How Sunward Steel Cut New Sales Rep Ramp Time by 75%

When your company has delivered over 75,000 steel buildings worldwide, you might think your sales process is bulletproof. Sunward Steel's CEO saw things differently. She knew that decades of hard-won sales knowledge were locked inside the heads of a handful of veteran reps. And if the company was ever going to scale, that had to change.

The result? A 16-month transformation that cut new hire ramp time from 8 weeks to 2 weeks and drove a 140% improvement in sales process adherence.

Here's how it happened.

About Sunward Steel

Founded in 1972, Sunward Steel Buildings has delivered over 75,000 structures worldwide. They operate three manufacturing facilities across the United States and serve commercial, industrial, agricultural, and residential customers with custom steel building solutions.

Under the leadership of CEO Amy Wirth, their team of 20+ salespeople handles everything from first inquiry to final delivery.

Their Challenge: Great Salespeople. No Playbook.

Sunward's best reps were excellent. The problem was nobody could explain how they won deals. There was no playbook. No documented process. New hires were left to figure it out on their own.

That created real problems.

🚩 New reps were slow to produce. Without a clear process to follow, it took new hires over eight weeks to close their first building. Every bad hire cost the company months of lost productivity.

🚩 Top performers were doing their own thing. Veteran reps had developed their own approaches over the years. Those approaches worked. But they couldn't be taught, replicated, or scaled. Accountability was nearly impossible to enforce when everyone had their own way of selling.

🚩 Managers were coaching everyone at once. Instead of focused one-on-ones, managers ran all-hands meetings. Feedback was general. Improvement was slow. And when managers needed to review calls, it took hours a day just to get through them.

🚩 The pipeline was a black box. CRM adoption was inconsistent. Reps tracked deals in their heads. Leadership found out about problems after they had already cost money.

🚩 Hiring was a guessing game. Without clear criteria for what makes a great Sunward rep, the hiring process relied too much on gut feel. The wrong people kept getting through.

In a market with short sales cycles, none of this was sustainable. Leads needed fast follow-up. Deals needed consistent execution. And the company had bigger growth goals that the current setup simply could not support.

Sales Transformation: Three Phases. 16 Months. One Playbook.

Pitch Lab partnered with Sunward's leadership to rebuild the sales organization from the ground up. The work happened in three phases.

1. Build the Foundation

The first priority was capturing what the best reps already knew and turning it into something teachable.

Pitch Lab documented Sunward's proven sales approach into a comprehensive playbook. Every rep, new or veteran, would now have access to the same process. We then built 12 video training modules covering the skills that matter most: asking the right discovery questions, handling objections, differentiating from competitors without discounting, and closing.

New hires got a structured onboarding program with a final certification test. They could ramp up faster with less hand-holding from managers. And when they had a question at 9pm before a big call, an AI assistant trained on Sunward's own playbooks had the answer ready.

2. Fix How Managers Lead

Sunward's managers were working hard. They just weren't working in a way that scaled.

Pitch Lab restructured the team from one large group into smaller, more focused units. Managers got trained on the skills that actually move the needle: running effective one-on-ones, giving useful feedback, setting goals that create real accountability, and balancing their own selling with coaching their team.

We also deployed an AI call analysis tool. What used to take 60 minutes of call review per day now takes 10. Managers spend less time in the weeds and more time developing their reps.

3. Overhaul How They Hire

The best process in the world does not help if you keep hiring the wrong people.

Pitch Lab built a repeatable hiring process designed specifically for Sunward's culture. That meant structured interview questions focused on drive and intrinsic motivation, clear criteria for evaluating resumes, and a consistent way to assess candidates so the decision was based on evidence, not instinct.

The Results: Solid Steel

✅ 75% reduction in new hire ramp time. From 8 weeks to 2 weeks. New reps are closing buildings faster than ever before.

✅ 140% improvement in sales process adherence. Before the engagement, 5 out of 15 reps were following the established process. After, 12 out of 15 were fully on board.

✅ 83% reduction in manager call review time. From 60 minutes per day to 10. Managers got that time back to actually coach their teams.

✅ Better pipeline visibility. Real lead scoring, consistent CRM usage, and actual context on where buyers are in the process.

✅ A culture of accountability. The biggest win of all.

Pitch Lab Steels the Show

How did the engagement go? In the words of Sunward’s CEO:

"Working with Jay transformed our sales culture from the ground up. Within 16 months, we went from an individualized approach to a scalable, high-performing sales organization.

Jay helped us document our proven sales methodology into a comprehensive playbook, streamlined our new hire onboarding, and introduced AI tools that dramatically improved our coaching efficiency.

What impressed me most was how he preserved the entrepreneurial spirit that built Sunward Steel while giving us the modern infrastructure we needed to scale. If you're looking to transform your sales team without losing what makes your company special, I can't recommend Pitch Lab enough."

—Amy Wirth, CEO, Sunward Steel Buildings

Key Takeaways for B2B CEOs

✅ Write down what works. If your best reps can't explain how they win, you do not have a scalable sales org. You have a collection of individual contributors. A playbook fixes that.

✅ Invest in your managers. The right structure, the right training, and the right tools let managers lead more people with better results. That is where leverage comes from.

✅ Fix onboarding before you scale. A structured ramp process with clear milestones means new hires get productive faster and managers spend less time babysitting.

✅ Know where your buyers are at in their process. Lead scoring gives reps the context they need to prioritize the right deals at the right time. Without it, effort goes to the loudest prospect, not the most likely to close.

✅ Expect pushback. When you introduce real accountability into a team that has never had it, some people will leave. That is not a failure. Plan for it, hire ahead of it, and stay committed to the standard you are building toward.

Want to Learn the Hard Truth About Sales Transformation?

Ever wonder what really happens when you try to enforce accountability in a sales team that's never had it?

In this article we pull back the curtain on Sunward’s raw 16-month transformation including the tough decisions, resistant reps, and unexpected wins that emerged.