If onboarding new sales reps feels like Groundhog Day—same questions, same confusion, same fire drills—you’re not alone. Most sales teams waste way too much time reinventing the wheel every time a new hire walks in. This guide is for sales managers, enablement folks, and anyone who wants to make onboarding smoother (and honestly, less annoying) for everyone. We’ll walk through how to use Praiz, a call recording and sharing tool, to cut out the chaos and give new reps what they actually need: real examples, clear expectations, and less guesswork.
Why Onboarding Sucks (and How Praiz Can Help)
Let’s be real: most onboarding is a mess of outdated docs, boring slides, and scattered links. New reps get a firehose of info but very little context. They’re told what “good” looks like, but rarely shown.
Here’s where Praiz comes in. Instead of making new hires sit through another generic training, you can use real sales calls—your team’s actual best moments and biggest mistakes—to show them how things really work. Praiz makes it easy to record, organize, and share these calls without a lot of technical overhead.
But—and this is important—Praiz is just a tool. If your onboarding process is already a mess, don’t expect magic. You still need to pick the right calls, explain what matters, and keep things up to date.
Step 1: Get Your House in Order
Before you start dumping recordings into Praiz, pause. A giant pile of random calls won’t help anyone.
What to do:
- Pick your “gold standard” calls. Find real examples of great discovery calls, demos, objection handling, and even the occasional flop. If you don’t have these yet, start recording and tagging now.
- Decide what new reps actually need to hear. Don’t overwhelm them with every call ever made. Focus on the first 30-60 days: what do you want them to nail?
- Clean up what you have. If your call library is a mess, block an hour to delete duplicates and label what’s left. Trust me, it’s worth it.
Pro tip: Ask your current reps what calls helped them most when they started. You’ll be surprised what sticks.
Step 2: Set Up Praiz for Onboarding
Once you’ve got your “best of” (and “what not to do”) calls, it’s time to make them easy to find in Praiz.
How to do it:
- Create onboarding playlists. In Praiz, build playlists or folders for each onboarding topic—think “Discovery Calls,” “Demo Deep Dives,” “Handling Pricing Objections.”
- Tag recordings. Use consistent, simple tags—like “win,” “loss,” “objection,” or “enterprise”—so reps can filter and find what they need.
- Add context. For each call, write a short blurb: what to listen for, why it matters, and any “watch out” moments. Don’t assume people will know why you picked it.
- Limit access to what matters. Too many choices = overwhelm. Start reps with 5-10 must-watch calls, not 100.
What works:
- Playlists make it dead simple for new reps to binge the right calls, Netflix-style.
- Short explanations (“Notice how Jen handles the pricing stall at 12:30”) keep reps focused.
What doesn’t:
- Uploading everything and hoping for the best.
- Vague, one-word tags (“Good,” “Bad”) that mean nothing to a new hire.
Step 3: Build an Actual Onboarding Path (Not Just a Library)
Here’s where most teams get lazy: they hand new reps a login and say, “Go learn.” That’s not onboarding—it’s abdication.
Make it structured:
- Set a simple learning path. Example: “Watch these three discovery calls, take notes on how the rep uncovers pain, then discuss in your next 1:1.”
- Assign peer review. Have new reps tag or comment on what they notice in each call. It keeps them engaged (and you’ll see who’s really paying attention).
- Pair with live shadowing. Use Praiz calls as prep for live sessions, not a replacement. “Watch this demo, then shadow Rachel on her next call. Compare notes.”
Stuff to skip:
- Don’t turn Praiz into another check-the-box activity. If you’re just making reps watch calls for the sake of it, you’ll both tune out.
- Avoid “watch everything in the library” as a requirement. No one does it, and it’s a waste of time.
Step 4: Use Praiz for Feedback and Practice
Onboarding shouldn’t be a one-way street. Use Praiz to give new reps a safe way to practice and get feedback—without making every mistake live in front of a customer.
Put Praiz to work:
- Record mock calls. Have new reps run through a discovery or demo and record it in Praiz. Keep it casual—no one needs a performance review on Day 5.
- Share recordings for feedback. Managers and peers can leave time-stamped comments (“Great question at 08:45,” or “Try slowing down here”).
- Highlight progress. Save early recordings and compare them to later ones. It’s a great way to show reps how far they’ve come (or spot where they’re stuck).
What actually helps:
- Honest, specific feedback on real calls—not just “good job.”
- Peer comments. Sometimes reps learn more from each other than from you.
What to ignore:
- Endless “review cycles.” Keep feedback short and actionable. The point is learning, not perfection.
Step 5: Keep It Fresh (and Don’t Let Praiz Become a Graveyard)
Tools like Praiz are only as good as the content you put in. A dusty library full of old calls nobody listens to is just another digital junk drawer.
How to avoid that:
- Regularly update playlists. Swap in fresh examples every quarter or when you launch a new product/feature.
- Cull the old stuff. If a call is out of date (“We don’t sell that product anymore”), delete or archive it.
- Ask for feedback. Every couple of months, check in with new reps: “Which calls helped? What was missing?” Adjust accordingly.
- Spotlight new wins (and fails). Did someone handle an impossible objection last week? Get that call into Praiz, with a quick note on what made it work.
Don’t bother:
- Trying to document every possible scenario. Focus on the 10% of calls that teach 90% of what new reps need.
Common Pitfalls (and How to Dodge Them)
- Too much content: New reps want clarity, not a data dump. Less is more.
- Outdated calls: Nothing erodes trust faster than hearing old pricing or a now-fired rep’s pitch.
- No context: Calls without notes are just noise. A 30-second intro is worth its weight in gold.
- No follow-up: If you never check in, onboarding becomes a black hole.
Final Thoughts: Start Small, Iterate, and Don’t Overthink It
The goal isn’t to build a perfect onboarding program overnight. Use Praiz to show, not just tell. Curate a handful of great calls, add clear context, and make it a two-way conversation. Keep listening to what new reps need and tweak as you go.
Most importantly, don’t let perfect be the enemy of done. A few real examples beat a thousand slides, every time. Keep it simple, keep it real, and you’ll save everyone a lot of pain—yourself included.