ENABLEMENT

Sales 101 — built in 48 hours

When the entire sales org was reorganized overnight and eight people moved into sales roles with no prior experience, I built a Sales 101 course in 48 hours so they could start week one with a foundation.

  • Client: Platform.sh
  • Role: Curriculum designer
  • Year: 2023

Background

The problem

Summer 2023: sudden reorg. Eight individuals moved into sales roles with zero sales background. Their first quarter started in days, not months. Nothing existed for first-day-of-sales-career humans because the org had only ever hired experienced reps.

The approach

Built the curriculum top-down: what does a sales conversation look like, what are the roles in a deal, what do “qualified” and “discovery” actually mean, how do CRM hygiene and forecasting work. Used video for things that benefit from demonstration, written for things that benefit from reference.

Why it worked at all

Time-boxing forced ruthless prioritization. The course doesn’t try to make anyone a senior AE — it makes them functional enough to learn the rest on the job, which is the right ambition for week-one onboarding.

Outcome

Delivered the course on the timeline that mattered. Several of those eight became productive ICs within a quarter.

Artifact

The deliverable from this engagement is publicly viewable.

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