David Dulany's Blog

​​You can usually spot Sam Nelson easily… he’s the guy with the blue dyed hair popping up at sales conferences and in your LinkedIn feeds, sharing his thought leadership with the community. His day job is the SDR Leader at Outreach (a Sales Enablement Platform)

Sam (SDR Leader @ Outreach.io)  is a well known entity in the Sales Development world, and gave a great presentation on how he and his teams have integrated referrals into their outbound sequences with great results. We’ve compiled a few highlighted takeaways below for you, but you are going to want to take a look at the session recording to get the more granular advice.

​Earlier this year I had the opportunity to talk with Peter Kazanjy, the founder of Atrium Sales Analytics and the Modern Sales Pros community, on The Sales Development Podcast.  

As sales professionals, we all have a part in advancing the science of sales, with innovations and new technology coming along all the time. 

For Peter it’s exciting, fun, and intellectually challenging to be at the forefront of this movement, both from a product development standpoint at Atrium and with the community at Modern Sales Pros. 

We spoke about how sales is changing, why the MSP community is so important, and how Peter made it the success it is today.

The rise of the “Sales Nerd”When Salesforce came along, it introduced a shared database where sales organizations could store prospect information—from lead to close.

This was huge. Clever entrepreneurs started pulling data from the CRM and picking out different use cases, creating an opportunity for people to piece together a thoughtful sales stack. 

It goes without saying that buyers today have a very different set of tools at their disposal versus just 10 or 20 years ago. There’s a tremendous amount of information online and on social networks that they can use in order to make a purchase decision. 

Think of the last time that you purchased a product. You probably started with a Google search where you didn’t leave the first page of results, and you started to get a feeling for what was out there. You may have checked a few review sites to see what other people are saying and see who the top players are in the market. 

Once you narrow down your top three or four you probably went to their websites and started to look at what their content and thought leadership. Are they legit? 

At some point in this process, your phone probably rang with an unknown number that you either blocked or sent to voicemail. If you decided to take that call or listen to your voicemail, and it was someone describing a problem that you were trying to solve at the moment and how they may have helped you might have added that company to your list of ones that you were checking out, you may have then filled out their lead form or taking a demo. ​

It goes without saying that buyers today have a very different set of tools at their disposal versus just 10 or 20 years ago. There’s a tremendous amount of information online and on social networks that they can use in order to make a purchase decision. 

Think of the last time that you purchased a product. You probably started with a Google search where you didn’t leave the first page of results, and you started to get a feeling for what was out there. You may have checked a few review sites to see what other people are saying and see who the top players are in the market. 

Once you narrow down your top three or four you probably went to their websites and started to look at what their content and thought leadership. Are they legit? 

At some point in this process, your phone probably rang with an unknown number that you either blocked or sent to voicemail. If you decided to take that call or listen to your voicemail, and it was someone describing a problem that you were trying to solve at the moment and how they may have helped you might have added that company to your list of ones that you were checking out, you may have then filled out their lead form or taking a demo. ​

​There’s an old axiom in business that says “nothing happens until somebody sells something.”


No customer success can happen until there’s a customer. No money can be counted and no invoices sent without a transaction. No trade shows are funded, no salary payments made, no catered lunches. Until there’s a signed contract and next sales transaction is done, nothing happens.


Each day we read about companies with massive funding and a great idea that quietly fold or are purchased for a hugely discounted price in what’s described in a myriad of ways but what it comes down is one thing: they didn’t sell enough. 


In an office somewhere around the globe there sits someone with an amazing product that can definitely change lives for the better that is slowly wilting under the hot glow of time. The product may be great and the team may be amazing but if nobody is selling anything the company is slowly dying.

The Board wants to see an increase in revenue, fast. Your Sales team needs more pipeline. Your in-house Sales Development program seems to be going around in circles. 

Even if you wanted to make changes, you don't have time to hire, train, equip and manage a group of all new SDRs. 
What should you do?

These are the questions we hear a lot as we work with clients here at Tenbound. 

Companies need qualified Sales appointments and pipeline today in order to hit their aggressive revenue targets. 

However, simply relying on the production of marketing or the rolodex of current your Sales team doesn’t seem to be producing enough pipeline. ​