Improves new rep productivity by 40% and reduced ramp time by 67% with Seismic Learning (formerly Lessonly)

The Challenge

Determined to make government information more accessible and actionable, FiscalNote wants to build the world’s most powerful platform for analyzing government risk and opportunity.

For a long time, FiscalNote ran standard, ad hoc training. “We had a basic onboarding process; we sat down with new hires, explained our sales process, and then asked them to shadow more tenured members of our team,” explains Tom Guthrie. “We’d also have sporadic training focused on changes to our sales process or product. Occasionally, managers would lead training sessions, but there was very little in the way of organized regular training or onboarding.”

The Solution

In about six weeks, FiscalNote’s business development team doubled from 20 to 40 to meet ambitious revenue goals. To cope with this influx of new hires, the BD team needed a new onboarding plan. “This process needed to be repeatable, scalable, and above all, effective,” says Tom. Their new training process took form in the following steps:

1. Determine the high-level goals of the training.
2. Outline the skills that business development associates and sellers would need to succeed in their roles.
3. Decide what learning would be most effective for each skill
4. Create the appropriate Lessons, both online and in-person.

For new business development hires, Tom created 30 Lessons with Seismic Learning (ranging from competitive intelligence to advanced cold calls).

New sellers went through those same Lessons, as well as more than 10 Lessons covering seller-specific topics. “Automating much of the informational learning process through Seismic Learning allowed us to focus in-person training time on core skill development.”