What actually shortens rep ramp time
Ramp time isn't about training hours. It's about how fast a new rep gets to the conversations that teach them the territory.
Most ramp programs are a binder of training material, a shadow week, and then "good luck." That's why 90-day ramps turn into 9-month ramps.
Ramp is conversations, not content
A new rep doesn't learn the territory by reading about it. They learn it by standing in front of twenty buyers and feeling which pitches land, which objections repeat, and which accounts have personalities the org chart doesn't show.
Your job as a manager is to maximize the number of real conversations per week in month one.
The three levers
First, pre-load accounts. A new rep should never walk into a meeting blind. Every account they inherit should come with a summary of the last three conversations, the current open items, and the buyer's personality notes. This is the single highest-leverage thing you can do.
Second, ride along, then pull back. Week one: every meeting together. Week two: you start every meeting, they finish. Week three: they start, you close. Week four: you're in the car reading the news.
Third, capture every meeting. The new rep's voice memos become their training material. A month of recordings is the best sales class they'll ever take.
The ramp metric that matters
Not "certifications completed." Not "territory knowledge quiz score." The number of in-person meetings in the last two weeks. If that number is climbing, ramp is on track. If it's flat, something is broken, and more training won't fix it.