Why my new hires ramp faster than yours

Welcome to Evidently—the bi-weekly newsletter where I share my biggest hits (and get honest about my misses) as a first-time VP of Marketing. If this was forwarded to you and you like what you saw, you can subscribe here.

Most remote hires start their first week drowning in meetings and Slack messages from names they don’t recognize.

No real connection. No clue how to work with their new boss or team. No idea how tall anyone actually is.

That’s why I don’t rely on Zoom calls for onboarding.

At UserEvidence, I’ve onboarded three hires (Alex, Jillian, and earlier this month, Austin) by meeting them in person during their first week. Every time, it leads to the same outcome: faster ramp-up, stronger confidence, and immediate impact.

Let’s be real. My approach to onboarding helps, but the biggest reason new hires ramp fast is the caliber of people I’ve hired. They’re exceptional at what they do.

My job is to remove roadblocks and give them everything they need to hit the ground running.

The onboarding plan doc I created so you don’t have to

I had a basic onboarding doc for Alex the first time I had to do this last March.

It was slightly (aka mostly) organized chaos and nowhere near the structure of the v3 I have today.

Since then, I’ve refined it. Taken feedback. Cut the fluff. Now, it’s structured, repeatable, and built to get new hires contributing fast.

It starts with a detailed onboarding map outlining exactly what they need to know and do in their first 30, 60, and 90 days.

This all lives in a structured doc with key sections that break down:

Homework to complete

I provide a checklist of todos for people to complete:

• In their first week: Get the fundamentals down and call out the key people to meet, tools to gain access to, and the most important docs to review—all based on their specific role.

• In their first two weeks: Go deeper. Set up cross-functional meetings, learn key workflows, and ramp up early initiatives. By the end of this phase, they need to put a quick win on the board too.

• In their first month:  At this point, they should fully own execution in their area and start thinking bigger about what’s next.

Every intro has a purpose. No random “listening tours.”

• Who they’re meeting

• Why this person matters to their role

• What they should focus on in the conversation

No one has time for pointless Zoom meet-and-greets. If it doesn’t help them ramp faster, it’s not on the list.

The current lay of the UserEvidence land

Every new hire gets a breakdown of the departments they’ll work with because knowing how things actually work is just as important as knowing what to do.

I cover:

• What’s working

• What’s not working

• The biggest opportunities

• The key wins from last year that got us here

I don’t over-prescribe. I give them enough context to get grounded, then let them poke holes and challenge assumptions.

They weren’t hired to check boxes. They were hired to make our team better.

The receipts from what got us here

I document everything. Not because I expect them to read every word but because I don’t want them to waste time tracking down answers.

They get a single source of truth with:

• Board decks

• HubSpot dashboards we check every day

• Key strategy docs and decks

• Past quarterly kickoff presentations

• Previous Marketing OKRs (what we hit and what we missed)

Some people like to go deep. Others just need the high-level take. Either way, it’s all there when they need it.

The partners we work with

Lean marketing teams like ours rely on agencies and freelancers. New hires need to know who we work with and why.

For each partner we work with, I outline:

• Their superpower (credit to Jillian for this idea)

• Why we work with them

• Contract details

• Important context to know about how they work

This gives new hires full visibility into the resources at their disposal, and shows them how to work best with our extended team.

A first pass at their 30-60-90 day plan

New hires don’t get a fully-baked plan from me. They get a v1 with enough structure to get them moving, but not so much that they’re just taking orders.

I set the expectation early: their job is to take the initial plan, challenge it, and build a stronger v2 based on what they see, hear, and uncover in their first few weeks.

This isn’t just a formality. When they shape the plan, they own it. They’re not just executing. They’re defining what success looks like.

If I already had all the answers, I wouldn’t need to hire them in the first place.

My #1 cheat code: working with new hires on their home turf for week one

I stole this from my old boss, Jason Widup. Except when he did it, I had to fly to him.

I flipped it. Now, I go to them. ‘Cause remote work can feel isolating, especially when you’re new.

Spending a week together in person fast-tracks trust, eliminates the awkward “figuring each other out” phase, and builds momentum from day one.

You pick up on the little things. How they think through problems, what fires them up, where they want to take their career, whether they’re a morning or night person.

At the end of their first week, we have unfiltered, straight-to-the-point conversations about:

• How to work best together

• What they want from this exact role

• Areas where they want more experience

• Important work quirks to be aware of (we all have them)

• What success looks like for them at UserEvidence

• Their long-term career goals

And we make time for fun. That might mean Topgolf, breweries, or just hanging out somewhere they love.

Work matters, but who you work with matters more. And when you build trust early, everything else gets easier.

And with that, I leave you with this “proud dad” looking photo collage. Plus an even better takeaway—my onboarding plan doc in template form.

Make a copy of it and let me know if you use it.

My LinkedIn inbox is always open.

Stuff I’m digging this week

• Dave Gerhardt on Marketing Leadership and Team Building—Funny enough, I don’t consistently listen to B2B marketing podcasts. I saw a clip from this episode on my LinkedIn feed and decided to check it out. It didn’t disappoint. The host (Kelly Hopping, CMO at Demandbase) is a great podcast interviewer too.

• Sequel.io’s webinar platform—You’ll see more webinars from our marketing team this year (two coming up in March). We’re officially Sequel customers as of this month. The first onboarding call and implementation have been a breeze so far.

• Who the Heck Owns Customer Evidence?—We keep running into this as customer evidence gains traction. We’re not creating a category, but the shift is real. This is a must-read if your team is still figuring out where customer evidence lives (and how to turn it into a GTM advantage).

Opinions are cheap. Proof is gold.

I sat down with John Short, CEO of Compound Growth Marketing, to talk about why breaking through buyer skepticism is as much about telling the right customer stories as it is about sharing them in the right places.

My biggest takeaways:

• The best marketers aren’t the busiest. They’re the most focused—prioritizing relentlessly around what works vs. chasing shiny objects.

• In 2025, marketing teams should ask: Which low-cost channels deliver the highest return? How could I get more out of the data and tools we already have today? Where are my competitors asleep at the wheel and how do we capitalize?

• Something proclaimed as “dead” on LinkedIn probably isn’t dead in the right industry. John talked about the recent success of content syndication for some of his cybersecurity clients.

Listen on Spotify or Apple, or head over to YouTube.

Hold up—what does UserEvidence do again?

Product marketers, marketing leaders, and customer marketers need more than generic testimonials to prove value.

UserEvidence helps create real customer evidence that Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success teams can use to increase buyer confidence.

We make it easy to collect and share case studies, testimonials, competitive intelligence, product stats, and ROI data—proof that helps move deals forward.

Need a stat to prove ROI? A competitive insight to handle objections? A case study that closes the gap between interest and decision?

UserEvidence helps you capture and share the proof buyers need.