Trish Bertuzzi
The success of any company is directly linked to how effectively it acquires new pipeline. (Location 168)
Not to put too much pressure on you, but everyone at your company’s livelihood depends on how well you build new pipeline. It’s just that important. (Location 169)
Here is how I define sales development: A specialized role focused on the frontend of the sales process—qualifying inbound leads and/or conducting outbound prospecting—to generate sales pipeline (Location 175)
I’ve identified six elements for sales development success (see figure I.1). (Location 185)
Two major waves are colliding. They are changing the way business-to-business (B2B) selling and buying are done. The first wave is the exponential growth in the number of ideas, options, and solutions available for (and marketed to) your prospects. (Location 238)
The companies that win today are those that are willing to reach out, stand out, and point out flaws in status quo thinking. Your prospects are primarily concerned with how you can help them build a better business. (Location 246)
The second wave in play concerns the number and diversity of people involved in purchasing decisions. The “buyer” has become the “buying unit” and is quickly growing into the “buying battalion.” It is getting more and more difficult to draw clean lines between decision makers, influencers, and users. Just about any single sale process seems to require dozens of yeses and risks running aground in the face of a single no. While sales cycles haven’t elongated exponentially, the amount of effort required to win a single sale has. As a result, account executives (those reps who close sales) increasingly lack the time—and often the desire—to focus on building new sales pipelines. They argue that their time is better spent advancing and closing opportunities. “I’m busy doing demos, drafting proposals, and chasing contracts. I’m not prospecting because I just don’t have the bandwidth,” they say. Enter the sales development function. (Location 248)
Sales Development The sales development role is our best response to the realities detailed above. If both prospects and account executives are crazy busy, we need a dedicated role for executing top-of-the-funnel activity that is purpose built for generating new pipeline. (Location 259)
The value of a sales development effort is measured by increased won business per account executive and/or accelerated new customer acquisition. (Location 265)
If you increase lead conversion rates, but you aren’t closing more business, what’s the point? Similarly, if your account executives are having twice as many introductory meetings, but you aren’t gaining more new customers, you’re just spinning your wheels. Effective sales development is about ratcheting up your ability to build new pipeline and accelerate revenue growth. Period. (Location 268)
Success in sales development means accepting the two realities I detailed above and committing to excellence through a sustained focus on the top of the funnel. (Location 274)
As I shared in the introduction, sales development is the most effective way to get in front of more prospects and drive more pipeline. But it is no easy task. There are six critical elements you must master to get the amazing results you deserve. (Location 279)
The Six Elements This book is divided into six parts. Each focuses on a specific element of revenue acceleration with sales development (see Figure 1.1). (Location 281)
Tom shared that in eighteen months, Acquia built an outbound team focused on generating qualified opportunities and grew it to thirty reps. Tom described the following results: ● Outbound SDRs have pipeline targets of ~$700K per rep per quarter ● The new business growth rate nearly doubled after adding the outbound component (Location 310)
Most companies will start reps as inbound SDRs, qualifying inbound leads, and promote them into an outbound role after they’ve proven themselves. (Location 315)
“We found that our inbound leads are very familiar with our company, our products, and our competitors. Our mentality is to put the best leads in front of our best pipeline generators.” For Acquia, that meant starting reps as outbound prospectors and promoting top performers into the inbound team. (Location 317)
CEO Ross Kramer had grown his company to $7M in revenues with a sales model that had account executives owning both prospecting and closing responsibilities. Ross’s account executives were “more than happy to drink the inbound Kool-Aid and assume that prospecting meant only calling people who had filled out a form.” The problem was that Listrak wasn’t generating enough inbound inquiries to meet its pipeline targets. Much like Acquia, Listrak realized that accelerating revenue growth required targeted outbound. To support the company’s new focus on the top of the funnel, Ross built two new teams. The first team sets introductory meetings for the account executives. The second is tasked with finding prospects for the meeting setters to call. (Location 323)
Noodling on your data inside of CRM is a great way to avoid making calls, as is flipping through people on LinkedIn,” (Location 330)
To be successful today, your sales process and sales development strategy must align with the way your prospects think (often called the buyer’s journey). I’ve built a five-step framework for thinking about the modern B2B buying process. I call it The Five Whys (see figure 2.1). (Location 349)
The Five Whys are questions that prospects ask themselves along the way in a complex B2B purchase. As we walk through The Five Whys, put yourself in your prospects’ shoes. Remember, every vendor is squawking and screeching trying to gain prospect attention. To stay ahead of all those competitors, you have to take their reality into consideration. (Location 355)
In a transactional sale (think high-volume, low-touch, and quick sales cycle), all five gates might be crossed in days or weeks. In an enterprise sale (think complex, high-ticket, and long sales cycle), it might take quarters. And if selling to the Fortune 500, just crossing from WHY YOU to WHY NOW can seem to take a lifetime. (Location 388)
Okay, we’ve established that why listen and why care are the domain of sales development. But what exactly should you expect your team to be closing on? Sales development teams can be tasked with either a) setting introductory meetings or b) generating qualified opportunities. We’ll cover the difference in more detail in chapter 3. But for now, I tend to think of the introductory meetings model as addressing the why listen stage only. Teams that address both why listen and why care are generating qualified opportunities. (Location 419)
Regardless of what you’re shooting for—an introductory meeting, technology demo, or fully qualified opportunity—your reps’ first hurdle is to arouse curiosity and get prospects to listen. (Location 429)
Much like Goldilocks and the porridge, your model needs to be “just right” for your organization. Figuring this out early will save you from account executives’ complaints such as “Those leads weren’t qualified enough. They aren’t worth my time” or “My SDR isn’t passing enough meetings. What are they doing all day?” Effective sales development means maximizing the productivity of both the SDR and the AE teams. (Location 461)
Let your unique requirements guide your model. To help you along the way, here are a few general principles on when each model is most effective. (Location 470)
SETTING INTRODUCTORY MEETINGS: Let’s be clear on the realities here. The meetings being set here are introductory—from the Latin “introda,” meaning not ready to buy yet. (Kidding!) This can include face-to-face meetings or a discovery phone call. With introductory meetings, prospects have a sense of your overall value proposition but haven’t been qualified as to their readiness or ability to move forward. ● GENERATING QUALIFIED OPPORTUNITIES: Qualified opportunities differ in that they are, well, qualified. The rep is still closing on a meeting or call but has a) moved the prospect from curiosity into interest and b) vetted that the prospect meets or exceeds a minimum threshold of “sales-worthiness.” We’ll discuss more on qualification criteria later in this chapter. (Location 472)
One of the biggest mistakes I see companies make is setting internal expectations using introductory meeting metrics (quantity) and then requiring opportunity-level qualification (quality). This seemingly innocuous misstep often ends in total disaster. (Location 482)
Here’s my rule of thumb. You should deploy an introductory meeting model when the market for your product is immature and/or when your account executives need more at-bats. (Location 488)
If your SDRs are booking meetings with the right types of companies, the right people within them, and the prospects are at least curious about addressing a potential pain point, then the reps have done their jobs well. (Location 504)
REASONABLE: A meeting with a director in the “quality operations” department at a $500M+ pharmaceutical company who has high-level pain around collaboration in bringing new drugs to market. Right profile, right person, right pain: check, check, and check. These types of meetings will be plentiful and will set your AEs up for success. (Location 510)
In an immature market, the number one challenge your SDRs face is to arouse curiosity around a business issue that potentially hasn’t even been recognized yet. Sales development should be teeing up introductory meetings so that the account executive can do the work of educating the prospect and developing that curiosity into interest. If you’re selling a disruptive solution, asking BANT (budget, authority, need, and timing) types of questions makes no sense. There isn’t going to be a budget set aside for problems that prospects don’t know they have. (Location 520)
Your reps should be arousing curiosity and setting meetings—not qualifying your company out of deals. (Location 525)
The second case for the introductory meeting model is when account executives are suffering from empty calendar syndrome. This one is easy. If your sales team is screaming for more “at-bats,” then break glass and set meetings. Conversion rates, qualification criteria, and cost per meeting all go out the window when your account executives’ calendars are anemic. Setting introductory meetings in this scenario is your go-to. (Location 532)
The process would follow these four steps: 1. HYPOTHESIZE: Build a hypothesis of which companies need your solution. Develop baseline messaging and identify target prospects. 2. TEST: Schedule as many introductory meetings as possible. SDRs and account executives test messaging before, during, and after meetings. 3. ITERATE: Based on learning, iterate on both the target profile and the message. 4. REPEAT: Rinse and repeat, learning more and more each time. (Location 539)
“You have to have your ideal prospect and best resonating messages nailed down first. Introductory meetings help you do that. Once you have both of those, that’s when you should shift focus towards qualified opportunities.” (Location 551)
Qualified Opportunities To clarify, a qualified opportunity is still a meeting or call, but one where the account has reached a qualification threshold. At some level, this means: ● A problem has been identified ● A potential solution was introduced ● And the prospect has committed to a next step (Location 556)
The days of executives picking up their phones and patiently answering intrusive sales questions are gone. Your reps have to engage multiple prospects, speak intelligently to each prospect’s specific needs, and create value in return for the right to have their questions answered. The key to success with generating qualified opportunities lies in ensuring that your sales development team and your sales organization are on the same page when it comes to the qualification criteria. (Location 563)
Qualifying for BANT is like going on a first date and asking to see a credit report. (Location 582)
In working with clients, I’ve built a qualification methodology I call PACT: pain, authority, consequence, and target profile. Let’s take them each in turn. (Location 588)
PACT is useful for 90 percent of companies with opportunity-generating teams. I will make one small amendment for a certain situation. If you’re selling into a mature market and attempting to displace an existing vendor, timeframe matters. (Location 610)
If your market is mature, I recommend using PACT2: pain, authority, consequence, target profile, and timing. (Location 614)
As with many startups, account executives at this particular company were wearing many hats. They were identifying accounts, reaching out to secure first conversations, conducting discovery calls, working existing opportunities, the works. This created a problem. The reps were so focused on the top of the funnel, on opportunity creation, that they were actually elongating their own sales cycles. To meet its aggressive growth targets, the company decided to build an in-house sales development team. This not only allowed account executives to focus exclusively on moving prospects through the sales process but also gave the company access to a pool of new candidates to nurture and grow—a farm team for future account executives. “Now, the AEs get to focus on what they’re best at, which is selling,” shared Brett. “And we can bring in this less experienced talent—that aren’t ready to be full-blown closing reps—but who are hungry and eager to learn. It’s a huge win-win.” (Location 621)
The strategy element of sales development goes beyond just why and how. The factors that support when to build must be in place before launching a team. These include the following: (Location 630)
The SDR Wishbone Early on, the decision needs to be made whether the team should sit within sales or marketing. The sales development group is often the wishbone that gets tugged between the two. (Location 651)
One point worth mentioning is that those groups focused exclusively on inbound lead qualification were more likely to roll up into marketing. (Location 657)
Setting expectations as you build and grow sales development is critical. Communicating up to the executive level, across to peers, and down to team members takes forethought and planning. (Location 674)
It’s a big investment to have a sales development team, an investment of both time and money. Of course, the end game is to get to repeatable pipeline and revenue growth as quickly as possible. But if you have a complex solution or one that requires that your account executives educate the market, you have to think long term. (Location 679)
Your reps will have more prospect conversations in a week than just about anyone else in the organization: VP of sales, top account executive, and CEO included. The key is gathering information from each and every interaction and analyzing it to make the organization as a whole smarter. As your reps ramp, they should be building prospect profiles, adding information about status quo solutions, testing messaging, and collecting a dozen other data points. Use that data to formulate a more succinct and powerful go-to-market story. (Location 686)
I find that too many organizations aren’t realistic in setting expectations. They don’t take into account the time it takes to ramp a team or properly account for the length of their sales cycle. They want results now. A good sales development team adds value from day one. It is up to you to understand the value of the conversations they’re having, to quantify that pre-pipeline value, and to communicate it across your organization. (Location 694)
Committing to sales development is the first step. Next, you need to customize your implementation based on your market and prospect personas. (Location 706)
The next element for accelerating revenue growth with sales development is specialization. In my view, these are the good-to-great decisions, and you can’t earn your master of SDR without them. (Location 719)
Specialization involves addressing two big questions: 1. How should my team tackle our market? (segmenting the prospect universe) 2. How should my group be structured? (role specialization) Segmenting your prospect universe is about aligning effort with opportunity. (Location 723)
Role specialization involves separating inbound SDRs (lead qualification) and outbound SDRs (outbound prospecting) into distinct roles. (Location 729)
INBOUND: Prospects who take action in response to marketing activity (filling out a web form, signing-up for a trial, attending a webinar, etc.) OUTBOUND: Prospects whom your reps target with proactive outreach (Location 737)
Growing your business by converting inbound leads is a wonderful thing. The reality is that the majority of companies source less than half of their pipeline from marketing. Only the tiniest fraction—about 10 percent of companies—are able to source more than three-quarters of pipeline from inbound. (Location 745)
So what does this tell us? To me, it makes the case that even if you’re lucky enough to have fantastic marketing, inbound leads still leave a fair bit of pipeline to be found via other means. Outbound calling should be one of them. (Location 761)
I first heard the term allbound from Dan McDade, president and CEO of PointClear, and it is a perfect descriptor. Your philosophy should be inbound + outbound = allbound. (Location 769)
For the rest of us, we’re building sales development to drive opportunities to the top of the funnel. The funnel is entirely agnostic about how opportunities are sourced. (Location 771)
From his measurement at Insidesales.com, Ken shared that an inbound opportunity is roughly twice as valuable as one generated through outbound effort. But the challenge—and it’s a big one—is that there are exponentially more small companies than big ones. As a result, the vast majority of inbound leads are small. “If you want to go upmarket, which you absolutely must if you want to grow, you have to go outbound,” shared Ken. “Since inbound is worth twice as much as outbound, I say go after accounts twice as big when you go outbound. Winning large customers is much more about causing a sale, not just catching one.” (Location 775)
Ken and his team have decided to go allbound. That doesn’t mean calling each and every prospect under the sun. It means identifying the accounts that are the most profitable and targeting them with outbound activity. You can accomplish this only if you’ve segmented your potential prospect universe and built an ideal customer profile. (Location 782)
headquarters. Their team had had a string of bad months, and they had brought in my team and me to assess their go-to-market strategy. I began the executive overview of our findings by sharing, “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that everyone we spoke with was able to share your company’s ideal customer profile (ICP). The bad news is we didn’t hear much overlap in their responses.” Sadly, this is an all-too-common refrain. Most companies believe they have a solid understanding of their ideal customer profile and that it has been communicated across the organization. In reality, they have dozens of different assumptions floating around. Try this exercise. Ask a senior sales leader to define the characteristics of your ideal prospect. Next, ask a recently hired account executive. Finally, ask your most junior marketing person in charge of demand generation. If those three responses overlap by even 50 percent, count yourself lucky. (Location 790)
Having your organization in agreement regarding your ICP is a critical success factor. Otherwise, marketing is off generating demand with one prospect profile while sales is expecting leads from another entirely. That is a shotgun approach when today’s selling climate requires a sniper rifle. (Location 800)
Take a piece of paper and draw a 2×4 table similar to figure 6.1: A . B . C . D . Figure 6.1 –ABCDs starting point Now, jot down some common characteristics of each tier of your prospect universe. Here’s how you might begin to categorize your market. (Location 806)
Whether your strategy involves inbound, outbound, or allbound, prioritizing your prospect base is a must. Once you’ve built your account prioritization, it’s time to think about aligning effort to opportunity. Here are a few considerations: (Location 850)
Let’s pause for a status check. We know we want SDR-sourced opportunities from both inbound and outbound. We’ve also identified which types of accounts have the highest return on effort. One question remains: can a single rep be tasked with both inbound qualification and outbound prospecting? (Location 870)
Role specialization—the practice of breaking inbound SDRs (lead qualification) and outbound SDRs (outbound prospecting) into separate roles—is still in its infancy. And yet, this approach has quickly taken root as it delivers big returns. (Location 882)
The right coverage model, aligned to your strategy, maximizes your chances of turning prospects into customers.” Sales development specialization is an accelerator on the path to repeatable and scalable pipeline. (Location 893)
Before you commit, you’ll need to agree with the “whys” of SDR specialization. As I see it, there are three main reasons: focus, attitude and aptitude, and human nature. (Location 898)
I’ve identified half a dozen factors in which the roles differ. Figure 7.1 lays (Location 914)
Inbound Team Structure When sales development first emerged, reps were typically partnered with three or four account executives. If sales had geographic territories, so did the sales development team. It made for a nice, tidy package that didn’t require a lot of thought. While this still sometimes works for outbound SDRs, it rarely does for inbound SDRs. The reason: setting equitable inbound quotas is a nightmare. No matter how hard you try, your inbound leads stubbornly refuse to arrive in equal shares per territory. (How rude!) That leaves you with uneven lead flow. (Location 939)
Geographic territories are great on paper but a nightmare when assigned to inbound teams. To address this issue, I recommend one of two approaches: territory-based (customized quotas) or round robin (uniform quotas).Option (Location 953)
Option #2, round-robin, is much easier. In this model, leads are distributed to inbound SDRs in turn. You don’t have to break out the abacus to assign customized quotas, and each rep has an equal opportunity to make his or her number. Nice and tidy. Because SDRs won’t consistently work with the same account executives, the round robin approach doesn’t allow for the tight bond—and informal mentoring—between team members. (Location 959)
To help you think through headcount, let me share some capacity guidelines. One inbound SDR can typically handle about two hundred to three hundred leads a month when fully ramped. There is some variation based on average selling price, data quality, and other factors. But in my experience, this seems to be the magic number. (Location 969)
Outbound Team Structure Three approaches are most common for structuring outbound sales development teams: 1. Partnering outbound SDRs with specific account executives 2. Assigning outbound SDRs named or strategic accounts 3. A blend of both (specific account executives and specific accounts) You can be successful with any of the three—assuming that the account executive territories have been properly built and balanced. (Location 971)
One outbound SDR can typically target one hundred to two hundred accounts per month. This is cumulative, not net new. During the month, some accounts will be qualified and others disqualified, and the rest will remain in a working status. (Location 983)
To address these issues, Casey built two groups as follows: (Location 1075)
Carlos structured the teams as follows: (Location 1087)
At a minimum, you should have the following four candidate profiles in mind: recent/upcoming university graduates, experienced SDRs, military-to-civilian transitions, and job shifters (those looking to make the move into professional selling). (Location 1224)
There are three characteristics that are universal in the best sales development candidates: passion, competitiveness, and curiosity. (Location 1229)
Your reps will face a unique blend of monotony and rejection with a light dusting of intermittent triumph. All the cash, leaderboards, and praise in the world can’t keep someone striving in this role. It has to come from within. (Location 1234)
“I like to ask candidates to tell me about something they love to do and why. Then I’ll ask them why they love the idea of working in sales for me. Most people will unconsciously communicate their passion for something they personally care about. I compare that to how passionate they sound about the position they’re applying for.” (Location 1240)
“Reporting to the sales development manager, the corporate SDR is accountable for booking sales demos across all verticals for the closing representative. They will be responsible for proactive calling and lead activity management owning the prospecting stage from (Location 1301)
A job description should sell the job. If you can’t capture attention and interest, who the hell cares about the fine print. (Location 1308)
There are, however, companies that are doing it right. Let me give you four examples of truly great job descriptions. (Location 1323)
In this chapter, I’ll share how you can determine market rate for sales development talent. (Location 1396)
80 percent of companies use one or two components in variable compensation. ● Roughly 40 percent of companies use “Number of Meetings Passed” to determine the largest share of incentive comp. ● Fewer than 25 percent of all SDR groups use “Number or Value of Opportunities Won” to determine the largest share of incentive comp. (Location 1468)
Approach 1: Pay on Meetings For groups setting introductory meetings, you should pay them on meetings held. As you’ll remember from part 1, for the introductory meeting model, you can’t get much beyond right profile, right person, and right pain as qualification criteria. It follows that a rep’s job is twofold. One, schedule the meeting. And two, make sure the meeting is held. Whether or not the meeting advances to the next step in the sales process is in the account executive’s hands. (Location 1478)
So if the base commission per meeting held was $100, the eighth meeting would be worth $80 and the nineteenth worth $150. This is how you incentivize overachievement. (Location 1498)
Approach 2: Pay on Qualified Opportunities For groups generating qualified opportunities, developing an incentive plan that motivates the right behavior and pays on both quantity and quality is easier said than done. I recommend the 50/40/10 approach. This plan works best with sales cycles under ninety days (more detail on why below). (Location 1501)
It is my firm belief that you shouldn’t tie more than 20 percent of incentive compensation to “opportunities won.” (Location 1526)
LinkedIn is by far the easiest way to get a message in front of someone when you don’t know his or her email address. Once you’ve built a list of passive candidates, use this formula as a starting point for messaging them: Stand-out subject, short and sweet, and sell the next step. (Location 1588)
Well, you have very similar hurdles to move a passive candidate to active status. To address WHY LISTEN, your subject line is key. With WHY CARE, the messenger and the ask come into play. Remember, most candidates don’t receive messages from a future boss every day. Use that to your advantage. Play to their ego and court them. (Location 1595)
“Nail your subject line. Use their name, use where they went to school, use something that is specifically about them. Next, be specific about why you’re reaching out and provide links to videos, great press, etc. Finally, ask for a referral (to another potential candidate) in case they aren’t willing to consider a change. I’ve had tremendous success with a ‘you or somebody you know’ approach.” (Location 1602)
As an example, MathWorks has done an outstanding job with this. It’s no wonder it was recognized as one of the “Best Places to Work” in 2015 by Glassdoor. Here’s what it is doing right (and what you should be shooting for): ● Videos about the company vision ● Real employee pictures, not stock photos ● Highlighting core values and social mission ● Lots of employee reviews (Location 1732)
I recommend a three-step process for your company on Glassdoor: encourage, respond, and address. Step one, encourage your current team to post reviews. Let them know you want them to have the best-of-the-best colleagues and that reviews on Glassdoor are one way to show what a great company you’re building together. (Location 1749)
Your recruiting process has to be just that, a process, and not random acts of hiring. In this chapter, I’m going to provide you with a six-step framework that I’ve built in my work with clients (see figure 17.1). (Location 1784)
The fifth element for accelerating revenue growth with sales development is execution. To my mind, your sales development group’s ability to execute comes down to three things: 1. The speed at which your reps ramp 2. How intelligently reps speak to prospect business challenges 3. Your group’s effectiveness at reaching and engaging prospects (Location 2558)
In this part of the book, I’ll share strategies, examples, and tools you can use to accelerate onboarding, craft buyer-based messaging, and design effective outreach. I’ll also share a handful of stellar and less-than-stellar messaging examples. (Location 2566)
Jill shared with me that new reps learn most effectively when the approach involves chunking, sequencing, and connecting. Let me summarize what that means. (Location 2605)
If you take away nothing else from this section, remember this: Keep onboarding sessions short. Make the order purposeful. Let them sleep on it. Learn, then do. Revisit. And revisit again. This is how people learn. (Location 2625)
It is my personal belief that reps should be on the phone making dials by the end of their first week. There should be short sessions woven in between classroom trainings, one-on-one meetings, and independent study. There is no better way to test their understanding than with live fire. Obviously, you don’t want them calling the best of the best leads. But you do want them calling on real prospects. Let them make some calls on Friday afternoon and reflect over the weekend. You may be surprised at the list of insightful questions they’ll return with on Monday morning. (Location 2800)
In order to spark curiosity and generate interest, your reps need to have great conversations. This requires actually being interested in prospects. Reps need to be fully fluent in prospect challenges, motivations, and status quos. In short, they need to use buyer-based messaging. (Location 2868)
The key to rising above the competition is buyer-based messaging. With buyer-based messaging, your reps will: ● Differentiate themselves with messages unique to each prospect ● Speak directly to prospect concerns, priorities, drivers, and levers ● Generate curiosity versus sounding like “just another sales rep” (Location 2888)
Let me share two examples of how you can create this type of messaging for your team. The first works well in support of targeted, outbound prospecting, while the second aligns more closely to inbound lead qualification. (Location 2897)
One of the best ways to create, or refresh, buyer-based messaging is by pulling together a cross-functional team for a workshop. The key to executing compelling conversations lies in leveraging the tribal knowledge that is floating around within your organization. (Location 2902)
Here are a few sample questions you can use in the interview process: ● What does a company in our sweet spot look like? ● Which functional areas and titles should the SDR team call? ● What common challenges do those prospects face on a daily basis? ● How are they currently addressing those challenges? ● How do we improve on the status quo? (Location 2909)
For most organizations, no two inbound leads look exactly alike. One prospect might come to your site from searching and downloading an e-book. Another might come via social media and register to attend a webinar, while another might stop by a tradeshow booth. All of these prospects have unique ways they came to us. Where we go awry is when our process does not acknowledge that fact. Many times, our flawed process encourages reps to think “a lead is a lead is a lead.” (Location 2959)
In working with the team, I found that all leads (be they tradeshow, “request a trial,” or any other lead source) were being treated exactly the same way. In fear of letting leads go cold, reps were hammering through lists, leaving the same voicemails, sending the same emails, and asking the same questions. (Location 2966)
As an antidote, Ardath suggests creating campaign-specific call guides. “I advise creating ‘CliffsNotes for Sales’ for the leads that content generates. That way, when reps call the leads, they can have a focused discussion based on which specific piece of content the prospect engaged with. We provide them with questions to ask or points to probe about so that the conversation has value.” (Location 2979)
Think about what Ardath’s “CliffsNotes for Sales” would have meant for my project management software client. Before a big industry tradeshow, for example, marketing and/or sales enablement could have prepared an event brief. It might have looked (Location 2982)
The final component required to equip your reps for business conversations is pre-call planning. Pre-call planning takes good messaging and elevates it to great with one-to-one personalization. The goal is to hook individual prospects with a process that scales. (Location 3011)
One big mistake I see reps and leaders making is to assume that pre-call planning requires deep, detailed, and lengthy research. It needn’t. I recommend an approach I call 3-C. Reps should focus on quickly uncovering a few bullet points on the Company being targeted and the Contact being prospected and prepare a few Conversation Starters to weave into their messaging. This entire process should take no more than five to ten minutes. And it needs to be done only once. After your reps have gathered their 3-Cs, they should make a note in your CRM. When it comes time to make another call or email, they can reference their previous pre-call notes. To give you an idea of what this looks like in practice, here are a few sources your team can use. (Location 3015)
using research as a way to earn the right to have a conversation with the prospect. “Reps don’t need to know absolutely everything about the prospect and company they’re calling. They need to be armed with just enough to show that they’ve made an effort. Pre-call research is really about discovering the why. Why are you calling them, why should they care, and why is what you’re about to tell them truly valuable to their business?” (Location 3038)
The key to success for your SDRs lies in their ability to rise above the white noise that is everyone else approaching that prospect. Make the investment in creating the process and tools your reps can use effectively, and watch the conversations happen. (Location 3048)
To my mind, effective outreach means mastering two things: a multi-touch cadence and a multimedia approach. (Location 3070)
Studies have found that it takes between six and ten attempts (including at least four by phone calls) to properly prospect a given contact. Consider the following from InsideSales.com: The absolute bare minimum number of attempts to contact at least 50 percent of your leads is 6. The average rep’s performance? Between 1.7 and 2.1 attempts before they give up. (Location 3076)
One, voicemail and email are equally important. Two, voicemail and email together are twice as impactful as all the rest combined. (Location 3093)
To create pipeline, your reps need to use the phone. An over-reliance on email leaves them with pen pals—not prospects. (Location 3103)
Without guidance, each rep does his or her own thing—either changing course too frequently or doing what they’ve always done. Implementing a formal and consistent cadence is a must for your group. For your reps, the routine helps them master the game—taking away uncertainty around the process. They can be confident that this cadence is how the most successful reps do it. They know what to do, and their job is to execute effectively. (Location 3162)
In figure 27.1, you’ll find a sample cadence that consists of nine touches over fifteen business days. This example leverages the phone, email, and ghosting (a phone call with no voicemail message left). Social attempts and marketing-driven nurture aren’t shown in this pattern, but they can be built in. Smart companies are figuring out the optimal cadence for their specific market and even specific prospects. You might have one cadence for inbound leads and another for outbound into A-List accounts. (Location 3167)
Kyle shared SalesLoft’s 7x7 cadence which includes seven attempts for each new prospect over a span of seven days. The pattern follows: (Location 3176)
SalesLoft has found that for their market seven touches in seven days works best. For many of my clients it is nine touches in fifteen days. Don’t get hung up on the numbers, you will find your unique formula with trial and error. (Location 3189)
They’ll often object with ● I never get callbacks from voicemail. ● I don’t know anyone who leaves voicemail in their personal life. ● I get a better response from email. (Location 3207)
First, the return call rate on a single voicemail is negligible. So is the likelihood of a first date ending in a marriage proposal. By that math, dating is a waste of time. The value in leaving high-quality messages can’t be measured that simply. (Location 3212)
We use voicemail in sales development not because the reps enjoy it, but because prospects respond to it, and even if they don’t do so immediately, it is a great way to deliver a part of your bigger story that comes across as more “mano y mano” and a less robotic form of communication. (Location 3218)
“Touching base and checking in voicemails waste everyone’s time. But voicemails that are targeted, state a reason for the call, and share relevant information work big time.” (Location 3226)
The key to a great voicemail is to be interesting, relevant, and human. Those are the voicemails that stand out and rise above the noise. (Location 3228)
Your reps have to interrupt the pattern, stand out, and be interesting. Before prospects can respond, they have to actually listen. If you want prospects to listen, your reps have to first show that they’re interested in them. One way to do this is to demonstrate relevancy. For example, your reps could reference something happening in their industry, with their role, at their company, or that they shared in an interview or on Twitter. (Location 3240)
Coach your reps to think, What one thing about this prospect can I include that will get them to tune in? Let’s try this again. (Location 3246)
Even the most amazing voicemail needs a strong call to action, or it’s all for naught. Your reps have to ask for something very specific if they have any hope of receiving a reply. (Location 3260)
Prospects don’t care that your reps made two other attempts. “Haven’t heard back from you after my last call” and “Following up on my recent email” aren’t good enough reasons to call again. Each message should build on the previous and offer something new. Referencing previous attempts wastes precious airtime and often comes off as hostile. (Location 3277)
Rule 4: Don’t Trick Prospects Never let reps leave deceiving messages. Too often, I’ll catch reps leaving vague message like “Dana, Pat Smith here. Just have a quick question for you—555.432.1212” or being flat-out dishonest and saying they were referred by the CEO when they weren’t. It may work; reps may get more callbacks. But you’re setting a precedent that will have future implications. (Location 3283)
Conventional wisdom tells us that the average prospect spends eight to fifteen seconds before deciding whether to continue listening or delete a voicemail. That’s a very short runway to be different, be relevant, and interrupt the pattern. As a rule of thumb, good voicemails run no longer than forty seconds. (Location 3292)
It is my personal belief that reps shouldn’t take up the beginning of their voicemails saying their name and company name. It wastes valuable real estate, and it makes them sound like everyone else. (Remember, be different!) The exception to the rule is the rare instance where the rep’s name or company name actually helps. Oh, Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook . . . I think I’ll listen to this one. (Location 3297)
Compare that to the following modified, and better, message: (Location 3306)
Now, that entire message took about twenty-two seconds to deliver. It targets sales leadership and focuses on a specific challenge many VPs of sales face. It hooks them with relevancy, makes them an offer of something of value, and comes in under twenty-five seconds. Boom! (Location 3310)
Ready for some examples of what good looks like? To set the stage, let’s pick up from my earlier example. Say the SDR is prospecting Dana, the VP of sales for a high-growth technology company. (Location 3337)
with minimal effort your reps can leave stand-out voicemails. The key is to shift expectations from “getting a callback” (consider that a bonus!) to voicemail as one part of a multi-touch cadence that tells prospects a story of the value you deliver. That mindset (and the rules and examples above) will help your reps rise above the noise and dramatically increase their number of prospect conversations. (Location 3354)
Thanks to technology, the cost of sending fifty (or even five hundred) additional emails is near $0. So guess what? Prospects are drowning in sales emails. (Location 3362)
The Three Parts I can’t remember where I heard it first, but a wise person once said, “The best prospecting emails look like the letter F.” They are two or three paragraphs, open with something relevant and interesting, and end with a clear and short ask. They are direct and honest and can be read on a mobile device. (Location 3366)
When training your reps, you want them to think in terms of three paragraphs—each with a specific purpose. (Location 3373)
THE OPEN: The subject and initial sentence are the first and only shot at keeping the prospect’s finger off delete. (Location 3377)
THEWIIFM: This is the meat, where we pitch what’s in it for them. What value are we offering? Why should they respond (let alone care)? (Location 3380)
THE ASK: This is your call to action. If the ask is clear and simple, the likelihood of responses increases exponentially. (Location 3384)
These fall into the what not to do bucket. (Location 3387)
If I opened the email thinking this was about a meeting I’d already agreed to, only to find out that it was a sales pitch, delete. (Location 3406)
Using you downloaded something so I’m emailing you is an absolutely terrible opening. Why not be honest and say, “My manager makes me reach out to every lead to meet an SLA. I’m sending you this to just check the box and say, ‘Yup. I followed up.’” (Location 3427)
If you want your team to write great emails, start dissecting those that you receive. Look for what works and what doesn’t. In fact, ask every senior leader in your company to forward prospecting emails that they receive to your inbox. You want to see any that caught their eye, even if they didn’t respond. (Location 3432)
Paragraph 1: The Open The best emails have subject lines that capture attention and flow beautifully into the first sentence. They also look like a real person wrote them and were sent one to one. (Location 3436)
Subject: This is making you a commodity Trish, This so-called “best practice” is bunk. I know from following you on Twitter that you agree that . . . (Location 3444)
Subject: Your SDRs’ voicemails Trish, The vast majority of SDRs are boring the crap out of prospects with vanilla messaging. Are yours? And if you aren’t listening to their calls, how can you be sure? (Location 3451)
The sender then transitions to something that I had recently posted on my blog. That is how you capture and hold attention. Who doesn’t love to hear about themselves? (Location 3462)
This email used an event in my area to grab my eye. Everyone wants to know what is going on where they live and work. The first sentence is direct and relevant. The ask is crystal clear. I also like that they included the details later in the email. (Location 3468)
Build a library of prospecting emails that combine a strong subject with a great first sentence to capture interest. Present them in a group setting. Assign “homework” for reps to go away and build a similar template for their prospecting. (Location 3479)
What is the best opening line you’ve received from a cold sales email? Hannah Wright, who runs digital marketing at FormAssembly, shared, “An opening line addressing a relevant problem tends to grab my attention. Something straightforward and human. (Location 3483)
‘Hey Hannah, I saw that you’re looking for interns—how has the response been so far?’ (Location 3486)
message. Their email was only a few sentences and there was a question + call to action, making it tough to ignore.” That is the exact response you are going for. (Location 3488)
Paragraph 2: What’s In It for Me (WIIFM) Here’s where your reps have to offer something that matters to prospects. It’s the value proposition, the thing that makes them realize you’re worth their time. To get across WIIFM, emails need to tell prospects what you can do for them (not what you do). (Location 3490)
arouse curiosity and lead down the path to the ask. Email is about generating interest, not educating on what you do. (Location 3502)
Paragraph 3: The Ask The first two paragraphs have been leading up to this point. The ask is the next step your reps want the prospect to take. This should never be a throwaway. (Location 3503)
There’s a raging debate around the “jump on a fifteen-minute call” request from a cold email. Some (maybe the majority) say go for it, while the other side argues that reps need to offer something of value before asking for time. They suggest asking open-ended questions or sharing videos or other relevant content to establish credibility. Once a dialog has been established, only then should a rep ask for a time—or so they argue. I believe that the answer lies in trying both. (Location 3516)
In the final part of this book, we’ll focus on day-to-day leadership. We’ll cover six key considerations: 1. Choosing the right captain 2. Equipping with a toolkit 3. Setting appropriate quotas 4. Architecting core processes 5. Using metrics to drive what matters 6. Implementing enablement technologies (Location 3543)
Enter the sales development toolkit. Your toolkit will give each and every rep the tools, tactics, and messaging to prospect like your best performers do. (These are often referred to as “binders,” “playbooks,” “handbooks,” etc. For simplicity, I’ll use toolkit.)A toolkit is the fastest way to get to repeatable and scalable sales development success. (Location 3719)
Think about all the pieces you’ve included in onboarding new hires. If you’re like most companies, all of that information is scattered across PowerPoints, PDFs, videos, Word documents, and ideas you’ve white boarded but never written down. Your SDR toolkit will take all that information and present it in a format that is concise, specific, visual, and actionable. In the toolkit, you’ll ensure that ● A consistent message is being delivered ● What’s working is being shared ● New hires ramp quickly ● Struggling reps have a map for what great “looks like” ● Reps are enabled, not left to hunt intranets, drives, and wikis (Location 3723)
As Kris suggests, a toolkit is a living and evolving document that’s purpose built to make SDRs more effective. It’s an integral part of your onboarding process as well as the gold standard your managers will coach against. Finally, it’s one hell of a recruiting tool. (Location 3737)
Building a Toolkit My team and I have built somewhere around one hundred sales development toolkits for clients. There are three things that are universally true: 1. The project is a lot of work (think months, not days). 2. There’s no “I” in toolkit (well technically there is, but it still takes a village). 3. Each company’s toolkit is somewhat unique, but there is a blueprint. (Location 3744)
To help you along the way, I want to share the key sections of any SDR toolkit. Below, you’ll find the blueprint I use with my clients. (Location 3779)
Great process is the foundation for repeatable, scalable success. Our reps bring passion, a competitive spirit, and curiosity to their jobs every day. (Location 3933)
To my mind, the four processes that sales development leaders should obsess over are the following: ● Cadence and media ● Speed-to-contact ● Account-centric prospecting ● The SDR-to-account executive handoff (Location 3935)
In InsideSales.com’s Lead Response Management Study, the researchers found the following: Reps are ten times more likely to “contact” a lead if they call within the first hour of its creation. Reps are six times more likely to “qualify” a lead if they call within the first hour of its creation. (Location 3944)
I can see how critical immediate response is in the business-to-consumer space, but I’m a bit of a skeptic as it relates to business-to-business. (Location 3950)
As you think through the speed of your lead response, keep these two ideas in mind: Rule 1: Not all leads are created equally. Every lead doesn’t necessarily deserve an equal application of resources. (Location 3962)
Rule 2: Speed-to-lead requires pre-set plays. Your reps don’t have time to personalize a message when responding immediately. They have to have a pre-set reason to call ready to go. (Location 3980)
If you were to map out all your lead sources on a continuum of immediate response to no response, it might look something like this: (Location 4005)
As you think through lead response time, let a well-thought-out strategy dictate your process, not a stopwatch. (Location 4015)
You’ve done great work on ideal customer profile and key prospect personas. They are: ● Software and professional services companies with under $25M in revenues ● VP/director of marketing or demand generation (Location 4021)
In most organizations, the story ends there. The rep would complete the process, mark the lead as “no contact,” and let marketing take ownership to nurture. I call that approach lead-centric processing. (Location 4027)
My advice is to coach your reps on a two-no’s rule. An account shouldn’t be marked “no contact” until at least two prospects have said no (or not responded). Most often, this means the lead and the boss/leader of the functional area. (Location 4037)
Now we are left with our fourth and final process: the SDR-to-account executive handoff. This is an area where I see significant pipeline leakage. You have built an amazing set of processes to get you to engagement with your buyer, and then you handoff the meeting or opportunity. (Location 4043)
I prefer to couch it as rules of engagement for the handoff. (Location 4053)
Whether your reps are setting introductory meetings or passing qualified opportunities, they are likely calendaring time between the prospect and an assigned account executive. They go by many names: discovery calls, demos, briefings, or meetings. They can also be phone based or scheduled for face-to-face meetings. The most important thing is that your sales development team and your sales organization are aligned as to what a good “discovery call” looks like. This is an area where I regularly see pipeline leakage and effort being wasted. (Location 4054)
The Agreement Too many times, I’ve seen wasted effort (or worse yet, prospect frustration) when an SDR books a discovery call and the account executive either blows it off or does a half-assed job because he or she could tell “the prospect wasn’t a good fit.” You’ll want to remove most (if not all) subjectivity from the equation. When selecting your model and qualification criteria, everyone’s opinions will already have been put on the table. Now you want to (briefly!) document that agreement. It might be as simple as the following (see figure 34.1): (Location 4058)
This is the first part of your agreement. All parties have to agree on what good looks like. Do this and dodge the bullet of subjective reasoning on what constitutes a valid introductory appointment. (Location 4079)
Once a discovery call has been agreed to, the SDR should immediately email both the prospect and the account executive. Here’s a sample email: (Location 4085)
Simple, but effective. The SDR has covered all bases and has communicated effectively with both the prospect and the account executive. This email chain is then captured inside of CRM for reference. A final step to the handoff is confirming the discovery call. This is the SDR’s responsibility. The absolute best way to confirm a call is to text the prospect twenty-four hours in advance (obviously, you need his or her mobile number). Phone or email confirmations are fine, but there is always the risk of the prospect “missing” the confirmation. Most people—from a sixth grader to the CEO of a Fortune 500—never miss a text message. (Location 4103)
During the Call I am a firm believer in the SDR participating in the discovery call. There is no better training experience than live listening. The reps are able to hear how their account executive counterparts move a prospect through the sales process and (equally important) how prospects respond. You might object that this takes them off the phone. Yes, it does. Get over it. You should be thrilled that another member of your organization is assisting in developing the skills of your reps. Assuming that you are onboard with SDRs participating in discovery calls, I suggest letting them kick the call off by making introductions. The SDR then moves into listening and learning mode. (Location 4108)
At the end of the call, it is the account executive’s responsibility to identify and confirm next steps: Who is doing what in what timeframe? What did the prospect and account executive commit to? Closing out a discovery call without a confirmed next step is just a waste, so have a process in place to make sure it does not happen and track those outcomes. (Location 4118)
After the Call Two things need to happen once the call has been completed. First, the SDR and the account executive should debrief immediately. They should discuss the following: ● How well did the call go? ● How could we have done better? ● Is this a real opportunity? ● If not, why not? (Location 4121)
Second, the account executives need to take ownership of the lead/create an opportunity in CRM. In reality, this likely won’t happen immediately. But they need to do it within twenty-four hours. Even if the opportunity is at 0 percent, this process confirms acceptance by the account executive. Because SDRs will be measured (or compensated, promoted, etc.) on this metric, the loop needs to be closed. (Location 4129)
One of the beautiful things about sales development is that it’s so measurable. One of the ugly things associated with sales development is that it is so measurable. (Location 4152)
In the fantastic book Cracking the Sales Management Code, Jason Jordan and Michelle Vazzana identified 306 metrics that leaders use to manage their teams. (Location 4159)
By asking “Can a manager manage this?” they were able to take all those metrics and put them into three categories: (Location 4163)
For one company, the waterfall flows: Marketing Qualified Lead -> Sales Accepted Lead -> Sales Qualified Lead. Another may order it Marketing Qualified Lead -> Sales Qualified Lead -> Sales Accepted Lead. (Location 4231)
The Activity metrics you’ll want to measure include the following: ● Total activities per day ● Inbound lead response time ● Attempts per lead ● # of prospects per account These are the metrics that leaders can manage and reps can control. (Location 4256)
Objectives The next category of metrics deals with Objectives. These are the metrics you’ll use to inspect, diagnose, and coach your reps. (Location 4271)
The Objective metrics you’ll want to measure include the following: ● # of connects/connect rate ● # of quality conversations/rate ● Email response rate ● “Bad data” rate (Location 4275)
I believe that number of quality conversations is one of the most important indicators of rep proficiency. (Location 4285)
The Result metrics you’ll want to measure include the following: ● # of discovery calls ● # of discovery calls accepted as opportunities/acceptance rate ● Show/no-show rate (relevant for introductory meeting model) ● $ SDR-sourced pipeline ● $ SDR-sourced wins ● % of total pipeline sourced by SDRs ● $ won per account executive (relevant for new groups—e.g., pre-/post-SDR team) (Location 4335)
When building sales development dashboards, I keep three things in mind: ● Which metrics ● What timeframe ● For which audience Over the years, I’ve seen and requested, usually from sales operations, a wide variety of dashboards. I’ve settled on a basic blueprint or group dashboard—this should be shared with the first-line manager as well as the team. (Location 4395)
Category 1: Account and Contact Data Access to a database of accurate names, titles, email addresses, and direct-dial phone numbers is far from sexy. But that is the foundation of sales development success. (Location 4452)
Category 2: Sales Intelligence (Location 4465)
Sales intelligence tools put high-value research points at your reps’ fingertips. Many technologies integrate and sit right inside your CRM. (Location 4468)
Unsurprisingly, the use of automated dialers increases the number of average dials per day reps make. (I’d be worried if it didn’t!) It also increases the number of quality conversations per day by nearly thirty percent. (Location 4491)
For those unfamiliar with local presence, when a rep places a call, the prospect sees a caller ID number that is local. For example, if I’m calling from Boston (617 area code) into Atlanta (404 area code), caller ID would show a 404 number. (Location 4495)
From my research, I know that fewer than half of sales development groups use dialing technology. That’s a shame as reps who use these technologies love them. (Location 4503)
Category 4: Email Platform (Location 4506)