Account Executive onboarding plan

What a strong ramp looks like for a new account executive. Week 1 universals + 30/60/90 day milestones, each with an accountable owner — manager, new hire, team, or HR.

Week 1

Get them productive on tools, oriented to people, and clear on what success looks like in their first 90 days.

1. 1Day 1: workspace + tooling set up before they arrive (laptop, accounts, Slack, email). New hire's first email should be 'everything just works.'Manager
2. 2Day 1: 30-min welcome with their manager — share the team's mission, their first project, and book recurring 1:1s.Manager
3. 3Day 1-2: meet & greet calls with 4-6 people they'll work with most. 15-20 min each, calendar-blocked in advance.Manager
4. 4Day 3: have them ship something small (a Slack post, a document, a tiny PR) — confidence-building, momentum-setting.New hire
5. 5Day 5: review the 30/60/90 plan together. New hire confirms it sounds achievable; manager confirms it's the right shape.Manager
6. 6End of Week 1: HR / People check-in. Surface friction (access issues, missing context, mismatched expectations) early.HR

Days 1-30

Master the product, the buyer, and the existing playbook.

1. 1Complete product deep-dive — including 3-4 hours running through the product yourself as if you were a buyer.New hire
2. 2Listen to 15-20 recordings of closed-won + closed-lost calls. Note what made them go each way.New hire
3. 3Shadow 5-8 live customer calls (demos, discoveries, negotiations). Take notes on objection-handling and pricing conversations.New hire
4. 4Run your first 3-5 discoveries with low-stakes inbound. Manager joins for the first one; observes-only after.New hire
5. 5Internalize MEDDIC (or whatever framework the team uses) and how the deal-stages map to it.New hire

Days 31-60

Run real deals end-to-end. Build pipeline of your own.

1. 1Run 5-10 discoveries solo. Manager debrief weekly: what advanced, what stalled, why.New hire
2. 2Get 2-3 deals to commit-stage by day 60.New hire
3. 3Build pipeline yourself, in partnership with your SDR. Don't rely on only-inbound; layer in outbound.New hire
4. 4Pitch the product 3+ times in mock calls with manager. Refine pitch until manager green-lights it for live customer use.Manager
5. 5Close your first small deal (or be in legal on one).New hire

Days 61-90

Run a full quarter at quota. Own forecast accuracy.

1. 1Close 60-80% of your full quarterly quota. Manager reviews forecast accuracy weekly.New hire
2. 2Own your forecast — manager challenges your 'commit' vs 'best-case' splits. Aim for ±10% accuracy by end of Q.New hire
3. 3Run multi-threaded deals with 3+ stakeholders engaged at the buyer.New hire
4. 4Build deep relationships with 2-3 customer success peers — your renewals depend on them.New hire
5. 5Retrospective: which deals did you over- or under-call? What do you change for next quarter?Manager

Hire a account executive worth onboarding.

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