David Dulany's Blog

We recently gathered the Top Minds in Sales Development in one place, over one day in Austin, Texas for the Tenbound Sales Development Conference.
The theme of the conference was EVOLVE – and based on the talks, the speakers are thinking hard about where Sales Development is going and how we can best react to the crazy times happening in our economy right now. 
One thing is for sure, companies continue to need Pipeline & Revenue, now more than ever.  
The skills of great Sales Leaders and SDRs will always be in high demand, especially now. Actually, now more than ever. 
Here are a few key takeaways:

• Old-school grit and determination are making a comeback. We can no longer “phone it in”, especially in this economy. JR Butler (Shift Group) gave a great speech about how the fine art of hustle has taken a backseat to looking for silver bullets and shortcuts in Sales. It’s actually easier to stand out today by working harder, being goal-oriented, and being more disciplined. Watch: Recruiting and Hiring Techniques for A Player SDRs and Salespeople

• Solid RevOps is the key to success in a tech-fueled sales world. Today, you must think of your Go-to-Market holistically vs siloed departments. In the panel Cole Evetts (QuotaPath), Sindre Haaland (SalesScreen), and Steve Eror (Signals) with Moderator Derrick Williams (3Link Consulting) discussed how a well-designed RevOps system can be crucial in ensuring SDRs are seamlessly spending their time doing the most important part of their job: having conversations with potential prospects. Watch: The RevOps Foundation: How it supports Sales Development teams

• Your SDR and Sales Teams need strong leadership at all levels, and leadership is not determined by your title. Sales Development experts Jessica Nelson (LeadIQ), Nathan Steele (Owler) James Barton (Venafi), and moderator Erin Jones (Auctane) as they discussed how to Evolve your leadership in our new reality. Watch: Evolving Sale Development Teams in our New Reality

• Diversity and inclusion make your sales team stronger and more resilient. Look beyond your usual recruits. Krystelle Asaker (ZoomInfo) discussed her always-evolving approach to diversifying SDR success, along with tactical ideas to adopt for your own teams. Assessing your hiring strategy is the first step to diversifying your SDR team–but it’s just the first step. Creating an inclusive culture that supports underrepresented groups and encourages ownership is key to maintaining a high-performing, diversified team where employees feel valued and supported. Watch: Encouraging Diversity in SDR Sales Success

• Regardless of your business approach, outbound never ends, and building your community matters. People are social and rely on the group to achieve their goals. Join Jeff Ha (Rev), Joe Cronin (Koncert), Krystelle Asaker (ZoomInfo), and Moderator Lexi Kenneally (Pluralsight) as they dive into fresh and innovative outbound sales approaches and how to build a solid network in today’s economy. Grab your swipe file! Watch: Innovating Sales Approaches for the Future

For all the Conference Talks check out the Tenbound YouTube Channel here
Want more Pipeline and Revenue? Join Tenbound Plus today for access to all premium content.

We are all familiar with the Scientific Method we’re all taught in our first science class. A thousand-year-old methodology. 

But how does this relate to running a successful Sales pipeline generation program? 
Especially now, with all the changes happening in the economy, what can we learn from this ancient methodology?

We introduce the HEARER/R Methodology.  

Use this to track your campaigns and align your revenue engine against the scientific method. Apply this method to your outbound efforts, running continuous HEARER/R programs over a set time period, usually, a 90-day period is enough time to start getting useful feedback. This will create an upward spiral of learning and productivity. Here’s the breakdown:

The HEARER/R Methodology

• Hypothesize 
• Experiment 
• Analyze results
• Report on the results
• Examine and question the results
• Research further
• /Repeat – Create a new hypothesis and start over

Hypothesize: Based on past results, or if you’re just starting out, based on your best judgment, what outbound message will you use to impact your market? What channel will you use primarily to interact with your market- cold calling, emailing, social media, events, and others? What size company and which verticals will you target? Who are the personas you will target and what are they most concerned with? What data provider and list prioritization strategy will you use? Start a the beginning. Create an initial hypothesis that you will commit to testing for 90 days, or a long enough time period to get meaningful results. 
 
Experiment: Start testing. Use the messaging, lists, and channels you have determined you are going to run, and execute your sales plays. Start reaching out to prospects, making contact, and opening conversations. Set up activity metrics to ensure enough activity is happening every day, and hold your team accountable for hitting those numbers. If the initiative requires more or less activity, you can adjust during the repeat phase. If nothing is happening, that’s a data point. Your initial hypothesis could be off track. 

Analyze the results At the end of each week, and each month, review the campaign results. Were there any responses? Who replied? How did they reply? Which persona is most likely to respond to your current messaging? Is there an emerging channel that is working better than others, i.e. is cold calling working better than email? At a high level, are you starting to see trends? Compile the results into a format you can review. 
 
Report on the results At a set time period, at least monthly, report on the results of your campaigns, with a cross-functional Go-to-market team. Put more eyes on it to get feedback and ideas. Does the messaging resonate with you, is our talk track accurate based on real-world examples? Are we missing a key point or objection-handling technique we need to add to the campaign? Essentially, how can we get better results? 

Examine and question results Now, we’ve seen the initial results, and gotten feedback and input from a cross-functional team, it’s time to be brutally honest, are there people, processes, or technology constraints we need to address in order to improve performance? Are there bottlenecks that need to be removed? Are we tracking the right metrics and looking at the right problems? Vigorously question the results. 

Research further If you’re a student of the craft you know there are many resources, ideas, and studies on best practices in prospecting. Every day new ideas and methodologies are produced. Capture new ideas and organize them into your own playbook. Now, look at the results of your campaign and cross-reference the ideas and research you have done. Are there any new ideas or techniques you can use to improve your results? 

/Repeat Take all that you have learned from running the campaign, the results, the teardown, the further research, and create a new hypothesis. You are now back at the beginning of the HEARER/R process. Create a new hypothesis and start over at the beginning, running the process again. Forever. A continuous process to better results, processes, and return on investment. 

Next time you see a debate online about whether cold calling works, or emailing, or events, now you can reply with one word: HEARER/R! 

​Have you tried this? Leave a comment below. 

During a market downturn, selling may be difficult, and setting up calls even harder. Not only are companies getting ready to operate with a lean staff, but there seems to be budget freezes from your buyers. People start ghosting. 

Deals will start to take longer to close and meetings will be harder to book. Yet, there are ways to still generate revenue and keep your sales org going. As the Stoics say, focus on what you can control. 

Below, we've compiled some methods to help you get ready to conquer the time ahead.
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1. Stay Focused

It all comes down to this. The entire company should be on the same page. This is the time to be relentless with your team goal. If you have projects that are not serving your core competency, now is the time to cut them.

Communication will be the life blood of the company during this time. Each department, from sales to marketing, to customer support, must focus on one singular goal. If the team wasn’t already on the page and working towards the same KPIs, then now is the time to do that.

There is no time for wasted effort, chasing after goals or new initiatives that won’t directly serve the company.

2. Upsell & Cross-sell

Now is also the time to be diligent with your current customer base.

Most SaaS companies put far too much emphasis on acquiring new logos in a downturn — instead of focusing on their existing customer base. Instead, concentrate on optimizing your renewal rates and expanding your customer base to additional services.

Start where you already are. Build deeper relationships with your existing customers. Work on getting into other line of businesses. Push to get 2-3 year deals. These are just some of the things that you can do to ensure that you grow your existing customer base.


3. Create the best customer experience

We’ve seen the trend over the last 5 years of the focus being on creating a buying process that aligns with how your customer buys.This is perfect time to think through areas that need improvement in your over customer experience.

Consider offering different payment options so you can tailor the experience to each customer's specific needs. You may also want to explore providing additional discount options.  At the end of the day, customization should always be made with the user experience in mind. 

You’ll want to provide your users with the best possible experience when purchasing your product. This starts from the moment your Sales Development Representative reaches out to them to the time the deal is closed and handed off to the the CSM team. 

Focus on providing the best experience possible for that customer.

4. Level up your team

Resilient sales teams are able to quickly adjust to changing markets as long as you invest in training and skills development. This way, your employees can handle any role or responsibility that arises.

Even though you may  not be pursuing as many opportunities in the next year, this is the right moment to invest more heavily in training and coaching your sales reps. Take advantage of every chance to review calls together as a team and get everyone focused on growing their business. 

Investing in your team ensures that you build loyalty. Sales reps will stick around longer if they know that they are being invested into.



5. Automation - Doing more with less

More often than not, you’ll have less resources than you when it isn’t a downturn. You’ll want to assess your sales process to see which process could be automated to help your team out.

Not only will it save time, but automation can lower risks for salespeople by reducing errors and helping them focus their attention on high-value interactions instead of mundane minutiae.
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At the end of the day, we never want to automate in a vacuum. The goal is make your team as efficient as possible.

If there are two things you remember from these tips, let it be this:

• Focus on what you already have – reps and revenues
• Create the best customer experience possible

If an economic crisis occurs, you may witness some fluctuations in revenue. Therefore, companies want to be ready for an upturn, they need to invest in their products and their customer service. And they must be able to demonstrate that their products and services offer genuine benefits to their customers.

In 2022, we’ve seen companies redefine themselves in their sales motion. Some companies have had to become very creative to create the pipeline, and we’ve highlighted several of the tactics here on this blog.

In our experience, only some of these tactics will remain. Here at Tenbound, we have had the privilege to talk to Sales Development Leaders (SDR) who are on the leading edge in their industry. Based on those conversations, we’ve highlighted three main areas of the SDR  functions that will grow and become more important in the future.

Automated Tools for SDRs
Over the past five years, we've seen the rise of artificial intelligence tools, but they haven't been widely adopted by sales organizations. However, over the past eighteen months, we've heard good things about automated dialing platforms like ConnectandSell and Orum.

With these tools, SDRs can now handle twice as many calls per day than before. The hope is that they can use the extra time to perform additional tasks like personalizing emails.

Another tool that has recently gained traction among revenue leaders is Lavender.  Let's face it, most SDRs aren't copywriters. We can always use a little bit of help getting an initial concept off the ground or clearly and succinctly conveying our point. This is why most people use Lavender. 

We've found it works especially well when SDR Management doesn't have the time to read each and every email their sales reps send. Honestly, you shouldn't be reading them yourself either.

SDR Support team

If you ask any SDR manager, they’ll tell you that they have a plan to get each new SDR to ramp up and be at full productivity. The average time they’ll give you is 3 months.

What they fail to tell you, is how little support they receive from other areas of the company and how that ultimately affects the BDR ramps time. We’ve seen SDR teams get looked over, because enablement and sales operations focus on Account executives first, and then dedicate whatever time they have left to the SDR function. But let's face it, they rarely have any time left.

In the last 9 months, several companies have advocated for a dedicated SDR Ops and enablement headcount. The idea of having a dedicated support team for your SDRs is alluring, especially for those managers who juggle it all by themselves. We predict that this is a trend that will continue to grow, especially as teams further specialize and become more strategic.

SDR Process Changes

Two major process changes have also appeared. One of them is focused on Product led growth. CEOs have seen the growth of Slack and Twilio - among others - and want to replicate it.

We should note that the SDR functions generally start a long time after these companies get going, so it’s mainly focused on going up market. This is a specialized skill set that we are starting to see CEOs ask for.

The other process change that we are starting to see, (and that we are very very excited about. Did we mention how excited we are?!) is the emphasis on coaching. So much so that Cory Bray and Hillmon Sorey are attacking this issue. 

At the end of the day, nothing will grow your team more or increase retention than dedicated coaching. 

We expect to see teams focus on improving their current team - and to do so, they’ll need to ensure that their SDR teams are coached in the best way possible.


Want to learn more about the future of Sales Development? Come join us at out The Tenbound Sales Development Conference LIVE in Austin, Texas. This will be a VIP In-Person Gathering of the Top Minds in Sales Development.

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I Visited 100+ Booths at the SaaStr Conference: Here are my 3 Big Takeaways

I had the opportunity to visit the SaaStr 2022 conference in person this year, my 3rd time going. After being stuck inside way too long, this year I decided to make a huge effort to catch up with everyone, check out all the latest software tools, and see all my old friends in our industry. 

It was awesome, an amazing experience. Highly recommended for anyone in our industry. 

But I had another challenge. I wanted to see what was new for SaaS companies since the pandemic, specifically Sales and Marketing software related to Sales Development pipeline generation. 

Tenbound gathers tools specific to Sales Development in our Market Map Directory, which is free to download and explore as you make your decisions. 

Also, as a Conference organizer myself, I wanted to see how the Tool Expo Marketplace looked and performed. 
So I made a plan, took some time to study the floor plan, and stopped by as many booths as possible. SDRs, Salespeople and Marketers, take note. 

Here is what I learned:

• Please! Engage your audience when you are standing at your booth

I saw several booths where the people working there turned their back to the audience, making it hard to engage with them to start. 

Put your phone or laptop away unless you are giving a demo. It’s also helpful to acknowledge attendees as they walk by your booth. If allowed, you should also stand in front of the booth and engage people walking by. 
I know that it’s been a while since so many people had the opportunity of presenting at a conference. I’m not sure if this should have been an excuse for how I felt visiting booths. It didn’t feel as engaging as I thought it should’ve been. Even if they don’t look like a hot prospect, make an effort to engage. 

• Ask questions about the person you’re talking to.  

Remember, the people walking by don’t care about your company, your product, or what it does.  They care about themselves and the problems that they’re trying to solve.  Those are problems you can understand and potentially help them solve. Act accordingly. 

Spend time talking about the person in front of you and try to dig out any problems they may have, like they are human beings and not a “prospect”.

Listening to irrelevant pitches over and over can result in people zoning out, especially with over 100 booths like at SaaStr. Talk about them, not all about you. If they start showing some relevance or interest, do a quick overview of your solution. But only if they want it. 

• Focus on standing out and being memorable

After visiting too many booths, everything started sounding and looking the same to me. Another demo screen, another slide. Another gee-whiz moment. 

As a sponsor, you’ll want to think about the experience that the attendees are having at the conference. How tired will they be, and what sessions will they have just come out of?

If you think about the attendees, you can work to create an experience that will ensure that they remember your booth and your company long after the event.

The one thing I remember is somebody handing me a stuffed giraffe … not sure what they were selling but I do remember it. 

What have been some strategies you have used to maximize your time at events?

Bonus tip: Sign up for more Braindates. Braindates are an amazing program where you can set up “dates” with people before and during the conference and then meet with them. I filled my calendar with dates with amazing people doing awesome things we can help each other with. 
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What were your favorite parts of the show? Let us know your learnings by leaving a comment below.