Following two and half years of the mentorship program and over 200 graduates, the Pinterest program wanted to up their training game for Account Managers to make it more closely integrated with onboarding, to provide a smoother ramping process for new hires, to increase retention, and increase the speed that new hires moved through product knowledge and best practices to uplevel their work, goal attainment, and career trajectory. I was selected to be promoted from a Tier One Account Manager with the largest quarterly goal on the floor at $3.25M to the Sales Enablement Onboarding Manager. In this role, I would build a new program from scratch, from the process documents, to the training materials, to the schedule and content. While building this, I also needed to prepare my book of business to be transitioned to the new Account Manager and manage it in the interim. As an additional challenge, I was given a timeline of a week and a half before my first cohort started. So it began.
The Steps of My Process
Step One: Prioritization & Planning
Approaching this situation, I needed to be extremely deliberate in my approach. I sat down and built my task list, then prioritized it by which tasks were the most crucial and which were the most time sensitive/time consuming. The highlights of this task list were:
Preparing notes with previous details, current situations, and planned next steps of my book for the next Account Manager
Developing a list of content to be covered and what the needed materials were
Familiarizing myself further with the materials used to train new hires before my team during onboarding
Building the training materials, schedule of content to be covered, and knowledge checks
Learning more about people development and putting together team building questions and activities to manage the new hire stress
Communicating the change to my book of business
Collaborating with my replacement when they were selected
Confirming the materials with stakeholders and implementing feedback
Step Two: Stakeholder Management
At this point, I also knew that in order to confirm my next steps and make the use of my time the most valuable, it was time to meet with my stakeholders and get their buy-in and needs. I made a list of who they were:
The Account Manager Function Lead
The Head of the Program
The Onboarding Training Team Lead
The Sales Enablement Manager
The full list of AM Managers
The Business Operations Manager
Following that, I made a list for each with what they would likely need and/or want, a space for their requests, and what I needed from them. Following that, I set up time with each when I had fleshed out my direction enough to provide a solid picture to review. When I had gathered their needs, I got to the meat of the work.
Step Three: Building & Implementation
I had each team of new hires for 8 weeks and a bulk of materials for them to know at the end of it. That list (simplified and out of order) looked something like this:
Pinterest’s Place in the Marketing Funnel
Marketing Basics
Attribution
Creative Best Practices
Pinterest Host of Products
Optimization (Pinterest product, creative, partner product, and SEO)
SEO Basics
Pinterest Ads Manager Navigation
Bidding
Client Management
Organization
Email Management and Organization
Call Flow and Content
Objection Handling
Sales Tactics
Business Models
Marketing Strategies
I organized the flow of knowledge and started building the training decks and resources. They needed to build off each other, but not overwhelm.
Step Four: Time Management
During the process of building all of this, I was still taking client calls, making optimizations and strategies, pitching new products and methods, and transitioning my book. I made a list each day of the tasks that needed to be completed broken down by what was reasonable in a day and had a separate list of overarching tasks for the week and beyond. Honestly, that method kept me afloat and effective.
Step Five: Jumping In
A week and half passed quickly and before I knew it, it was day one of the cohort. I had a team of seven for my first cohort. My priorities for them were not just knowledge, but to help them overcome their stress and nerves, develop confidence, and build a strong team that they could continue to rely on after they left my team.
I set up 1:1s with each of them, learned their learning and communication style, feedback preferences, and personality. I made sure to make time for them to get to know each other and have a space for some lightheartedness and laughter. They grew quickly and thrived.
Step Six: Optimization
After each cohort, I took their feedback and implemented improvements. At the conclusion of my time in this role, the program materials were fully developed, tested, and improved and it was a smooth handoff to the next training manager.
My cohorts went on to move into specialist and leadership roles at an advanced pace and trended to goal faster than before the program.