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After graduating, Robert decided to go into Sales; a good fit as he enjoys meeting and talking to new people. Following the advice of his family and mentors, he combined this with his love of technology and went into software sales.
Since then he’s worked his way up the ranks at companies like Outreach, before becoming Senior Director of Inside Sales at AuditBoard—#3 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500. He sat down with us to discuss the Sales Development challenges they face, creating the best possible tech stack, and their plans for growth in 2020. Building a strong Sales Development teamFor Robert, the top challenge he faces is keeping everyone on the team excited and motivated. It's a challenge, trying to convince a stranger to give you time out of their day to take a meeting and look at your product or service, so Robert wants to make sure his team is having fun and feels valued. It’s also important to keep the recruiting talent pipeline strong. Robert was taught by a former VP of Sales he worked for that the primary job of any good sales leader is to always be recruiting the best talent possible. You can never take your foot off the gas when it comes to networking, interviewing and hiring. Finally, it’s important to make sure you’re onboarding that talent properly. For Robert, it's important that he gives everybody a great experience and that they have every tool and bit of wisdom they need to be successful. Creating a best-in-class technology stackWhen Robert first came to AuditBoard, there weren’t a lot of systems in place. As a result, he was able to create the exact tech stack he wanted:
By constantly checking what’s out there, he ensures his team has the best tools available that money can buy, something that gives them a huge strategic advantage. Bridging the gap between sales and marketing Robert sees his job as bridging the gap between sales and marketing. He works closely with their marketing leaders so he can understand what they're doing, as it's going to come down the funnel and eventually reach his team. At the same time, he’s also heavily involved in the account-based work his team is doing on the outbound side. They reward their business development team, not just for following up diligently with all of their inbound leads, but also for being avid outbound hunters. Sales Development in 2020 For AuditBound, the plan is to continue growing the team. That means going from a headcount of 16 to 26 and creating a diverse team with a wide range of talents, experience, and interests. It’ll also include promoting some of the more experienced top performers into leadership roles, as well as giving people the opportunity to move cross-departmentally at the company. It’s all about helping them accelerate their career. As for the Sales Development team, they'll continue testing different messaging, different tools, different strategies, and different channels to reach people and spread the good word of AuditBoard to auditors around the world. If you’re looking for ways to improve your Sales Development program and overcome similar challenges, contact us at Tenbound today for a no-obligation exploratory call.
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From his first job as a box office cashier, Stephan has always had a taste for sales. Drawn to the consultative approach, he took on many different sales roles before becoming the Sales Development Manager at SteelHouse.
He spoke to Tenbound about the challenges his team face, how sending physical gifts helps them stand out, and much more. Sales Development challenges For Stephan, the biggest challenge is getting in front of the right people. A lot of decision-makers today still don't want to take the phone call or reply to the email, even if they know it's something that they're looking for. Once you’re in front of the right person, how do you stand out? Just how much more creative can you be? While there’s plenty you can do in terms of research and personalization, sometimes that still isn’t enough to get a response. Finding new ways to make your message even more relevant is a constant struggle. Finally, the internal workings of companies and how Sales Development supports both marketing and sales brings its own challenges. Having worked on both sides, where the Sales Development team reported to either sales or marketing, Stephan is very familiar with how difficult that can be. Using technology to stand out Stephan’s number one tool at SteelHouse is their Sales Engagement platform. They use Apollo, which combines prospecting and the engagement into one tool. They also use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find the most up to date information about companies and the people who work there. One tool that’s been particularly useful is Sendoso, a platform for sending gifts to prospects and clients. It’s enabled the team to get creative with what they're sending out; sometimes it might be a Starbucks gift card, other times it might be a lawn chair with the prospect’s university insignia on it. Either way, it’s getting them in front of the right people and starting a conversation. Combing Sales Development strategies SteelHouse uses both an account-based and demand gen approach. For Stephan, the key is consistent communication. That means talking with the sales team to confirm the exact strategy and approach for going after accounts, while marketing gets the right message in front of the relevant people at those companies. On the demand gen side, SteelHouse has a great team that’s always producing content around their offerings and the space that they operate in, content that gets a lot of interest. All of that comes back to the SDR team for qualification before being passed over to the sales team. Conclusion These are exciting times for Stephan, with a growing team and plenty of innovations in the industry. For the Sales Development team at SteelHouse, he can't wait to dive in and explore more options for creativity in 2020. From there, Stephan wants to continue the success they’ve seen so far: “We just can't take our foot off the gas pedal. Like I tell my team all the time, I don't ever want you to think that getting to 100% means your job is done. What are you doing to make sure you're at 150% of your goal? How do you get to 200%? How can you keep on going all the way to the last day of the month?” If you’re looking for ways to improve your Sales Development program and overcome similar challenges, contact us at Tenbound today for a no-obligation exploratory call.  First released in 2018, the Tenbound Sales Development Market Map is now in it’s fifth release, and continues to expand.
This version is accompanied by The Tenbound Sales Development Directory, a handy tool for tracking all the companies on the Market Map. Can’t find your company? Add it here. Meant as an overview of all the tools and services available to Sales Development Leaders and Reps, the Market Map can now be augmented with a full .csv of all the companies listed on the map available in the Tenbound Research Center. OBSERVATIONS ON VERSION 5: New quadrant alert: Communities We’ve noticed a phenomenon growing in the Sales Development world; new and established communities to support Sales Development Leaders and Reps. These communities help provide content, learning and events for Sales Dev pros to gather and grow. Since the old saying goes "your network equals your net-worth" this explosion of new communities makes sense. You can sit behind your computer all day clicking things but in order to grow your skills and expand your career you eventually have to get up out the door and meet some real people face-to-face. Some of the communities on this version of the Map include Modern Sales Pros, Sales Hacker, Revenue Collective, AA-ISP, Women in Sales Development and many others. We see this trend growing as people want to connect with peers, build their network and learn from the best. Side note: the Tenbound Alumni Community continues to grow as well! Want to join? Attend a training in your area. Continued Growth in Outsourced Quadrant The core tools and services of Sales Development - such as data, sales engagement and CRM, continue to grow at a steady clip, but what’s truly remarkable about this version is the explosion of Outsourced Services. It now eclipses other map quadrants. The demand for Outsourced SDR programs must be incredible to be able to support this number of companies. The Outsourced Services quadrant has grown so big it may be broken out in the next version in its own map. If you want to outsource your full program or even a small part of it, the choices are there. Need help? Tenbound recently completed an industry survey on important factors buyers use to select an outsourced firm. Thinking about going in this direction? Download a free exec summary or the full report here: https://tenbound.com/industry-research/ Also, resource some great blogs about this selection process were also posted here by our friends at SalesSource and The Sales Developers Data + Data Enrichment Mega-Quadrant In past versions we have Data and Data Enrichment in two quadrants. Data was companies supplying the basic building blocks of names, emails and phone numbers; while Data Enrichment was everything else about the person such as Intent, Triggers, Company intel, etc. In this version we combined it all into one quadrant as most simple “Data” providers include enrichment in their offerings. Want to meet with many of the companies on the Market Map? Be sure to grab your Early Bird Ticket to the 2020 Tenbound Sales Development Conference NYC and San Francisco. All the major players in Sales Development are represented at Tenbound Conferences. What did we miss? What would make the Map and Directory more useful? Leave a comment! For Kelly Cabatuan, sales is her second career. Fresh out of college, she started a business with her husband-to-be, which they successfully ran for 10 years. However, with a family to look after, Kelly started looking for a job with more stability. This led to her first sales position.
Now, as the Senior Manager of Sales Development at Alteryx, Kelly has drawn on her experiences to energize their sales team. She spoke to Tenbound about the challenges they face, the tech that powers the team, and how they use their SDRs to support existing customers. Sales Development challenges For Kelly, the biggest challenge is the ability to connect and have meaningful conversations. Getting accurate phone numbers is a lot harder than it used to be. The team has been able to use LinkedIn messaging to supplement those calls, but it’s not a perfect solution. For an SDR to grow, it’s essential that they’re connecting with prospects and having those meaningful conversations. Without that experience, it's difficult for them to improve. It’s also difficult for managers to properly coach them. Another challenge is due to the industry Alteryx operates in; data analytics is a relatively new space, so finding talent with experience can be difficult. With the way Alteryx is positioned, they have to be generalists, selling to almost any department, industry, and title. When you look at how most companies operate, with specialists and subject matter experts, selling to anybody can be overwhelming for someone new to sales. A third challenge is keeping consistency between the regional offices. Alteryx now has offices in Irvine, Dallas, and New York, not to mention their international offices in London, Paris, Germany, Singapore, Australia, and Japan. With so many different teams, it’s important to keep everything consistent across the three regional offices, while also being there to support those who need it. Kelly’s sales stack essentials Part of that consistency comes from having the right tech for the job. Here are the top three tools used by the Sales Development team: Salesforce “That's our single source of the truth.” SalesLoft “Used to determine the right amount of sales touches based on the quality of the lead.” LinkedIn Sales Navigator “Critical. It allows us to verify a person's role, their history, and if Alteryx would be right for them.” They also leverage Discover.org, which is critical to understanding the organizational structure of large enterprise companies, and it provides accurate contact information. Additionally, they are evaluating other tools to help broaden their outreach and channels. Using account-based marketing strategies While Alteryx doesn’t have a true ABM model, the SDRs support the teams that are their largest sales segment, supporting accounts that are already existing customers. The SDRs support those account executives and have an account-based alignment. This may not be a true ABM model but, with this unique approach, Alteryx is prospecting into existing customer accounts and maximizing the potential footprint that still exists there. For example, they might have initially sold into the finance department, but the SDRs are now prospecting into the supply chain department at the same company and showing them how they could also leverage Alteryx. At this level and with the accounts this large, it's definitely different from the traditional SDR role. Conclusion When it comes to 2020, Kelly’s plans are the same: to help their team of SDRs build a solid foundation for their future as a seller. It all starts with building people up for promotion and instilling best practices. That leads to building pipeline, which is ultimately going to lead to revenue, which means success for the whole company. If you’re looking for ways to improve your Sales Development program and overcome similar challenges, contact us at Tenbound today for a no-obligation exploratory call. Erik started his career in the marketing department at Gatorade as part of the ‘Mission Control’ team. As he spoke to more salespeople though, sales seemed more appealing and he changed paths. He hasn’t looked back since and today heads up Sales Development at SocialChorus. He shared his thoughts with the Tenbound team on implementing change, making the most of your tech, and picking the right Sales Development strategy.
Managing change in your Sales Development team Erik attributes his success as an SDR to the strategies he builds through structure, process, and personalization at scale. However, when Erik started his current role, there wasn't much structure or process, and personalization was an unknown term. Additionally, the team was completely focused on quantity over quality, believing the best way to hit quota was more calls, more meetings, and more opportunities. As a result, he ended up reversing everything the team was doing. Within the first couple of weeks, he replaced their hybrid lead model — a structure in which marketing-generated leads are distributed to SDRs who are also expected to simultaneously reach out to cold contacts and accounts —with two distinct processes and strategies for inbound and outbound prospecting. This enabled a focus of expertise with linear visibility into two separate funnels of sales opportunities. He also encouraged the reps to be more targeted by splitting up territories and creating a top 50-100 accounts for each rep (vs. the 1-2k accounts per rep), enabling them to focus on companies that would see the most value from partnering with SocialChorusul — ultimately shortening deal cycles and extending the partnership terms. Top Tech Tools SocialChorus has every known Sales Development tool out there, from ABM to cold calling tech. Their number one tool is 6sense, which aggregates data from different sources to let you know who you should be reaching out to. They’re also big fans of Chorus.ai for recording and learning from their sales calls. With all those tools though, the real challenge is learning how to use them effectively. It’s one thing to record all your calls, but you need the focus and time to listen, train and coach on them. In some cases, being effective means letting go of some tools. The team no longer uses Outreach or Seamless.ai, as they no longer worked well for the team. Using the right Sales Development strategy SocialChorus focuses on account-based selling, with demand gen used as support. As they mainly sell into large enterprises, there are usually a lot of different stakeholders they can talk to. In addition, there are different channels, methods, styles, and strategies they can use, not just to get a meeting, but to create a sales experience for the prospect. With all the different potential permutations they can use, SocialChorus think in terms of multi-channel, multi-threaded campaigns that leverage all the different departments and people, both for their prospects and the team at SocialChorus. The future for SocialChorus Erik wants the SocialChorus team to be known for being the hardest working and most knowledgeable team, while also having the most fun. Looking back on their success in 2019, he believes they have a fantastic opportunity to help the people on the team take that next step in their career and go on to more significant revenue-driving roles, whether that’s as an account executive, in customer success, or management. By the end of 2020, Erik hopes that many team members will have moved on and are successful in their next role. Conclusion Change is always a challenge, especially for an established Sales Development team. However, by using technology effectively and picking the right strategy, it’s possible to turn things around and create a strong Sales Development team with long-term potential. If you’re looking for ways to improve your Sales Development program and overcome those challenges, contact us at Tenbound today for a no-obligation exploratory call. When it comes to Sales Development, Faith has seen it all. From her first sales position while still in high school to working for a stockbroker where she had to make 300 dials a day (all without the aid of a dialer), she knows exactly what it takes to succeed.
She took time out of her busy schedule to talk with the Tenbound team about having the right attitude, the sales challenges startups face, and what the future of Sales Development looks like. Having the right attitude For Faith’s first staff position she had to get three sales in each shift—one sale every hour. Faith quickly realized your attitude and energy had to show through in a phone call. Her manager made everyone put mirrors next to their phones and she would walk around saying “let them see you smiling.” Faith has held many different sales positions since then, but the key theme has been that she loves interacting with people. She loves getting to know them, understanding their story and how she can provide real value. Humility is also key, a lesson Faith learned from her father and the way he ran his multiple businesses. We shouldn’t be afraid to admit when we mess up. Pride gets in the way, but when you can admit you’re not perfect, you can work on making things right. We all like to say that we have humility, but when push comes to shove, is it really there? Sales challenges for startups As a startup, lead generation is a big challenge for KeyNode Solutions. They work closely with a Salesforce account executive and are getting leads that way, but it’s wise not to rely on just once source. One of the other solutions has been using LinkedIn, especially with some of its new features (such as being able to leave a voicemail message). From a CRM standpoint, they ‘live, breathe, eat, and sleep’ Salesforce, specifically Salesforce Lightning. It’s vital that nothing falls through the cracks, and Salesforce is robust enough to do that. For Faith, it’s like building a house—you've got to get the foundation built correctly. For any sales department, that foundation is your platform. When it comes to bottom-line revenue, reporting, and forecasting, choosing the right tool and creating that strong foundation is going to allow you to scale effectively. The future of Sales Development To be successful in 2020, you’ll need to consider the total customer journey from start to finish. This will likely mean leveraging an all-in-one platform—somewhere every part of the customer journey can be tracked. That’s why every company is recruiting for customer experience positions. We want happy, satisfied customers who are going to stay with us long term. That means a continual assessment of what we’re providing and how we’re providing it. Do we make it easy for them to buy from us? Do they love our product? If not, how can we improve? We need to focus on that full customer journey, from the time they find you through to becoming happy, satisfied customers. The trend has already started, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. Conclusion When you’re working with a startup, you’ll face a whole new set of challenges, but it’s possible to overcome them. Bring the right energy to your sales calls, and always stay humble. Reliable lead generation from multiple sources and having a good platform as a foundation is critical. But to stand out and succeed, you’ll need to consider the complete customer journey, from start to finish, to keep your customers coming back for more. If you’re looking for ways to improve your Sales Development program and overcome those challenges, contact us at Tenbound today for a no-obligation exploratory call. Rob Morris is a man with Sales Development in his veins. Currently the Director of Inside Sales at Simplus, he’s been working in Sales from day one. That’s why we were so excited when he agreed to share his insights with the Tenbound team. Read on to learn how Rob got his start in Sales Development, the main challenges teams can expect in 2020, and the future of Sales Development.
Starting with door-to-door salesRob started his career in sales doing door-to-door sales years ago, a job that he loved. When his mom got sick though, he realized he couldn’t do 12-13 hours days anymore. He learned about an SDR role at an appointment setting company and decided to give it a shot. In three months, he was promoted three times. Later, he got an offer at another company to do Sales Development, and he’s loved it ever since. Now at Simplus, he’s built their process from scratch—a process that is continually evolving. As a result, they've hit or exceeded quota for 26 months in a row. Sales Development challenges in 2020 Most of the challenges Sales Development teams have faced in the past will continue to be a challenge in 2020. For example, reaching the right person at a company and getting them on the phone has never been easy. Just figuring out the right person in the first place can be hard enough. For the consulting services Simplus offers, there could be hundreds of potential personas to reach out to at any one company. Hiring is a constant challenge in the SDR role, especially when you're looking for experienced people. What Simplus does is very complex, so Rob isn’t looking for people that need to be trained from scratch. It’s hard to find someone with two years of SDR experience when most people don't even want to be in an SDR role for two years. The Future of Sales Development When you're dealing with anyone, their favorite topic of conversation is themselves. Pseudo personalization is quite easy, for example looking up where a prospect went to school and mentioning their team mascot. But genuine personalization, where you’re able to explore their interests and personalize in a relevant way, is much harder to do at scale. Like it or not, the name of the game is still volume, and tailoring a stack of pitches so they’re truly personalized takes time. When someone finds a way to make it possible to send 200+ truly personalized emails every day, that’ll change the industry forever. QUICKFIRE ROUND Rob’s Sales Development stack
The tech tools that didn’t deliver
Conclusion Working his way up from door-to-door sales to Director of Inside Sales has given Rob a comprehensive overview of the Sales Development world. Some challenges, such as finding the right prospect and hiring experienced SDRs never change. However, focusing on personalization and finding ways to scale that is the key to future success. If you’re looking for ways to improve your Sales Development program and overcome those challenges, contact us at Tenbound today for a no-obligation exploratory call. Having managed Sales Development teams from a young age, Emmy Johnson is a recognized expert in turning around underperforming teams. She graciously agreed to talk to Tenbound about creating a positive culture for your Sales Development team, the future of Sales Development, and more.
Inspiring Loyalty in your Sales Development Team When managing a Sales Development team, Emmy works hard to create a culture of loyalty in the team. Part of that means helping them understand the importance of their role. They’re the lifeblood of the sales organization and the company needs to let them know they’re appreciated. Emmy organizes surprise SDR appreciation days for the team; the previous one included a video from everybody—including the CEO, CRO, and all the sales reps—telling the SDRs how much they appreciated their hard work. That’s just one reason Emmy has been dubbed the Culture Queen. Being an SDR means facing a lot of rejection, so it’s important to try and make the experience as fun and as possible, as well as providing for their long-term goals. At ZeroFOX, the company looks to the Sales Development team first to fill any new roles, giving SDRs a career path within the company. Sales Development Challenges Every Sales Development team will face challenges, but some industries are harder to sell to than others. ZeroFOX’s primary buyer is in information security and, as a result, are especially hard to get hold of. They're skeptical by nature, that's their job, so they won't often take cold emails or calls. Operating in a newer space also brings its own challenges. Four years ago, ZeroFOX was having to explain to people that digital risk protection was even an issue. Now their most common objection is that it isn’t a priority, so a big part of their work is showing prospects that this is a real problem that they need to deal with now. One common challenge is getting the buy-in from your team. A lot of SDRs are young, maybe right out of school, so it’s important they trust you and trust the process—even if they don’t fully understand it. When you have that buy-in, then the whole team will get the results you want. Investing in Technology When Emmy came to ZeroFOX, they recognized the importance of providing the tools needed to be successful, even though they were still a startup. The current stack includes popular tools like Salesforce, Outreach, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator. One of their new favorite tools is Orum, a parallel dialer that makes up to ten calls at a time, dropping the others once you get a connection. Not everyone is allowed to use Orum as users have to be very prepared—they never know who it's going to connect with. However, experienced team members are now able to make more connections, have more conversations, and book more meetings. Sales Development in 2020 Emmy predicts that we’ll see more specialization in the near future. SDRs are often drawn in too many different directions. If you’re asking your SDRs to deal with cross-selling and upselling within the current customer base, that's much easier than cold calling. They're going to focus their time there and neglect their core work. By helping your SDRs specialize, they’ll have a laser focus and be able to do their best work. Conclusion Managing a Sales Development team has its challenges, especially in industries where people are more suspicious of cold calls or emails. However, by developing a positive culture and specializing your SDRs’ roles, you can still get great results. If you’re looking for ways to improve your Sales Development program and overcome those challenges, contact us at Tenbound today for a no-obligation exploratory call. David Gimbel knows Sales Development. He’s the Sales Manager at RigUp, the energy industry's largest marketplace for on-demand services and skilled labor. He has also headed up Sales and Sales Development teams at Trendalytics, Impact, and Yotpo. David graciously agreed to share his thoughts on outsourced sales, how to train your Sales Development team, and who your real competition is.
Outsourced Sales Development Sales Development is the first line of communication between your business and your potential clients. If you're relying on outsourced teams with random people dialing for dollars, rather than giving your prospects a top-class experience, that's a definite misstep. Sure, you might get some opportunities come in, but if that opportunity has been set up poorly and the handoff is poor, that’s not going to be a great experience for your client. If you're trying to sell something in this day and age, you need good communication. You have to be fully informed on what you offer and be able to answer questions intelligently. You never want to bring in a prospect who isn’t going to benefit from your solution. They’re just going to churn. That's not to say outsourced SDRs don’t have a market. However, if you're offering any kind of SaaS solution or partnership, you want to start that relationship off in the best way possible, which means having an in-house team. Training your Sales Development team Getting the right Sales Development Reps in the seat involves putting together an expansive training program—not something that only happens during onboarding. You should train your SDRs the entire time they're in that seat, with the long-term goal of helping them advance their career with your company, with your Sales Development team acting as a feeder system for your future Account Executives. What should your training involve? As a minimum, your SDRs need to understand your talk tracks, your value proposition, your total addressable market, and who your ideal customer is. Your SDRs need to be comfortable doing pre-call research and understand if your product is even viable to the person they’re reaching out to. Otherwise, they're just reading off a script. Your real competition The last thing you want to do is waste people's time. Our prospects are busy people, and time is a precious commodity. David tells his reps that they’re not competing with the company’s direct competitors—they’re competing with every other salesperson that wants the prospect's time. This affects your whole sales conversation. Your messaging needs to be on point and your product has to offer great value that’s worth the prospect’s time. If you realize they’re not a good fit, don’t keep dragging them along and wasting both your time. Ultimately, make sure you’re giving them the information they need to make the right decision. Quickfire round David’s 2020 Challenges:
Top 5 Tech Tools:
Conclusion Your SDRs have an important job and will be the first contact most prospects have with your company. By keeping your Sales Development team in-house, training them properly, and making sure they communicate effectively, you’ll be able to secure high-quality leads who get the most out of your product. If you’re looking for more ways to improve your Sales Development program, contact us at Tenbound today for a no-obligation exploratory call. This time in our Leaders in Sales Development series, we interview Nick Liemandt, Sales Development Manager at Instapage.
Tell us about your role at Instapage? I manage the Sales Development team here at Instapage. We’ve got a terrific group of SDRs who love to learn, hustle and genuinely want to help each other succeed. We were lucky to have a large flow of inbound demo requests and free trials when I started, so building out an outbound engine is my primary focus as we move up-market. At Instapage, you were promoted from Team Lead to Manager of the team. Tell us about that? My role as Team Lead started as a player-coach role, but quickly evolved into a focus on the leading. As we continued to grow the team from three to seven people, I was asked to focus all of my time on coaching, processes, and strategy as the manager. You won first place in a case study competition at St. John's University. Tell us more? Our school participates in the Society for the Advancement of Management (S.A.M.), where schools send a case study team to an international competition in Washington D.C. We were provided with a company, Target, then presented our research and recommendations to improve. We were able to win for our third year in a row. A three-peat! What’s been similar and different regarding Sales Development across the positions you’ve held at different companies? The biggest similarities have been the culture of testing new ideas, making sure you have processes and systems in place that scale and a place for leadership who motivates. I joke with my team: if I tell them a way to do something, they will find an article or thought-leader telling them the opposite. Each rep and company is going to be different, so you have to test new things to find out what works for you. It’s important to let that happen in sales dev. Being an SDR is one of the toughest jobs in the company and some days it outright sucks. So for any high-performing sales dev team, you need to a culture of motivation and leadership. As for differences, we’ve been at different stages in company and team development. That dictates how you approach the outcomes from the meetings set up by SDRs and career development. For outcomes, are we trying to figure out what works and get at-bats? Or do they need to be fully-vetted qualified opportunities? And for career development, no one wants to be an SDR forever, so do we have set development plans for the next role and can we dedicate a lot of time towards training? Or is that something we have to build up with a primary focus on building pipeline? Tell us about your biggest Sales Development challenge and how you addressed it? Finding the right balance between quality and quantity in our outreach. As a rep, I hated the idea that sales dev was a volume game, but that’s what I heard a lot. I was definitely guilty of calling numbers I already knew didn’t work just to hit the dials metric. Spray and pray just didn’t sit well with me. On the other side, I would perfect emails and send them off where they would be unopened, read once or replied to with “great email, but not interested.” You get meetings with the hyper-personalized approach, but not at the scale needed to hit quota. I needed the middle ground that allowed me to deliver the right value at the right time, which meant doing enough activity to hopefully get the timing right, but still being thoughtful with outreach. A few things that worked for me was to start sending more good emails (5 minutes) vs. the perfect email (20 minutes), time-blocking my day (close Slack, Linkedin, etc.) and researching a prospect once, then keeping good bullet points in SFDC or Outreach. What’s the top thing Sales Development leaders should be thinking about in 2020? How to make sure we are still one human selling to another human. With the power of software, automation and AI, we need to go to extra lengths to make sure we are building relationships with someone on the other side of the screen. There’s a big debate whether AI will replace the SDR in years to come and that’s not something I believe will happen. It might replace the SDR who just sends templates or triggers for a sequence, but I don’t know how it will replace the trust we build when developing a relationship with a prospect. The tech should help make us more efficient in our prospecting efforts, but those emails, LinkedIn interactions, videos, etc. still need to start conversations with a human on the other side. On a more personal note, what’s your favorite basketball team and player? Minnesota Timberwolves and Kevin Garnett. We finally went to the playoffs for the first time (since fourth grade for me) in the past couple years and KG brings back memories of those winning seasons. |
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