A new salesperson sells here in weeks, not after two lost quarters.
Gully Sales builds the first ninety days of a sales hire: what they must know, the order they learn it, the practice before they meet a live buyer, the readiness check, and the manager routine that makes it hold.
- A first-day to first-deal plan with milestones at thirty, sixty and ninety days.
- Practice and a readiness check before a new joiner speaks to your buyers.
- You learn by day thirty whether a hire is on track, not at quarter end.
Gully Sales Private Limited builds sales onboarding programmes for businesses across India, then trains your managers to run them without us.
In one paragraph
What is Sales Team Onboarding Services for Indian SMBs?
Sales team onboarding is the structured first ninety days of a new salesperson: what they must know, the order they learn it, supervised practice, a readiness check before live buyers, and a manager routine that reinforces it. Gully Sales designs that programme for your business and hands it to your managers to run for every hire after.
The problem
Your new hire is learning by sitting next to whoever happens to be free.
Most Indian SMBs hire a salesperson well and then onboard them by accident. There is a laptop, a visiting card, a price list, a week of shadowing and a target. Nobody has written down what this person must be able to do by day thirty, who teaches it, or how anyone would know they are ready. So the joiner learns from whoever is least busy that week, picks up habits nobody approved, and is in front of your buyers long before they can hold the conversation. Two months later the honest verdict is still: too early to say.
You will recognise it as
- A new salesperson's first week is a shadowing rota rather than a plan with an outcome for each day.
- You cannot say what a joiner should be able to do by day thirty, so nobody can tell whether they are behind.
- New joiners are put on live enquiries in week one because the pipeline needs bodies, not because they are ready.
- Product knowledge is passed on verbally, so each hire learns a slightly different version of your offer.
- The founder or sales head personally trains every hire, and each one costs weeks of their own selling time.
- Hires are judged at six months on revenue alone, by which time the money and the season are already gone.
What it costs the business
- Every hire carries months of salary, travel and management time before contributing anything, and that cost repeats with the next one.
- Enquiries handed to an unready joiner are worked badly and quietly lost, so the cost of poor onboarding lands on your pipeline, not just your payroll.
- Weak hires stay too long because nobody spotted the gap early, and strong hires leave because the first months felt directionless.
- Your managers spend their weeks answering the same beginner questions instead of coaching deals that are close to closing.
Why it persists. Onboarding only matters on the days a new person joins, and on those days everyone is busy. It has no owner, so it defaults to the sales head, who is carrying a number. What a joiner needs sits in a few experienced heads as instinct, and nobody has had a quiet week to write it down. Attempts stop at a product deck, which teaches the company rather than the sale. When that fails, the hire is blamed, so the programme is never fixed and the next joiner gets the same week.
If it stays unresolved. Hiring stays a gamble decided on gut feel six months late. Growth is limited to the pace at which your founder or sales head can personally train people, expansion into a new city or channel stalls because nobody can be brought up to speed there, and your ramp cost per hire stays high enough that you hesitate to add the salespeople the plan actually needs.
What changes
Every hire follows the same tested path from day one to a first close.
In the first weeks
- A written onboarding programme covering weeks one to twelve, with an owner and an outcome for each week.
- A competency baseline: what a productive salesperson here must know, say and do, agreed with your sales head.
- Learning material built from your own products, buyers, pricing rules and winning calls, not generic content.
In how the work runs
- Practice sessions and role-plays scheduled before a joiner is allowed to work a live enquiry alone.
- Readiness gates at thirty, sixty and ninety days that a joiner passes on evidence, not on the manager's impression.
- A weekly manager routine for the ramp period, so reinforcement is a calendar item rather than good intention.
- Accounts, territory and CRM access handed over on a defined day with a defined briefing.
In sales and marketing
- New joiners reach their first qualified opportunities earlier, so hires start returning cost sooner.
- Fewer enquiries wasted on an unready salesperson, because live work begins after the readiness check.
- A clear early read on each hire, so a wrong fit is addressed in weeks rather than carried for two quarters.
In what management can see
- Ramp progress visible per joiner against the same milestones, so two hires can be compared fairly.
- Certification results that show which parts of the programme people consistently fail, so it can be fixed.
Over the longer term
- An onboarding asset the business owns and reuses, so the tenth hire is easier to bring up than the second.
- Managers who can run the programme themselves, in a new branch or channel, without waiting for you or for us.
Gully Sales controls the programme design, the materials, the practice sessions, the certification and the manager training that embed them. How quickly a joiner then produces revenue also depends on who you hire, your market and the leads available. We build the ramp; we do not promise a number.
Who it is for
Who this helps, and when it is worth building.
The businesses it suits
- Founders and sales heads adding salespeople this year who cannot afford six months of ramp for each one.
- Businesses where the owner personally trains every new joiner and wants that time back.
- Companies opening a new branch, city or channel where nobody local knows how you sell.
- Teams with visible turnover in the first year, where hires leave or fail before anyone can say why.
- Businesses with a written sales process or playbook that new joiners are never properly taught.
- Firms hiring salespeople from another industry who know selling but not your product or buyer.
- Companies whose field team is spread across locations, so shadowing an experienced colleague is not practical.
What usually prompts the call
- You have signed off headcount and the first joiner starts within a few weeks.
- The last two hires did not work out and you are not sure whether it was the people or the induction.
- An experienced salesperson is retiring or moving on, and their accounts must be handed to someone new.
- You are entering a segment or region where your existing team has no one to learn from.
- A funded growth plan requires several salespeople to be productive in the same quarter.
- Your sales head is spending more time teaching beginners than working live deals.
What Gully Sales does
The work, component by component.
Competency baseline
We define what a productive salesperson here must know, say and do, split into product knowledge, buyer and market understanding, process and CRM discipline, and conversation skill. Each competency is written as an observable behaviour with a standard, so it can be taught and tested rather than assumed. We build it from interviews with your strongest sellers and recent won and lost deals.
- Why it matters:
- Without an agreed standard, onboarding has no destination. Managers train what they personally value, and readiness becomes an opinion that varies from one manager to the next.
- You receive:
- A written competency map with the standard and the evidence required for each item.
- Business value:
- You can say precisely what a new joiner should be able to do by day thirty, sixty and ninety, and so can they.
Onboarding curriculum
The competency map is sequenced into a week-by-week curriculum for the first ninety days: what is learned in which order, who teaches it, how long it takes and what the joiner does after each session. Content is drawn from your own material — product notes, price and discount rules, case examples, objection responses, CRM screens — and packaged so a manager can deliver it without preparation.
- Why it matters:
- Order matters. A joiner taught pricing before they understand the buyer will quote badly, and one taught the CRM before the process will fill fields without meaning.
- You receive:
- A ninety-day curriculum with session guides, learning material and a day-one to week-twelve schedule.
- Business value:
- Onboarding runs to a plan on the day someone joins, instead of being improvised around whoever is available.
Practice before live buyers
Structured practice sessions where a joiner rehearses the real conversations before meeting a customer: the opening call, discovery questions, the demonstration or site conversation, price and payment discussions, and the objections your buyers raise. Sessions use scenarios taken from your own deals, with a scoring sheet, and are run by a manager or a Gully Sales consultant during the pilot.
- Why it matters:
- Learning that stays in a classroom does not change field behaviour. Rehearsal under observation, with feedback in the moment, is what turns knowledge into something a joiner can use in front of a buyer.
- You receive:
- Role-play scenario packs, observer scoring sheets and a practice schedule for the ramp period.
- Business value:
- Your buyers meet a salesperson who has already had the conversation several times, so first meetings are not spent learning at your customer's expense.
Field application and handover
The plan for supervised live work: which enquiries or accounts a joiner takes first, who accompanies them, what they do alone, and how the handover of a territory, account list or dealer set is briefed and recorded. It includes the joint-call plan, the debrief format after each visit, and the point at which supervision is withdrawn.
- Why it matters:
- The gap between training and quota is the supervised period. Left undefined, joiners are either abandoned on day eight or accompanied for months, and neither builds a capable independent seller.
- You receive:
- A supervised-selling plan, joint-call and debrief formats, and an account or territory handover checklist.
- Business value:
- A new joiner works real deals early with a safety net, and supervision is withdrawn on evidence rather than on the manager's mood.
Manager reinforcement
The manager's side of onboarding, made explicit: the weekly one-to-one during ramp, what to review, which of the joiner's calls to sit in on, how to give feedback against the competency standard, and what to escalate. We train your managers to run the programme, observe them doing it during the pilot and correct as they go.
- Why it matters:
- Onboarding fails at reinforcement more often than at content. A manager who is busy and untrained falls back to asking about numbers, which tells a new joiner nothing about how to improve.
- You receive:
- A manager onboarding guide, a weekly ramp review format and a working session to train your managers.
- Business value:
- The programme survives after we leave, because the person who runs it every day knows exactly what to do each week.
Certification and readiness gates
Checkpoints at defined days where a joiner demonstrates readiness: a product and pricing check, an observed customer conversation scored against the standard, correct CRM handling of a live deal, and a review of the pipeline built so far. Each gate has a pass standard, a record and a defined path if it is not met, including retraining and a second attempt.
- Why it matters:
- Without a gate, nobody makes a decision. Weak hires drift towards six months and good hires get no confirmation that they are on track.
- You receive:
- Certification checklists, scoring records and a documented retest and escalation path.
- Business value:
- You get an evidenced view of each hire early, and the joiner knows what passing looks like before the day arrives.
Ramp measurement and review
The numbers that show whether onboarding is working: time to first qualified opportunity, time to first closed deal, month of first quota attainment, certification pass rates and ninety-day retention, read for each joiner against a baseline taken from your recent hires. We review the programme after the first cohort and revise the parts that people consistently fail.
- Why it matters:
- Onboarding is usually judged by feel. Once ramp is measured, the programme becomes something you can improve deliberately rather than replace after every disappointing hire.
- You receive:
- A ramp scorecard per joiner, a baseline of past hires and a written review after the first cohort.
- Business value:
- You can see whether each hire is ahead of or behind the last one, and fix the programme rather than blaming the person.
What you will have at the end.
- A competency map defining what a productive salesperson in your business must know, say and do.
- A ninety-day onboarding curriculum with a week-by-week schedule, session guides and owners.
- Day-one and week-one checklists covering access, tools, CRM, price list and territory briefing.
- Learning material built from your products, pricing rules, buyers and real deal examples.
- Role-play scenario packs and observer scoring sheets drawn from conversations your team actually has.
- A supervised-selling plan with joint-call formats, debrief templates and a handover checklist.
- Certification checklists and scoring records for the thirty, sixty and ninety day gates.
- A manager guide and a weekly ramp review format, plus a working session to train your managers.
- A ramp scorecard per joiner and a baseline built from your recent hires for comparison.
- An anonymised sample onboarding week and certification sheet, shared before you commit to scope.
- A written review after the first cohort, listing what to revise before the next hire joins.
How it runs
The engagement, step by step.
- 1
Ramp diagnostic
We look at how your last few hires were brought in and how they performed: what they were given, who taught them, when they first met a buyer, when they first closed, and who left. We interview your sales head, a manager and one or two recent joiners, and reconstruct the ramp timeline from CRM records where they exist.
- You provide:
- Access to the sales head and managers, recent joiners' CRM records, and any induction material already used.
- We produce:
- A ramp baseline for recent hires and a written summary of where the current induction breaks down.
- Done when:
- You agree the baseline and the two or three failure points the programme must address.
- 2
Competency baseline
We interview your strongest salespeople and review recent won and lost deals to establish what actually separates a productive seller here. This becomes a competency map written as observable behaviours with a standard for each, split by knowledge, process discipline and conversation skill, and signed off by your sales head.
- You provide:
- Time with two or three experienced sellers, access to recent deal records, product and pricing documentation.
- We produce:
- A competency map with a standard and required evidence for each item, and a proposed readiness level for day thirty, sixty and ninety.
- Done when:
- Your sales head signs off the competency map as the standard every new joiner will be held to.
- 3
Curriculum design
We sequence the competencies into a ninety-day plan, decide who teaches each part and how long it takes, and build the material from your own content. Where something a joiner needs does not exist in writing — a pricing rule, an objection response, a technical explanation — we draft it and have your team confirm it.
- You provide:
- Existing decks, price lists, product notes, playbook or process documents, and a reviewer to confirm accuracy.
- We produce:
- The week-by-week curriculum, session guides, learning material and the day-one and week-one checklists.
- Done when:
- The curriculum is reviewed and approved, and every session has an owner and a duration.
- 4
Practice and certification design
We build the role-play scenarios from your real calls and deals, write the observer scoring sheets, and define the certification gates: what is tested at each point, the pass standard, who assesses it, and what happens when a joiner does not pass.
- You provide:
- Call recordings or field notes where available, and agreement from managers on the pass standard.
- We produce:
- Scenario packs, scoring sheets, certification checklists and the retest and escalation path.
- Done when:
- Managers agree the standard and can score a practice conversation consistently with each other.
- 5
Manager enablement
We train the managers who will run the programme: how to deliver each session, how to run the weekly ramp review, how to observe a call and give feedback against the competency standard, and when to escalate. This is a working session with practice, not a briefing.
- You provide:
- Managers available for a full working session and committed weekly time during the ramp period.
- We produce:
- The manager onboarding guide, the weekly ramp review format and a trained set of managers.
- Done when:
- Each manager can run a session and a ramp review without referring back to us.
- 6
Pilot with a live joiner
The programme runs for real with your next hire, or with a recent joiner still inside ninety days. A Gully Sales consultant observes the sessions, the practice, the first supervised calls and the first certification gate, and corrects the programme and the manager's delivery as issues appear.
- You provide:
- A new or recent joiner, manager time each week, and access to sit in on the joiner's early customer conversations.
- We produce:
- Observation notes, corrections to the curriculum and materials, and the first completed ramp scorecard.
- Done when:
- The joiner passes the first gate and the corrected programme is documented for the next hire.
- 7
Measurement and handover
We record the ramp numbers against the baseline, review what the joiner and the managers found hard, revise the parts that consistently fail, and hand over the complete programme with everything a manager needs to run it alone for future hires.
- You provide:
- CRM data on the joiner's pipeline and closures, and an hour with the sales head for the review.
- We produce:
- The ramp scorecard, a written review of the first cohort and the final onboarding pack.
- Done when:
- Your managers own and run the programme, and you have measured ramp against the baseline.
Ways to work with us
Build the onboarding programme at the depth your hiring plan needs.
Core onboarding programme
The full ninety-day programme from competency baseline to manager handover, including curriculum, practice material, certification and the ramp scorecard. Suited to a business hiring several salespeople over the coming year.
First-thirty-days programme
A shorter build covering the first month only: day-one checklist, product and buyer knowledge, early practice and the first readiness gate. Useful when a hire starts soon and you need something working quickly.
Onboarding with supervised pilot
The programme plus a Gully Sales consultant present through the first joiner's ramp, observing sessions, practice and early customer calls, so delivery is corrected while it happens rather than reviewed afterwards.
New branch or channel onboarding
A programme for a location, region or channel where nobody experienced is available to teach. Built so a manager who is new to your business can bring salespeople up to standard on their own.
Onboarding review and rebuild
For a business that already has an induction that is not producing sellers. We test it against how deals are actually won here, rebuild the weak parts, add certification and train the managers who run it.
Why Gully Sales
What you are actually choosing when you choose us.
Built from your deals, not a template.
The competencies, scenarios and certification standards come from your own won and lost deals and from interviews with your strongest sellers. A joiner learns how business is actually won in your market, not a generic sales course.
Practice before your buyers pay for the learning.
Rehearsal under observation, scored against an agreed standard, comes before live enquiries. Your customers meet a salesperson who has already handled the conversation, rather than one who is learning at their expense.
Your managers run it, not us.
We train the managers, observe them delivering it during the pilot and hand over a written programme. The value is a capability your business keeps and repeats for every future hire, not an engagement you have to renew.
Ramp is measured against your own history.
We baseline how your recent hires actually ramped before changing anything, then read each new joiner against it. You can see whether onboarding improved rather than assuming the last hire was simply better.
One firm across the whole revenue system.
Gully Sales works on sales, marketing, channel and revenue operations together. If ramp is slow because leads are weak, the process is unclear or the CRM cannot record a stage, we can say so instead of training around the real cause.
Written for Indian SMB reality.
Small teams, working managers, hires from other industries, field sales across several districts and no full-time trainer. The programme is designed to be delivered by a busy manager, not by a learning department you do not have.
Where it applies
The same service, in different businesses.
Industrial equipment manufacturing
- The situation:
- A manufacturer adds three field salespeople to cover new districts. The product is technical, the buyer is a plant or purchase head, and the only person who can explain the application properly is the founder.
- How it applies:
- The founder's technical explanation is captured once into curriculum and scenario packs, and application knowledge is tested at the thirty-day gate before joiners visit plants alone.
- Likely benefit:
- Three joiners learn the technical sale from the same source without the founder repeating it in three districts, and unready visits to important plants are avoided.
Building materials distribution
- The situation:
- A distributor's senior salesperson is retiring, taking a dealer territory built over many years. A younger joiner must take over the relationships without the accounts going quiet.
- How it applies:
- A structured handover: dealer-by-dealer briefing, joint visits on a defined schedule, a debrief format after each, and a readiness gate before supervision is withdrawn.
- Likely benefit:
- Dealers are introduced to the new salesperson deliberately rather than by surprise, and the territory transfers with its history intact.
IT and software services
- The situation:
- A services firm hires salespeople from other industries who can sell but do not understand the delivery model, the scoping conversation or where a deal turns unprofitable.
- How it applies:
- A curriculum weighted towards solution understanding and scoping discipline, with role-plays on requirement conversations and certification on producing an accurate scope brief.
- Likely benefit:
- New joiners bring in work the delivery team can actually run at the expected margin, instead of committing to scope that has to be renegotiated later.
Multi-location healthcare
- The situation:
- A clinic group opens units in new areas. Front-line counsellors and business development staff join locally, with no experienced colleague at that unit to learn from.
- How it applies:
- A self-contained programme a unit manager can deliver: patient conversation practice, consent and sensitivity standards, enquiry handling in the CRM, and a certification gate before independent counselling.
- Likely benefit:
- Each new unit reaches a consistent standard of enquiry handling without waiting for a head-office trainer to travel there.
Real estate and project sales
- The situation:
- A developer staffs up quickly for a launch. Site executives are hired weeks before the first walk-in and are expected to handle high-value conversations immediately.
- How it applies:
- A compressed first-thirty-days programme: project and pricing knowledge, site walk-through practice, objection rehearsal on price and possession, and a readiness check before the launch weekend.
- Likely benefit:
- The team faces launch traffic having already practised the conversation, so early walk-ins are handled properly rather than treated as training.
Agri-inputs and rural distribution
- The situation:
- A company hires field officers across districts. They are spread out, rarely meet a manager in person, and cannot shadow an experienced colleague day to day.
- How it applies:
- A remote-friendly curriculum with short structured sessions, recorded practice reviewed by the manager, and field visits accompanied at defined milestones rather than continuously.
- Likely benefit:
- Officers in distant districts reach the same standard as those near the head office, and managers spend travel time where the joiner is actually struggling.
Questions buyers ask
Before you enquire, the answers you will want.
How will classroom learning actually change what a salesperson does in the field?
Three things carry it across. Practice comes before live buyers, so the conversation has been rehearsed and scored against a standard. Early live work is supervised, with a joint-call plan and a debrief after each visit. And the manager runs a weekly ramp review against the same competency standard. Certification gates then check behaviour in a real conversation, not recall in a test. Without those three, any curriculum stays in the room it was taught in.
How long does the engagement take?
The build usually runs over several weeks: diagnostic and competency baseline first, then curriculum, practice material and certification design, then the manager working session. Where a supervised pilot is included, we stay through the first joiner's ninety days. The exact schedule is fixed in the scope after the audit and depends on how many products and segments a joiner must learn and how quickly your team can review material.
What do you need from us?
Time with your sales head and two or three experienced salespeople for the interviews, access to recent deal records and any existing product, pricing and process material, a reviewer to confirm accuracy, and managers available for the training session and weekly ramp reviews. For the pilot we need a real joiner and permission to observe early customer conversations. Manager time during ramp is the input that decides whether this works.
How is success measured?
Against a baseline we build from your own recent hires before starting. The main measures are days to a first qualified opportunity, days to a first closed deal, the month of first quota attainment, pipeline built by day ninety, certification pass rates and ninety-day retention. We read each joiner at thirty, sixty and ninety days, then review the whole cohort. Where past records are incomplete, we mark clearly which baseline figures are estimates.
What is not included in this scope?
We do not run HR induction, payroll, statutory or compliance orientation. We do not recruit or assess candidates, though we can point you to that separately. We are not a permanent trainer: after handover your managers deliver the programme. Deep skill courses such as extended negotiation or advanced closing work, and ongoing coaching for experienced sellers, are separate services rather than part of the onboarding build.
We are hiring only one salesperson. Is this worth building?
Often yes, if more hiring is likely within a year, because the programme is written once and reused. If this is genuinely a single hire with no plan to add more, a shorter first-thirty-days build usually makes better sense than the full programme. We will say which one fits during the consultation rather than sell you the larger scope for a team you are not building.
How is this different from sales training?
Sales training develops skill in a team that is already selling. Onboarding takes someone who has just joined and makes them capable of selling your product, to your buyers, through your process, in a defined period. It carries knowledge, tools, access, territory handover and a readiness decision, not only skill. Many businesses need both, but training an unonboarded joiner rarely produces a productive salesperson.
We do not have a sales playbook or a documented process. Can we still do this?
Yes, and it is common. During the competency baseline we capture how your business actually wins from your strongest sellers and your recent deals, and we write down the pieces a joiner needs. If that work shows the process itself is unclear or contradictory, we will say so, because onboarding people into a broken process only produces confusion faster. Process or playbook work can then run alongside.
4 more questions
What if a new hire still does not work out?
Some will not, and the programme is designed so you find out early. The certification gates at thirty and sixty days give evidence rather than impressions, so a wrong fit surfaces in weeks instead of after two quarters. That protects your pipeline and the person's time. It also separates a hiring problem from an onboarding problem, so you know which one to fix before the next hire.
Our field team is spread across districts and cannot shadow anyone. Does this still work?
That is one of the situations it helps most. The programme is built to be delivered remotely in short structured sessions, with recorded practice a manager reviews, written checklists a joiner works through alone, and accompanied field visits at defined milestones instead of continuously. A manager's travel then goes to the joiners who are actually behind, which is visible from the ramp scorecard.
Can our managers really run this after you leave?
That is the design. Managers are trained in a working session, then observed delivering sessions and ramp reviews during the pilot and corrected while it happens. They receive session guides, scoring sheets, checklists and a review format, so nothing depends on remembering what we said. If a manager cannot commit weekly time during ramp, we will tell you before the build rather than after it.
Do you need access to our CRM?
Read access helps considerably, because the ramp baseline and the joiner's scorecard come from deal records. If your CRM is incomplete, we rebuild what we can from deal files and manager input and mark the estimates. We also check that the CRM can record the stages the programme teaches, since a joiner cannot be held to a discipline the system does not support.
Talk to us
See where your last few hires actually lost their ramp.
The consultation is a working session, not a pitch. We look at how your last hires were brought in, where ramp is actually being lost, and whether you need a full programme, a first-thirty-days build or a rebuild of what you already run.
- No obligation and no sales script
- A reply from someone who does the work
- Your details are never sold or shared