Adding acquisitions reps? Set this up in Salesforce before their first call
Adding a rep usually goes like this: a login, a dialer seat, a couple of days listening to calls, and then leads. The first weeks are when leads slip the most, and nobody notices until the owner asks about a seller who never got a callback. This checklist is for owners and acquisitions managers on Salesforce who are about to hire. It's what I'd want in place before a new rep's first call, plus two short check-ins after.
Before day one, give the rep their own user with a sales profile and a permission set, under their manager in the role hierarchy. Connect their phone, texting and email to that user, add them to lead assignment only from their first calling day, and give them three list views and approved templates. In the first week, add a speed-to-lead alert and required fields by stage, and read their leads on day three. After two weeks, compare them with the team on a ramp report, and have a plan ready for the day a rep leaves.
Still deciding whether you need another rep? The acquisitions capacity calculator works out how many leads your current reps can handle. If the answer is yes, hand this page to whoever runs your Salesforce. Go through the first five steps before the rep's first day, and book 20 minutes at the end of week two for the last three.
Before day one
| Set up | Why it matters | How to check it works |
|---|---|---|
| 1. User, profile and role. A sales profile plus a permission set, not admin rights, placed under their manager in the role hierarchy. | The manager sees every lead the rep owns, and the rep can't change automations by accident. | Log in as the rep and open one lead and one report. |
| 2. Phone, texting and email under their own user. Connect the dialer, texting tool and inbox to the rep's user, not a shared login. | Every call, text and email lands on the seller record, so nothing lives only in their phone. | Make a test call and send a test text. Both show on the lead within a minute. |
| 3. Lead assignment with a start date. Add them to round robin or the assignment rules only from the day they take calls, and decide what happens after hours. | New leads don't sit with someone who isn't ready yet. | Create a test lead and see who gets it. |
| 4. Three list views. "My new leads" (newest first), "No activity in 48 hours" and "Follow-ups due today". | The rep starts every day from the same lists instead of memory. | The rep finds all three in one click. |
| 5. Approved templates. First contact, no answer, after the offer, and "call me later". | A new rep sounds like the rest of the team from day one. | The templates show up in the dialer and the email composer. |
Three things people forget in this part:
- A license. Every rep needs their own Salesforce user license. If someone has left, deactivating their user frees that license. Freezing them doesn't.
- Multi-factor authentication. Salesforce enforces MFA for all employee logins, so set it up with the rep before their first calling day, not at 8 a.m. on it.
- The round robin itself. If yours is a formula, such as
MOD(VALUE(Lead_Number__c), 3)for three reps, a fourth rep means changing the 3 to a 4 and adding a rule for the new value. Do it on the rep's first calling day, and create a test lead afterwards. More options in lead and call routing.
If the new person is a VA or a cold caller rather than an acquisitions rep, they need a narrower setup. See VA access in Salesforce.
First week
| Set up | Why it matters | How to check it works |
|---|---|---|
| 6. Speed-to-lead alert. If a new lead gets no call or text within a set number of minutes, alert the rep, then the manager. | The first weeks are when leads slip the most. | Leave a test lead untouched and watch the alert fire. |
| 7. Required fields by stage. Motivation, timeline and asking price before "Offer made". A reason before "Dead". | Notes stay useful when someone else picks up the lead. | Try to skip a stage. Salesforce should stop you. |
| 8. Day-three spot check. The manager opens a few of the rep's leads and reads the notes and next steps. | Bad habits get fixed before they spread. | Every open lead has a next task with a date. |
Some teams start a new rep on a smaller share of new leads, or on one lead source, and widen it once the first numbers look right. That's easier to do if your routing supports weights, and it's one more reason to keep routing rules where ops can change them without a developer.
If your team has a lead manager or cold callers passing sellers to acquisitions, the new rep should know exactly what a qualified handoff looks like. The cold caller handoff checklist lists the fields.
After two weeks
| Set up | Why it matters | How to check it works |
|---|---|---|
| 9. Ramp report. Leads assigned, contacted, appointments and offers for each rep, next to the team average. | You see who's ramping and who needs help without asking around. | It runs for any rep and any date range. |
| 10. Leads with no next step. A report of open leads that have no future task. | These are the leads that quietly die. | The list is short and gets shorter each week. |
Compare a new rep with your own team over the same number of weeks, not with a benchmark from the internet. Lead flow, sources and markets differ too much between teams for an outside number to mean much. What you're looking for is the trend. Activity numbers, like contacts and next steps, are the ones a new rep controls, so they should catch up with the team first. Offers and contracts take longer.
If the rep's leads keep showing up on the "no next step" report, that's a coaching conversation, not a Salesforce problem. If everyone's leads show up there, it's the follow-up process. See the follow-up cadence builder.
When a rep leaves
Step 11 on the checklist is a plan for the day a rep leaves, written before you need it. Reps leave, and the leads they owned still belong to you. In order:
- Reassign their open leads, deals and tasks the same day. Every seller history stays on the record, so the next rep can read it before calling.
- Take them out of everything that sends them work: round robin, assignment rules, queues, alert recipients, scheduled reports and any dashboard that runs as them.
- Freeze the user, so they can't log in while you finish the cleanup. Freezing doesn't free the license.
- Deactivate the user once nothing depends on them. If Salesforce won't let you, something still points at them, such as a default lead owner setting or an automation. That's useful to know, and worth fixing.
- Close the side doors: their dialer, texting and email seats, and any phone number sellers know them by. If that number stays live, point it at someone who can answer.
Practice this once on a test user, so the first time isn't the day someone leaves. To limit what a rep can take with them in the first place, see stopping reps from exporting your seller list. If the person leaving is the one who runs Salesforce, it's a bigger job. See what to do when your Salesforce admin leaves.
Where a new rep's leads usually slip
- A shared login "until the license comes through". Nothing they do is tracked to them, and every report on that user is wrong for weeks.
- Texting sellers from a personal cell. The conversation never reaches Salesforce, and it leaves with the rep. Every text should go through your texting tool. More in texting in Salesforce.
- Admin rights "to save time". One wrong click edits an automation for the whole team.
- Leads before the phone works. The first leads wait while someone fixes the dialer connection.
- No manager above them in the role hierarchy, so the person accountable for the rep can't see the rep's leads.
- Missed calls with nowhere to go. If the rep owns a seller who calls back while they're on another call, a missed-call alert should reach them, or a queue. See missed-call alerts in Salesforce.
Questions
What should I set up in Salesforce before a new acquisitions rep starts?
Their own user with a sales profile and permission set under their manager, MFA, phone, texting and email connected to their user, lead assignment starting on their first calling day, three list views (new leads, no activity in 48 hours, follow-ups due today) and approved templates.
Should a new acquisitions rep get leads on their first day?
Only once their phone, texting and email are connected and tested, and they know the follow-up process. Add them to lead assignment from the day they start taking calls, not the day their user is created. Some teams start a new rep on a smaller share of leads and widen it later.
Can two reps share one Salesforce login?
They shouldn't. Each Salesforce license is for one named user, nothing either rep does can be told apart in reports, and with MFA enforced, sharing a login means sharing one person's phone or authenticator app. Give each rep their own user from day one.
Do I need a new Salesforce license for every rep?
Yes, each user needs their own license. If a former rep's user is still active, deactivating it frees that license for the new rep. Freezing a user blocks their login but doesn't free the license.
What permissions should an acquisitions rep have in Salesforce?
A sales profile plus a permission set with what the job needs: their leads and deals, the dialer and texting tools, and their reports. No admin rights, no export and no delete. Their manager should sit above them in the role hierarchy so the manager sees their records.
How do I know if a new rep is ramping well?
Run a ramp report with leads assigned, contacted, appointments and offers for each rep, next to the team average over the same weeks. Watch the trend and the list of their open leads with no next step, rather than comparing them with a number from outside your team.
What happens to a rep's leads when they leave?
Reassign their open leads, deals and tasks the same day, take them out of round robin, queues and alerts, freeze their user, then deactivate it once nothing depends on it. The seller history stays on each record for the next rep to read.
Related guides
Sources
Checked in October 2026. Salesforce and vendor features change with each release, so check the linked page before you rely on a detail.
- Salesforce Help: Freeze or unfreeze user accounts. Freezing blocks login but doesn't free the user license
- Salesforce Help: Considerations for deactivating users. What can stop a user being deactivated
- Salesforce Developers: Lead management formulas. The round robin formula pattern
- VA access in Salesforce (this site). MFA enforcement for employee logins, with Salesforce's dates
Hiring soon?
New-hire setup is part of Ongoing Support & Development, a monthly retainer with no long-term contract. Or book a free call and we'll go through this list for your team before the new rep starts. Not sure your routing and alerts would hold up as it is? The fixed-price CRM Revenue Audit (USD 1,500) checks them for every rep, for teams already on Salesforce.
Book a free callSee the Revenue AuditOr just ask one question about your setup: email · WhatsApp · LinkedIn
