Why sales onboarding needs a rethink
Even the best sales enablement programs struggle with one universal challenge: it takes a long time for new reps to ramp. Research shows that it often takes three to six months for new sellers to reach full productivity.
The culprit? Traditional onboarding is still rooted in slides, playbooks, and shadow sessions that can’t scale, engage, or keep pace with evolving sales motions. Reps are overwhelmed by information early on and under-supported when it matters most: during live selling.
Forward-thinking enablement leaders are tackling this problem by making onboarding not just digital, but video-first. By building an onboarding program around video content rather than treating video as a “nice-to-have,” teams can deliver more consistent, personalized, and memorable experiences for every new hire.
Why video changes the game for sales onboarding
Video transforms the onboarding process from static learning to active, repeatable performance training.
- Higher engagement and retention: Employees retain up to 95% of a message when delivered by video, compared to just 10% from text.
- Consistent, controlled messaging: Every new rep hears the same story, tone, and brand narrative, but personalized for their individual role and team. This is critical in sales organizations that want to personalize while lending needed consistency at the same time.
- Scalable learning: Video content is easy to update, distribute, and localize across regions or product lines with the right platform.
- Human connection: Video humanizes leaders, especially with features like custom avatars and voices. This showcases culture and reinforces belonging, especially in hybrid or distributed teams.
When built with the right structure and tools, a video onboarding program doesn’t just teach; it accelerates readiness, confidence, and connection from day one.
1. Start with role-based, scenario-driven content
Generic onboarding is the fastest way to lose a new hire’s attention. Structure video content around real selling scenarios, for example, handling objections, giving a demo, walking through pricing, or summarizing a meeting.
Show your top performers in action. Let new hires see what “great” looks like. Segment content by role (SDR, AE, or renewal rep) and region to reflect relevant customer contexts. Short, modular videos (no longer than 3–5 minutes) help reps learn in bursts while retaining key insights.
2. Personalize the experience without losing consistency
Every rep learns differently, but your brand and message must stay consistent. That’s where video personalization within controlled templates becomes powerful.
With SundaySky Create, enablement teams can build a library of onboarding videos that are:
- Pre-approved and brand-safe with logos, fonts, and tone locked in.
- Customizable by any means the video editor wants, like segment or vertical.
- Localized across geographies to ensure relevance everywhere.
- Create custom avatars of leaders, managers, and familiar faces to host content, allowing you to instantly create a huge volume of video content and make updates without ever having to re-film.
This combination of control + flexibility means every rep receives training that feels personal and relevant without sacrificing consistency.
3. Blend structured learning with human connection
No onboarding program should be 100% automated. While asynchronous video learning builds efficiency, human touchpoints sustain culture, motivation, and belonging, especially in remote or hybrid sales teams.
SundaySky makes it easy to combine both.
First, bring real faces into the experience.
Using the Recorder feature, leaders and peers can quickly record short, personal greetings that open an onboarding video before the main content begins.
Examples include:
- A warm welcome from the CRO or enablement lead.
- A quick message from a peer mentor.
- A “you’ve got this” check-in after a rep completes their first module.
These human moments help new hires feel recognized and connected from day one.
Then, scale leadership presence with AI Avatars.
With Custom AI Avatars, managers and executives can “host” entire onboarding videos, or entire learning series at scale, without the need for reshoots.
When product messaging changes or new hires join globally, you can update scripts instantly while maintaining the familiar, trusted presence of your leaders on screen.Together, these tools create a blended onboarding experience that feels both personal and scalable—the best of human warmth and AI-powered consistency.
4. Keep content dynamic and always on-brand
Static onboarding content becomes outdated quickly, especially in fast-moving industries. A modern program needs real-time agility.
With SundaySky’s brand governance and rendering tools, enablement leaders can:
- Update a single master video and push brand updates instantly across all versions.
- Ensure every training asset adheres to brand tone, compliance, and messaging rules automatically.
- Give L&D and enablement teams creative freedom without losing control.
That means your onboarding videos can evolve with your sales motion, not lag behind it.
5. Make feedback and measurement part of the process
Video onboarding isn’t “set it and forget it.” Leading enablement programs track engagement data like completion rates, watch time, and quiz performance to understand what’s resonating.Integrating video analytics into your LMS or CRM can reveal correlations between content engagement and sales performance (e.g., time to first deal, quota attainment). This insight enables continuous optimization, so every cohort gets a stronger, more relevant experience.
6. Empower reps to contribute their own learning moments
The best onboarding programs evolve into ongoing learning ecosystems. Encourage ramped reps to create short “field note” videos that capture lessons learned, successful pitches, or customer stories.
Using SundaySky Create, enablement teams can provide feedback to the video creators for improved clips—ensuring they stay on-brand—then add them back into the onboarding flow for future cohorts.This turns video from a top-down medium into a peer-driven knowledge loop that scales organically over time.
7. Scale success across the revenue team
Once you’ve built a successful video onboarding foundation for new sales hires, expand the model to your entire revenue organization, from customer success to renewals.
That’s where SundaySky Amplify comes in. Teams can use it to create onboarding videos, and even beyond onboarding, reps can use it themselves for easy-to-edit, pre-approved video templates to personalize customer communications—recapping meetings, walking through proposals, or sending renewal nudges.
This bridges onboarding and execution, and transforms training into active enablement.
Key takeaway: Video onboarding is a performance multiplier
Today’s sales enablement leaders face mounting pressure to ramp reps faster, maintain consistency, and keep culture alive in hybrid environments. Traditional methods can’t keep up.
By making your onboarding program a video onboarding experience, you create an engaging, scalable system that accelerates learning, drives confidence, and keeps every rep connected to your brand story.
With SundaySky, teams can design, personalize, and manage high-impact onboarding videos at scale without creative bottlenecks or quality trade-offs.Ready to modernize your sales onboarding? Book a demo to see how SundaySky helps you build a video-first onboarding program that ramps reps faster—and keeps them performing at their best.
