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Last week Tenbound held our first publicly available training seminar focused exclusively on Sales Development Management strategy and tactics. The seminar was attended by 6 super bright Sales Development Team Leaders, Managers and Directors from some of the fastest growing SaaS companies in Silicon Valley.
The target audience for this seminar was current Sales Development Team Leads, Managers and Directors who wanted to up their game, as well as SDRs (BDRs, ADRs, etc) who wanted to step-up to Sales Development Management in the future. Overall, the seminar went great and it was awesome to be able to close the door with these leaders and laser focus on what makes a world-class Sales Development program tick, along with the many, many pitfalls to avoid in putting one together. This was for hard-core students of the Sales Development craft, who wanted to bring this practice to the next level and in turn, elevate their own value in the marketplace. As the moderator, I personally had a lot of fun and felt like I got as much out of the class as the participants. The discussions were robust, the issues where real and the people in the class had great attitudes. Each walked away with an overall understanding of the critical aspects involved in setting up and running an high performance Sales Development program and will definitely elevate our profession moving forward. So far, 100% of the post-training survey respondents have agreed with the statement “I'd recommend the training to someone interested in Sales Development Management”. But life “ain’t all sunshine and rainbows” and I came away from the seminar with a few observations and things to work on for next time: 1. I should have sent out a more robust pre-training survey versus just an email asking what they wanted to get out of the class. It would have been good to know if there were some specific metrics the leaders could bring in that they were trying to improve within their programs, such as conversion rates, attrition rates, onboarding time for new reps, etc, so we could spend more time on those, and perhaps do a before / after training comparison. I really want the agenda for these to be about what the participants want to focus on specifically, not only what I think is critical in making a high-performance program. 2. In that vein, the seminar material consists of 21 important aspects to keep in mind in setting up and running a high-performance Sales Development program, grouped by 4 major buckets. It was developed using 20+ years of Leadership, Management, Sales, Marketing and Sales Development expertise, all of it boiled down to 4 hours of content. That’s a lot of stuff for half a day. Some of the feedback I got in the survey said they wished we could dig in some of the topics more, and have more time for breakouts and activities. This is true; each of the 21 points could be unpacked and discussed for hours each, but I was trying to fit it to a half day so the time commitment wouldn’t be too daunting for participants. Had I really pushed the pre-training survey, I could then have put more focus on what’s most important to the class and powered through or skipped other parts. Moving forward, I’m now thinking that the current version is actually a half-day “Turbo Framework Bootcamp” good for people who can only spare a half a day out the office and need to get an overview they can take back and build on. Then developing another class based on the 4 buckets in their own 4 hours each, spaced out over 2 days. I don’t know if people will sign up for 2 days out of the office, but I believe that would be an ideal. 3. The number of people in the class (6) was perfect for the first one. We could probably go up to 8-10, but having 6 gave everyone a chance to comment on the material as we we went along, without anyone feeling like they couldn’t contribute. Before, I was thinking we could get up to 20 in the class, but now I’ll cap the next one at 10 people maximum. Also, setting up everyone in a U-shape worked out really well, versus lecture style, and we set up an invite-only Slack group with Guru integration to stay in touch after the training, to ask questions and to capture useful information, which has picked up some traction and will continue to grow with new cohorts. 4. I got a bunch of inquiries from people in different parts of the country and overseas, or who couldn't get out of the office or to San Francisco for a half-day live training, so I’m now working with TalentLMS to put the whole thing online. Although the classroom interaction and bonding was what made the class great, online is more convenient and available for anyone out there running a Sales Development program or thinking of starting up and needs that framework. We’re also researching cities that have a lot of SDRs, Sales Development Managers and others who are interested in this to put some more public seminars on the calendar in fall and winter. We will be doing the next one in San Francisco again in July, but if you want to do it live somewhere else let me know and we’ll put something together. Final thoughts: Businesses have done a great job investing in the technology of Sales Development over the past few years, but what about the processes and people? What about the leadership, strategy and tactics to ensure our Sales Development programs are set-up and lead correctly to produce the required business outcomes of more sales meetings, pipeline and revenue? We need to start investing in the people and processes just as much as the technology. People need help figuring out how to do this job. I hope these seminars can help fill that need and create a strong community of next generation Sales Development leaders. Big thank you to my lovely wife Katherine for putting up with me in general and being instrumental in the success of the launch, Chris Ortolano for all the training tips and techniques, and Chris Sears, curriculum design maestro and all around great dude. Of course a huge thanks to the participants in the class, you were amazing to work with and I love seeing your comments and questions in Slack group. A bit about me... I'm a Sales Development program building specialist with deep experience building highly successful SDR programs from scratch for technology companies. Currently helping Sales Development teams achieve higher performance through training and consulting at Tenbound. I'm also the host of the Sales Development Podcast, the only audio forum 100% focused on Sales Development program leadership and management. Check it out.
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Episode 17 Brian Walton
Summary: In this episode, David shares the mic with Brian Walton, Sales Development Director at LinkedIn. Listen as Brian walks us through his journey from starting off on the talent solutions team of LinkedIn to becoming the Sales Development Director. He has managed and reorganized the sales development teams of Latin America into segments so that each team can focus on their target people and maximize their efficiency. Tune in as Brian discusses the importance of training your sales reps and what he’s fired up about, today, in his work at LinkedIn. 3 Key Points: 1. Managers and directors: spend time with your sales reps, educating them on the fundamentals of how business leaders think. 2. Sales reps: if your point of contact is a VP of sales, go to your own company’s VP of sales—study and learn from them so that you can be better equipped for that meeting or call. 3. At the end of the day, you are just two people connecting and and that point of connection is what people appreciate and respect. Time Stamped Show Notes:
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TOPO’s research has shown that 100% of high-growth organizations have Sales Development organizations. We know for most businesses it's critical have a team consistently prospecting and following up on leads to make sure nothing falls through the cracks. Sales Development can drive quality pipeline for your Sales team, and provide a Talent pipeline to build the future of your company. We also know a key to a successful program is strong leadership. The right leader can make or break a Sales Development team. Sales Development is expensive; it involves people, processes and technology, and it needs to pay off fast. We're pouring thousands into the program each month. We know if we don't have the right leader in place, the whole thing goes off the rails. But how do we treat the leadership function in Sales Development? From what I've seen, two ways. One, find a high performing SDR and promote her to SDR Manager. Or, find someone from a big name company who raised up the ranks in a few years and bring them in to run the team. In both cases, there's little training, coaching or support given to the Manager. They're on their own. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. In fact, I often see Sales Development leaders "managed out" of their organization due to poor results. In many cases, they're set up for failure without any structure, mentorship, training or coaching. They are usually just beat up on a weekly basis for numbers, or whatever bone-headed thing an SDR on their team did that week. As I've worked with companies over the past year at Tenbound to help them diagnose and revive their Sales Development teams, I saw a huge need in the marketplace for high quality training for Sales Development Managers and high potential SDRs who want to step up to management. Personally, I'm tired of seeing people fail at Sales Development management, and I'm drawing a line in the sand today! And so, our training class was born. If you're an SDR, Team Lead, Manager or Executive who wants to take your Sales Development program to the next level, join us in San Francisco on May 18th for a 1/2 day live immersive class on Sales Development Management. Don't manage in the dark, get the skills you need to excel. https://tenbound.com/events/ (next class is July 19th - link below) UPDATE: this was an awesome session and many thanks to the bright group of leaders who participated. Look for more seminars on the calendar this year, and if you like to receive more information please go to https://tenbound.com/contact/ Let's turn this situation around by training a new generation of Sales Development Management to be successful in their role. 
Welcome Joe Payne to the show! Joe handles the Demand and Partnerships at LeadGenius, a lead generation company that takes marketing to the next level. Listen as Joe shares with David why he considers the old lead generation methods to be a waste of time and resources, the different ways LeadGenius works with their customers to maximize on their ad targeting and sales development, and why hiring a sales intern can be the first step to building a lead generation process for small companies.
3 Key Points: 1. Lead generation is more than just acquiring a list of names and email accounts—the opportunity to save time and narrow in on your targeting is KEY. 2. Your messages to prospects MUST translate into a valuable, personalized message, otherwise, it just becomes a noise. 3. Smaller companies can start building their lead generation processes and systems by utilizing the people that are available to them—sales interns are a great resource for this. Time Stamped Show Notes:
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Episode 14 – Russ Hearl
Summary: In this episode, David interviews Russ Hearl, Vice President of Sales at PatSnap, a company that offers innovation intelligence, patent searches, and IP analytics. Russ attributes his success to his strong background in cold calling. He addresses the strengths of cold calling and debunks the myth that it is dead. Tune in to find out how he was able to raise $82M for Double Dutch through cold calling, the importance of researching your target market, and some key advice to strengthen your sales teams. 3 Key Points: 1. Cold calling is NOT dead – its success is dependent on a number of factors including the demand for your product and the research you put into targeting those calls. 2. Set up structures, methods, and define roles and expectations clearly for the success of your sales teams. 3. Always use data to analyze your target market and do your research to hit them at the RIGHT time. Time Stamped Show Notes: ● 00:34 – Introducing Russ Hearl – VP of sales at PatSnap ● 01:19 – Russ’ career in selling started 20 years ago ● 01:27 – He worked for Rolling Stone Magazine in Ohio ● 01:33 – While doing his undergraduate studies, he worked for Merrill Lynch doing cold calls ● 01:42 – By the time Russ finished his undergraduate degree, he already had 6 years of cold calling experience ● 01:46 – To Russ, a sales career can be built around cold calling ● 02:01 – He worked in sales for FedEx, for 7 years ● 02:16 – Russ believed that his abilities in cold calling, prospecting, identifying the target market, and tailoring his pitches were the reasons why he was promoted so quickly ● 02:35 – As Russ progressed and evolved, cold calling was always the basis of his success ● 03:23 – Russ always had the passion of building businesses through sales ● 03:42 – He shares his experience with Double Dutch, raising $82M ● 04:08 – Over 90% of their wins were from cold calling ● 04:28 – Now at PatSnap, Russ has a team of over 45 people across 2 offices ● 04:54 – PatSnap has a very large investment in inside sales ● 05:10 – PatSnap sells innovation intelligence software to professionals and large companies ● 06:03 – They’ve just raised a large series C from Sequoia ● 06:55 – Cold calling results depend on several different factors ● 07:04 – “Your chosen go to market strategy is often predicated upon how much built in demand there is in the market for your product or service” ● 07:18 – Russ explains this further using the example of Hubspot ● 07:44 – The role of cold calling is different for other businesses ● 08:08 – Saying cold calling is dead depends on several factors ● 08:15 – What’s the demand for your product? ● 08:25 – “We’re not running inbound shops”—so we need to reach OUT into the market ● 08:54 – “There’s a significant need for intelligent outbound prospecting” so that you use your time and efforts efficiently as you look for leads ● 09:41 – PatSnap’s significant wins came from outbound cold calling ● 10:26 – The amount of content marketing got everyone on the bandwagon ● 12:44 – “It always starts with targeting” ● 13:28 – Make sure to put together centrally determined territories with account lists ● 14:15 – Have a method for how to reach contacts ● 14:28 – Measure your conversion rates ● 15:23 – Compare your business against businesses with similar market dynamics ● 16:01 – A sales development team helps build opportunities and pipelines ● 17:06 – Sales development transcends as a strategic function of a business ●18:34 – In many organizations, there’s now a merging of sales operations, sales development, and sales strategies into one leadership structure ● 19:36 – The CRO became a title of a person who is in charge of revenue, closing deals, and customer success ● 20:27 – “The linchpin of the organization is your ability to effectively, smartly, target the market” ● 21:19 – Use market intelligence to understand what the competitive landscape looks like ● 21:38 – Setting up an efficient outbound sales machine can defeat the competition ● 21:58 – Russ and his team made millions of cold calls at Double Dutch ● 22:26 – “There is an approach there that works where you can out in front of other businesses before they have the need” ● 23:00 – Waiting for your sales team to improve can make you lose the race ● 24:04 – Double Dutch used data on upcoming conferences and events to sell for those events ● 24:27 – “We can time the market” ●24:44 – PatSnap knows that the companies that produce the most patents are probably the best candidates for them ● 25:34 – Get the information you need and start calls ● 26:14 – It’s vital to know when your fiscal year ends ● 27:14 – The timing of when you target the market can make the biggest difference when it comes to your success ● 28:34 – If calls are missed, they can be missed forever leading to negative ramifications for your business ● 29:10 – Too many sales leaders overlook facts and miss variables ● 29:40 – Representatives may know a lot, but they need a senior leader to centralize strategies for them ● 30:11 – Everybody wants to know the “art” of cold calling but it’s not where the waste is ● 30:50 – The lack of planning is often to blame ● 31:18 – What Russ tries to do in his sales teams is to “improve the transparency of the inputs that it takes to get to the outputs” ● 32:08 – Prevent blaming and unproductive conflict by adoption of the CRM process ● 32:35 – Separate the sales development team from the account executive team ● 33:31 – Changing the structure of teams after they’ve scaled can lead to bigger issues ● 34:49 – There’s a need to spot check to see if all processes are being followed ● 36:14 – Use a comp plan to monitor sales representatives’ behavior ● 36:23 – For example, the plan is to make 80 activities a day ● 36:30 – They may make 60 emails and 20 half-hearted calls ● 36:34 – “Making calls is what you want them to do” ● 36:51 – Consider monitoring only meaningful activities – this does NOT include email sending ● 37:39 – Younger salespeople takes the path of least resistance ● 38:34 – Make sure to design their roles properly ●39:27 – “It’s always been about your business acumen—are you demonstrating personal and professional growth and are you a good team player?” ● 40:00 – Selling is about communication and asking the right questions ● 41:09 – Skills is a mixture of classroom training and in-field exercise ● 42:25 – “If you’re just sending emails, you’re not going to have those swings” ● 43:12 – Invest in yourself, build relationships, and be a great team player ● 44:39 – End of podcast Resources Mentioned:
Tenbound.com Credits: Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives Click below to join Henry Schuck and myself on this webinar March 23rd at 10am PST!  Click here to view a webinar I did with BrightTalk on how to best leverage your SDR team!   I recently joined an esteemed group of experts to add commentary to this ebook. If you're trying to book new business appointments, check it out. Click on the picture. I’m officially declaring 2017 The Year of the SDR Manager.
Ah, the SDR Manager, that beleaguered soul who doesn’t get nearly enough credit for the contribution they make the health of your business. Beat down from so many angles; Sales VPs, their own SDRs, Senior Execs, Marketers, HR, Vendors… the list goes on and on. In some companies, scant respect and little recognition, unless of course things start going wrong. No clear career path. Not making as much money or getting as much stock as other managers... It’s a tough, and at times, thankless job. And yet, their function is vital to connecting marketing spend to real sales results. To creating predictable revenue. To preparing your next generation of Sales leaders. So, what’s going on? Let’s look at the day in life of the SDR Manager. On any given day they are a career counselor, psychiatrist, sales trainer, analytics guru, firefighter, and interdepartmental translator. They have to become an expert on managing Millennials. They’re scouting out top talent in a war against all the other companies and competitors. They’re organizing the training and preparation of your next generation of Sales reps. They’re helping you find high quality meetings, pipeline and revenue for your Sales team. They coaching, hiring and firing. They’re keeping you out of trouble with HR. They do a lot. And most of them are damn good at it. So where’s the love? Assuming they’re doing a good job, you want them to stick around, right? OK then, here are a few ways you can take care of them: Ask how you can help – SDR Managers are constantly being beat up for reports, justification, reasoning. At most companies they have about 5 different bosses; Sales VPs, Marketing Directors, C-Execs, Product, HR... It would be refreshing if somebody asked them if they needed help occasionally, and followed up. As simple as, “what can I do to help?” works wonders. They need help and are probably too busy to ask. Simple questions; do you need more resources, team training, analytics, coordination? Or more generally; how are you doing? Recognize their contribution – Nothing beats a good pat on the back. Look at some metrics beyond pipeline and closed/won. How many people have they hired, how are those people doing? What new logos has their team brought in, and how does that benefit your brand? How’s the attrition rate on their team; do people want to work for them? This stuff is important too, beyond the usual numbers. Give them a platform to show off at Town Hall or the weekly staff meeting. It’s doesn’t always have to be a weekly beat down. They must be doing something right or they wouldn't be around, right? Offer them management training and mentorship. – Many SDR Managers receive no management training at all, and yet are expected to be Bill Walsh or Bill Belichick right out of the gate. They may have just clawed up from SDR and now have no clue about what management is all about. This is why a lot of SDR Managers drop-out of management after a few years and return to individual contributor. Teach them how to coach, how to mentor, how to delegate, how to give performance reviews. It builds loyalty and you’ll get better performance from them and their team. Send them to a conference – Some great ones coming up this year that would very valuable; Revenue Summit, Topo Sales Summit, Rainmakers 2017. Send them to a Topo Sales Development Roundtable. Give them a few days to connect with peers, talk shop and come back with some fresh strategies to help your company. Be proactive, ask them which conferences they want to go to, and then send ‘em. Ask for a presentation on what they learned. So there are some ideas, and hopefully this will give you a little push to think about the SDR Manager and what contributions they’re making. Let’s make 2017 the Year of the SDR Manager! What are your thoughts? How does your company take care of SDR Managers? SDR Managers; what does your company do to support you? Would love to hear about it. David Dulany has built high-performance Sales Development programs for Glassdoor, OpenDNS, Infer and Act-On Software. At Tenbound, he helps companies start, optimize and turnaround Sales Development programs. More info at tenbound.com |
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