Sales Onboarding & Turnover: Telecommunications

Sales Onboarding

Improving Speed to Sales Productivity and Reducing Unwanted Turnover

Client Case Study

Situation: Sales Onboarding

Struggling with unwanted sales rep attrition during a period of rapid change, this telecommunications client was missing growth targets and market opportunities to expand.  Sales leadership wanted to:

  • Increase sales to new clients.
  • Maintain their existing customer base.
  • Increase average deal size.
  • Reduce salesperson turnover.

Complications: Sales Onboarding

  • Transactional Mindset
    The existing sales force operated with a predominantly product-centric approach. They lacked the consultative selling capabilities required to diagnose underlying customer business challenges and position integrated, value-based solutions.
  • Slow and Inconsistent Speed to Productivity
    New hire ramp time — averaging 5 to 7 months — was misaligned with business expectations. In addition, performance variability across sales representatives was significant, indicating inconsistent skill development, onboarding effectiveness, and execution standards.
  • Unsustainable Sales Rep Attrition
    New-hire turnover among sales representatives reached 89%, signaling fundamental breakdowns in selection, onboarding, enablement, and early-stage support — resulting in substantial lost investment, decreased team morale, and disrupted revenue continuity.

Approach: Sales Onboarding

After confirming that the employee value proposition and hiring process were not root causes, the solution focused on four targeted initiatives designed to improve capability, consistency, and early-stage performance:

  1. Sales Leadership Enablement
    Delivered targeted sales management training and executive coaching to strengthen frontline leadership effectiveness — ensuring managers could reinforce expectations, coach to behaviors, and drive accountability.
  2. Consultative Selling Capability Build
    Implemented a customized consultative selling program to shift the sales force from a product-centric approach to diagnosing client needs and delivering integrated, value-based solutions.
  3. Sustained Reinforcement and Application
    Deployed a structured 12-week follow-through program to embed new skills through real-world application, coaching, and continuous feedback — closing the gap between training and execution.
  4. Measurement and Performance Tracking
    Established clear metrics to assess adoption, behavior change, and business impact — enabling training measurement and data-driven refinement to ensure a sustained return on investment.

Results
In three months:

  • 42% increase in average units sold per new sales rep.
  • 12% increase in average units price per sales rep.
  • 69% decrease in new hire sales turnover (from 89% to 28%).
  • 67% decrease in new sales rep ramp time (from 6 months to 2 months).

Related Information

ServiceSource has relied on LSA Global’s expertise for a variety of core initiatives, from strategy design and implementation, to business sales skills, to sales coaching. We recently engaged LSA Global to create a competency matrix for our inside sales team that will serve as our roadmap for employee on-boarding, development, succession planning, and retention.

This critical project had a tight timeline with high visibility. LSA Global completed the deliverable ahead of schedule and surpassed our expectations.

PMO and Outside Sales Operations
Senior Vice President

Service Source

The sales negotiations training program was awesome. The facilitator was excellent. We are immediately able to see the relevance and apply it to our specific. The preparation and energy was very apparent. The facilitator did a great job keeping everyone engaged and focused on what mattered most to our success.

I am very pleased with the results and like the very relevant and applicable sales negotiations tools. Great job!

Jack Lord
Vice President of Sales

Blackhawk Network

The sales strategy and goal setting session was right on target. It was a very valuable process that I highly recommend to any sales team looking to increase performance.

Thank you LSA Global!

Phil Rosenberg
Senior Vice President of Sales

We engaged with LSA Global to deliver a highly customized sales territory planning and management workshop. They have a unique ability to quickly understand our business and needs. This keen understanding allowed for a sales solution that was specific and impactful.

Their sales consultants and facilitators were well prepared and ingrained themselves to become one of us. We’ve come to see LSA Global as a true sales partner.

Pratiksha Patel
Assistant Vice President Talent

L'Oreal

LSA always delivers the right sales and sales management solutions to meet our unique needs. I especially appreciate their ability to deeply understand our business and our culture so that they can design the most valuable and impactful outcomes for us and our clients.

Sarah Parks
Senior Project Manager

Hyperion

From beginning to end, LSA was as invested in making sure the program succeeded as we were. They not only met the needs of our sales organization, but they helped us meet our very tight launch deadline.

The consultant operated with the sense of urgency necessary to ensure that we were ready to roll the business sales training program in a way that made sense.

Without their dedication and sales expertise we would not have been able to launch the program with the success that we did. Thank you LSA for being a valued business partner!

Erin Surprise
PHR, Manager - L & D

LSA is a great and high quality training and consulting resource. In less than a week turnaround time, they were able to design and deliver a ‘best in class’ inside sales solution to meet my team’s unique needs.

They definitely met my high expectations and were very responsive to my specific objectives.  Thank you!

Olivia Flach
Americas Retail Sales

Sandisk

We partnered with LSA to help custom design, deliver, and measure an advanced new employee on-boarding process. It was well thought out and bought into by sales leadership.  The combination of targeted sales tools, technology, coaching, performance plans, training, and reinforcement made all the difference.  The solution quantifiably improved new employee and hiring manager satisfaction and increased the speed to sales quota for new hires.

I would highly recommend LSA Global for any sales enablement team looking to increase the engagement and speed to productivity of their sales force. We are excited to implement the program globally as we continue to scale.

Rochana Golani
Director, Global Sales & Technical Field Enablement

At the onset of our engagement with LSA, I was skeptical that an outside firm would be able to understand and dissect our organization’s highly complex and technical business challenges.

However, through the leadership team interview and strategy retreat processes that LSA utilized, they provided a fresh, innovative, and practical perspective that created tremendous strategic value and focus for our executive leadership team.

As a result, I would highly recommend LSA Global to any leader struggling with building the strategic alignment and high performance teams necessary to generate sales growth, in a way that fits their unique corporate culture.

Robert Laudati
Managing Director

L3Harris_Logo-LSAGlobal

We evaluated 6 well known sales development partners in the market. We ended up selecting LSA global because of their unique ability to get results selling solutions.  They also had the strongest assessment, implementation, measurement, coaching, and global capabilities .

We’ve had such strong feedback from the executive selling program that there are requests to roll it out within the Marketing, Product Management, and our Leadership teams.  Thank you LSA!

Stephanie Lucey
HR Manager

Originally, we launched a RFP to partner with a sales training provider to improve the sales skills of our global distributor network.

LSA Global challenged our thinking by suggesting we focus on the systemic sales strategy, culture, and talent factors that create sales success before we invested in the more symptomatic needs of sales skills and knowledge.

LSA Global identified the critical strategic actions to improve overall sales performance and then designed and delivered world class business sales training across the globe to help increase revenue and margin.

I’m so happy we took a more strategic approach to sales performance with LSA.  Thank you for making this fit our culture.

Kim Benson
Director Human Resources

Trimble

LSA was instrumental in making our worldwide sales meeting a success. They saved me a ton of time with ‘best in class’ solutions to meet our business objectives. Whenever I’m in a pinch, I can count on LSA’s dynamic team of sales trainers and consultants to really go the extra mile.

They truly understand the meaning of customer delight.  Thank you!

Amy Walker
Manager

Seagate

LSA Global demonstrated excellent expertise in sales and sales leadership, spent the time required to make sure the objectives were clear, and showed flexibility in shaping and sustaining everything that they did.

They “MEDRADized” the session to meet our unique needs, looked beyond the obvious, and got the key points across in a way that made sense.  Thank you!

Doug Stantial
North America Sales Training Manager

LSA Global has been a great partner in helping us move toward being “the leading developer of talent in the service performance management industry.”

I have engaged LSA to help develop best-in-class programs in the areas of: Executive On-boarding, Manager Training, Sales Training and Coaching, Employee Engagement, and Instructional Design.

They have consistently met or exceeded my (very) high expectations and are always responsive to my needs to increase performance, engagement, customer satisfaction, and sales growth.

Mike Normant
Senior Director, Training & Development

Service Source

LSA has consistently delivered top notch value to Seagate’s Corporate University Program. The level of facilitator involvement and continuous program evolution has kept the sales negotiation training engaging, relevant, and impactful.

We look forward to working with LSA in the future.

Geoff Purnell
Sales Executive, Seagate Data Recovery Services

Seagate

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