David Dulany's Blog

The idea of getting ahead of pipeline is top of mind, trying to win more deals early in the year to crush their numbers and hit accelerators as they cruise into Q4. And the role of creating pipeline falls heavily on the shoulders of Sales Development Teams. No pressure!

Then March came around and the world changed. Businesses closed, everyone began to work from home, budgets went dry, and a new reality set in. 

But guess what, many businesses, while adjusting forecasts for the year and quarter, still have to create pipeline to hit any adjusted goal. And guess what, that responsibility still falls squarely on the shoulders of Sales Development Teams. No pressure! Except now you’ve got double the pressure as you adapt to new realities: Buyers are distracted by things at home, and those valuable office direct dials are worthless. ​

​Most of us are aware that the buyer’s journey has changed dramatically in the last few years (and months given the global pandemic). 

This is supported by a CEB (acquired by Gartner) report in 2016 that shared “buyers on average are 57% of the way through their buying journey before even reaching out to a vendor”.

Fast forward a few years since that report, the explosion of Inbound Marketing, and the development of buyer journey optimized content I would argue that it is probably closer to 90%.

That is, buyers have almost all the information they need to make an informed purchasing decision.

In 2007 Chet Homes shared the statistic that only 3% of any market is in the “buying mode” now. This means that 97% of prospects aren’t actively looking to purchase a product or service.

​What sales development leaders need to know about the connection between sleep and productivity and how to get more of both.​

Even before the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans were underslept. A large body of research shows we were quite unproductive as a result. During the current crisis, we face even more threats to both sleep and productivity: anxieties keep us up at night, while distractions working from home, burnout from a lack of boundaries between our professional and personal lives, and the cognitive overload of Zoom all curb our focus. Now, more than ever, it's imperative to understand the connection between sleep and productivity and invest in your team's rest.

​You might be wondering what a marketer knows about cold calls, and the answer is “Quite a bit!” I sit with my SDR team, when we’re not working remotely, so I hear their cold calls and pitches all day every day, which gives me insight into what’s working for them and what doesn’t based on the rest of the conversation.

There’s nothing more important for an SDR / BDR than the first words that come out of their mouth, and that especially holds true for an agent-assisted call, where the potential customer has been passed from the agent to the sales rep for the pitch and you have just a few seconds to gain and hold their attention.
So, what should you say and what should you NOT say?

​None of our SDRs were making quota....

Rewind the clock a few years, I was at a Unicorn, everything should have been going great. 

But our 25 SDRs were struggling. Each week we gave them over 3,000 fresh MQLs, but none of them made quota. We just fired our 2nd CMO and 3rd SVP of Sales, both of whom were successful at previous companies.  

I was asked to step in and “fix” it.

What the hell was happening? We were a billion-dollar SaaS unicorn, the movie wasn’t supposed to end this way. 

The problem it turns out was simple. Most of the prospects filling our funnel were not prospects at all. 

The 3,000 MQLs had been ‘qualified’ using basic Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) criteria like # of employees, industry, and annual revenue. While helpful for sizing, this ICP told us nothing about what our prospects actually wanted or needed.

Jason started off studying biology, but quickly realized he didn't want a research job. Instead, he wanted a career where he could interact with people and solve problems. Specifically, he was always fascinated by how people make their buying decisions. That fascination has helped him excel in Sales Development. 

In this interview, he shares how his team is raising awareness of a new industry, why they no longer use data enrichment tools, and how they keep their messaging relevant. 

New industry challengesSegment is a customer data platform that allows companies to capture the complete customer journey by tracking their first-party touchpoints, then leveraging that data to provide personalization at scale in a way that respects users’ privacy needs. It’s a new approach, so some education is needed. 

To meet this challenge, Segment is serving as a thought leader in the space. They’re talking to companies and introducing the idea of a customer data platform, explaining what challenges it solves. The category is defined by their messaging, so it’s important that their message is clear and consistent. ​