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You're staring at next quarter's forecast. Again.
Three deals in your pipeline just went dark. Two more "pushed to next month." Your newest AE is carrying a 1.2M pipeline, but you know half of it's garbage. Discovery calls that never uncovered real pain. Demos that skipped technical validation conversations. Proposals sent to people who can't use them to create budget.
Here's the brutal honest truth from my experience: you're losing deals before they even start because you're confusing activity with ability.
Most sales leaders measure ramp by how fast someone can fill a pipeline. Calls made. Meetings booked. Opportunities created. But early activity without real capability doesn't create momentum. It creates a mess you'll be cleaning up in 90 days.
I've watched this pattern repeat across dozens of sales teams. New Account Executive joins. Gets two weeks of “onboarding”. Sits through product training. Shadows a few calls. Then gets handed a quota and told to "get after it."
What happens next?
They start cold calling. Booking a few meetings. Creating pipeline. Everyone feels good, management checks the box, and the rep feels productive. Then reality hits.
Deals stall in discovery because the rep never learned how to uncover actual business impact. Forecasts slip because they're qualifying on interest. Managers get dragged into deal after deal, playing rescue because the fundamentals were never there.
This isn't a training problem. It's a design problem.
When you gate progression by calendar instead of capability, you're gambling with quota. You're hoping reps figure it out before they damage too many relationships or screw up too much pipeline. Some do. Most don't, not fast enough.
What sales organisations need isn't faster ramp time. It's a clear path to proficiency that makes capability visible, measurable, and non-negotiable.
Download The Sales Readiness Playbook to see the exact framework high-performing teams use to move AEs from onboarding to quota contribution without burning pipeline.
Here's what we've noticed working with sales leaders building real proficiency paths: product knowledge is table stakes, not the unlock.
The AEs who ramp fastest and contribute meaningfully aren't the ones who memorise feature lists. They're the ones who can:
These aren't soft skills. They're hard revenue skills. And they can be defined, taught, and measured.
An effective proficiency path breaks the AE role into core capabilities that actually win deals, then sequences them deliberately. You don't hand someone a full quota the same week you teach them discovery. You don't ask them to forecast accurately before they've proven they can qualify properly.
Early emphasis goes to understanding the customer problem deeply, articulating value clearly in discovery, and running structured conversations that build urgency. Only after these foundations are demonstrated, evidenced through observed calls and deal reviews, should responsibility expand to full pipeline ownership and forecast accountability.
The mistake most enablement programmes make? They treat completion as competence.
Great, hand them quota.
Wrong.
Completion tells you nothing about capability. I've seen reps pass every certification and still run discovery calls that sound like feature dumps. I've seen managers promote people to full quota because "they've been here 60 days" even though their pipeline quality is terrible.
Proficiency isn't about time served. It's about skills proven in front of real buyers.
The best paths to proficiency we've seen require evidence at every gate:
This removes the guessing game. New AEs aren't wondering if they're "ready enough." Managers aren't relying on gut feel when deciding how much autonomy to give. Everyone knows what good looks like because good is defined, observable, and required.
When you gate progression behind proof instead of presence, something shifts. Reps gain confidence faster because they know they've earned it. Managers can coach to specific gaps instead of throwing more activity at the problem. The organisation stops letting poor-quality pipeline into the funnel too early.
Sales leaders often worry that gating progression will slow ramp time.
It won't, if you design it right.
Here's what we've seen work across teams closing complex deals:
Start by defining the skills that genuinely drive success in your environment. Not the generic competency model from your LMS. The actual capabilities your top performers demonstrate consistently. Go beyond product knowledge. Focus on discovery quality, value articulation, deal control, and commercial judgment.
Attach clear standards and practical assessments to each skill. What does good discovery sound like? What questions must an AE ask? What does poor qualification look like versus strong qualification? Make it concrete, observable, and coachable.
Sequence responsibility behind milestones, not dates. Don't give someone a 1M quota because they've been in seat for 90 days. Give it to them when they've proven they can run discovery that uncovers real pain, articulate value that creates urgency, and qualify opportunities that actually close.
Coach to close specific skill gaps, not increase activity. If a rep's discovery is weak, more calls won't fix it. Better discovery will. Focus coaching on the capability gap blocking their progression, then reassess.
When done well, this doesn't slow down contribution. It accelerates it. New AEs ramp faster because they're building the right habits from day one. Managers spend less time in rescue mode because their team's pipeline is higher quality earlier. Forecast accuracy improves because people who carry quota actually know how to qualify and progress deals.
Let's do the math on what happens when you don't build a proficiency path.
New AE joins with a 1.2M annual quota. You give them 60 days of "ramp," then full responsibility. They start creating pipeline fast, 20 opportunities in 90 days. Feels productive. Looks good in your dashboard.
But half of those opportunities were poorly qualified. Discovery missed business impact. They didn't uncover a compelling event. The “Champion” can't actually get the rep access to Power. Six months later, 10 of those 20 deals are dead or stalled. The rep is discouraged. You're behind forecast. The manager who should be coaching to next quarter is instead doing damage control on this quarter.
That's not ramp. That's revenue risk dressed up as activity.
Now imagine the alternative. Same new AE. But this time, progression is gated behind proficiency. They spend the first 30 days mastering critical selling skills, observed and certified. Next 30 days, they own a small pipeline while proving they can progress deals and forecast accurately. Only after demonstrating capability do they carry full quota.
Result? Fewer opportunities created early, but higher quality. Better forecast accuracy. Less manager intervention. Faster time to meaningful contribution because the foundation is solid.
A clear path to proficiency protects the individual and the organisation. It creates better sellers, healthier pipelines, and more predictable revenue. In today's buying environment, where every conversation with a prospect either builds credibility or destroys it, you can't afford to let new AEs learn by burning deals.
Proficiency isn't a nice-to-have. It's the difference between ramping revenue contributors and ramping expensive mistakes.
Download The Sales Readiness Playbook and get a frameworks, implementation roadmaps and sales skill infrastructure guides.
