EIGHT PAGES
ONE WORKSHEET
Eight weeks from first day to first real conversation, with evidence at every checkpoint.
01
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Most onboarding is a reading list with a calendar around it. Week one is systems access and company history. Week two is product. Week three the rep shadows somebody. By week six everyone has run out of material and the rep is told to start building pipeline.
Nothing in that sequence ever tests whether the rep can do the job. It tests whether they showed up. So the first real signal arrives in month four, when a deal they own goes sideways, and by then you have spent four months of salary finding out something a drill in week two would have told you.
Fix the ramp by making every week end in something a manager can check. Not a quiz. A demonstration.
02
THE PRINCIPLE
If a week of onboarding cannot end in a demonstration, that week is filler and you should cut it.
THE ORDER MATTERS
Product in week two, not week one. A rep who learns features before they understand the problem will pitch for the rest of their tenure.
03
02
Every row ends in something a manager watches, not something the rep reports.
| WK | FOCUS | WHAT THEY DO | PROOF POINT, CHECKED BY A MANAGER | OWNER |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| W1 | The problem | Read the last twenty closed-won notes and five recorded calls. No product training yet. | Explains, unprompted, what these customers had in common before they bought. | Manager |
| W2 | Mechanism | Learn how the product produces the result, not the feature list. | Answers three hard technical questions live, no notes, no escalation. | SE / Product |
| W3 | The edges | Learn what it is bad at, who should not buy, where it breaks. | Names three situations where we are the wrong choice, and why. | Manager |
| W4 | Discovery | Learn the question set and why each question earns its place. | Runs a full discovery on a colleague playing a real past account. | Manager |
| W5 | The demo | Own the demo end to end, including the parts that go wrong. | Delivers the demo to a skeptical internal panel and handles two objections. | Peer + SE |
| W6 | Live, supported | Joins real calls and owns a defined segment of each one. | Runs discovery on a real prospect with the manager silent on the line. | Manager |
| W7 | Pipeline | Builds their own list against the ICP and writes their own outreach. | Twenty accounts scored against the ICP, with reasons, not a scraped list. | Manager |
| W8 | Own it | Carries their own first conversations. | A first meeting they sourced and ran alone, debriefed the same day. | Manager |
03
THE ORDER MATTERS
Product in week two, not week one. A rep who learns features before they understand the problem will pitch for the rest of their tenure.
03
A missed proof point is information, arriving early and cheaply. That is the entire design.
04
THE KINDNESS
Telling someone in week eight that this is not working is kinder than telling them in month seven, and it costs them far less career.
04
Write the proof point first, then work backwards to the activity. Doing it the other way produces a reading list.
| WK | FOCUS | PROOF POINT, WHAT A MANAGER WATCHES | OWNER |
|---|---|---|---|
| W1 | |||
| W2 | |||
| W3 | |||
| W4 | |||
| W5 | |||
| W6 | |||
| W7 | |||
| W8 |
05
ONE RULE
If you cannot name who watches the proof point, the proof point will not happen.
05
Every one of these looks like generosity at the time.
FAILURE 01
Nobody owns the proof point
If the owner column is blank, the demonstration does not happen and week six arrives with nothing checked. Name a person, not a team.
FAILURE 02
The ramp extends silently
A rep who misses week four and is quietly given until week six learns that the checkpoints are decorative. Repeat the week openly or move on.
FAILURE 03
Product goes in week one
Features before problems produces a rep who pitches. This is the most common sequencing error and it is nearly impossible to undo later.
FAILURE 04
The manager stops watching
A proof point nobody observes is a self-assessment. Fifteen minutes of watching beats an hour of reading a report about it.
06
THE PATTERN
All four are a manager protecting a rep from information they needed in week two.
06
WHAT TO
DO NOW
01
Write the eight proof points before you write a single week of activity. If you cannot name the demonstration, the week has no purpose yet.
02
Put a named owner against each one, and put the check itself in their calendar now, all eight, before the rep starts.
03
Give the rep this document on day one. A ramp is not a test you spring on someone. They should know exactly what week five asks of them.
04
Debrief every miss the same week, out loud, using the one question on page four. Never carry a miss into the next week unspoken.
NO. 02
OF 06
If you run this yourself and your next hire is useful in eight weeks instead of six months, that was the point. Nothing here is held back for a paid version.
JOSH DEMPSEY · STAGEONEGTM.COM · JOSH@STAGEONEGTM.COM