How to train a new salesperson in their first two weeks

In the first two weeks, guard three things before the newcomer speaks to a buyer on their own: what they quote, what they promise, and what they write down. Week one is the product, the price and the questions buyers ask. Week two is real follow-up calls and joint visits. By day ten they should explain the offer, answer the commonest questions without notes, and keep the enquiry record properly. They will not close much yet.

The quote that was a day old

Imagine a Palakkad dealer who sells matta rice to shops and caterers. This case is invented to show the pattern. The rate changes with the mill's price, sometimes more than once in a week. A new salesperson started on Monday with a price list printed the previous Thursday.

On Wednesday a caterer asked for a rate on twenty bags. The newcomer read out Thursday's. The caterer agreed on the spot and sent a deposit. The dealer could honour a rate that was already out of date, with the gap on twenty bags (₹3,000 in this invented case) coming out of the margin, or lose a caterer who had been told yes. The dealer honoured it, and was irritated for a week.

Nobody had been careless. The newcomer was given a sheet and a phone, and nothing about the sheet's age. The dealer rewrote the fortnight after that. Day one now covers where today's rate is written and who updates it. It also gives the sentence to say when the rate has moved: "Let me confirm the rate at this hour and call you back in five minutes."

Protect the quote

Teach price before anything clever. On day two the newcomer should quote three sample jobs aloud to you and get all three right, including the discount they may give and the point at which they must ask. If your prices change, make the source of truth a single place, and say where it is.

Protect the promise

Buyers ask about delivery, warranty, minimum quantity and fit. A newcomer guesses, the guess is repeated as a promise, and you pay for it later. Build a sheet of the ten questions buyers ask, with the correct answer in plain words and who confirms it:

Question buyers ask              Answer                          Who confirms
Will it fit my model?            Never say yes before checking    Senior salesman / catalogue
Can you deliver by Friday?       Depends on stock; check first     Stores
What if it fails?                 Warranty terms, in one line      Owner

Make the sheet from your own history. Go through the last fifty enquiries, note what buyers asked, and keep the ten that repeat. The same page serves every later hire.

Protect the record

Show a filled enquiry sheet, with two real examples that are complete, and let the newcomer enter two practice enquiries without help. A record left half done in the first fortnight stays half done. Say what you will read, and read it.

Pull the record at the end of each day for the first week and mark one thing in it that was done well and one that was missing. It takes five minutes. Do it with the newcomer beside you, so the marks are a conversation and not a verdict. After a week the newcomer starts checking before you do, which is the habit you wanted.

Listening comes before talking

On days four to six the newcomer sits beside your best closer and listens to live calls. Ask the closer to narrate three of them aloud afterwards: what the buyer said, what it meant, what the closer said next. The newcomer hears reasoning, which a printed script hides.

Ask the closer also to share one thing they used to do wrong. A newcomer will copy confidence, and an honest mistake is a short road to avoiding it. Walking a newcomer through won and lost deals is covered in training a newcomer on your sales process.

Week two is practice with someone listening

Role-play a first call and one price push-back with your closer before any real call. Then give the newcomer warm enquiries to follow up with the sales head listening, and take them along on one joint visit. Write the debrief the same day, while the details are fresh.

Ready the desk, the phone, the logins and the enquiry record with sample entries before day one. Tell each teacher a day ahead what they teach, and tell the newcomer who to ask when stuck.

If they have sold before

Skip the full ten days if the newcomer has sold your kind of product. Compress the product days into two. Keep the listening and role-play days. Spend the saved time on your own price rules, which an earlier employer may have taught differently. Experience brings habits, such as quoting from memory. A fortnight is the cheapest time to unlearn them.

What you check on day ten

Hold a short review with the owner and the sales head. Ask the newcomer to explain the offer to the owner as if the owner were a buyer. Then they answer five questions chosen on the spot, and show two filled records with what they would do next on each. Then ask what they still do not understand.

That last answer matters most. Someone who can say it plainly is easier to send out. Someone who cannot may be guessing, and you will want a few more days.

Leave negotiation on large deals, difficult complaints and big accounts for week three. The pages you want a newcomer to read are described in what an SME sales playbook should include.

Write the question sheet this week

Make the ten-question sheet while the last hire's mistakes are fresh. It will shorten every future start. If you want the whole fortnight set up, sales team onboarding is where we begin, and it sits inside how you sell; to start, tell us what you need.