a tenured rep shows the new hire what a call sounds like, but it does not test them. Pair each shadowed call with a debrief, and move to co-owned calls the rep prepares as soon as possible. Our sales shadowing entry covers it.