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September 26, 2017 - April 21, 2019
The people making the calls don’t update the data.”
LinkedIn, Data.com, InsideView, and other tools, fabulous though they might be.
Let me end with this: if you can invest $1 in improving processes or improving data, I’d choose data all day every day.
Outsourced lead generation/appointment setting firms were the first to embrace this role.
Great vision without great people is irrelevant. Jim Collins
In the words of renowned American philosopher Mike Tyson, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
“I felt that if I could get the right people into the system, even if I did a mediocre job at training and management, they would find a way to win. But if I got mediocre people in, even if I did a world-class job at training and leading, it wouldn’t matter.”
“If you always hire people who are smaller than you are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. If, on the other hand, you always hire people who are bigger than you are, we shall become a company of giants.”
There are three characteristics that are universal in the best sales development candidates: passion, competitiveness, and curiosity.
When I say passion, I mean perseverance and grit over the long term.
“the gritty individual approaches achievement as a marathon; his or her advantage is stamina.”
“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.”
Passion plus great leadership equals success. You can train just about anyone on your market, your prospects, and your process. But all the cash, technologies, and training in the world won’t light a fire in someone’s belly.
A successful sales development environment requires balancing the opportunity to compete, the reward for winning, and the learning that comes from competing.
Rainmaker conference in Atlanta.
Ali shared that she looks for “compassionate competitors—reps who like to win, but not at the expense of their teammates.”
Peer coaching, group learning, and celebrating team wins are hallmarks of great teams.
You want reps who are intellectually curious lifelong learners and who strive to figure out what works and try new things.
“Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities.”
A job description should sell the job. If you can’t capture attention and interest, who the hell cares about the fine print.
Our job descriptions should leave candidates with just one impression: this is the place to advance my career.
I recently asked a pool of ten up-and-coming SDRs to look at one hundred different job postings. If at least two reps said any one of the jobs looked interesting, I flagged it as a good example.
Example 1: Zenefits Zenefits is the fastest-growing “Software as a Service” (SaaS) company ever. The founders managed to hit on a great idea at just the right time, and now they’re reaping the rewards. Two years ago, we had six employees and zero customers. Only a year later, the company had hired 212 employees and signed over 2,000 customers. A Sales Development Representative is a salesperson-in-training. For a year, you’ll help Account Executives cultivate leads and sell Zenefits to businesses. After a year of apprenticeship, you’ll begin to nurture leads of your own, and will take a
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You can download the SDR Compensation Calculator here: http://sdrbook.io/SDRCOMP. To dial in “market” compensation, you’ll likely want to do some Googling, ask local recruiters, and check sites such as Glassdoor, Indeed, and PayScale.
Keep the candidates’ perspective in mind. Yes, you’re going to build a great culture, they’re going to learn a ton, and this will change the trajectory of their careers. But yes, you also have to pay a market rate.
In terms of a general rule, base salary should be roughly 60–70 percent of total compensation for sales development reps.
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. This plan would also be uncapped—meaning no ceiling on monthly commission. As such, there is no incentive for an SDR to sandbag meetings (withhold until the following month) in an attempt to “game” the compensation plan.
Let’s pause for a moment to recap. ● You know the ideal traits for SDRs. ● You’ve created a job description that sizzles. ● You’re committed to paying market rate for top talent. Next up, you need to figure out how to source candidates.
Additionally, be sure to use inbound marketing principles in your posts on job boards. This can be as simple as including “recent grads,” “for veterans,” “entry level,” or “business major” in the title of your job post and writing for those specific audiences. Re-read the Acquia example from chapter 12 to see what I mean.
Remember our friends The Five Whys (see figure 15.1)? Figure 15.1 – The Five Whys framework
Figure 17.1 – Six-step hiring process
Finally, make sure to focus on the candidate’s ability to ask you for something, more commonly referred to as “the close.” At the risk of stating the obvious, closing is a critical sales development skill. If a candidate doesn’t close at the end of the interview, you have a problem.
Personally, I prefer the offer to come from either the CEO or the VP sales—as high as you can go. This is a final opportunity to make the candidate feel special. Just like with job descriptions, add some personality and sizzle to the offer letter. It is a sales tool, and until the candidate signs on the dotted line, you are still in selling mode.
You manage things; you lead people. Grace Hopper (Rear Admiral, US Navy)
It’s time to gear up for what can feel like another full-time job: engaging, developing, and motivating your reps.
A great many managers spend more time emailing and instant messaging their reps than sitting with them one on one. This makes about as much sense as trying to teach your child to ride a bike via text messaging. You need to be hands on.
It is getting harder and harder to over-achieve goals by “managing” processes and tools alone. Sales development leaders need to spend less time managing things and more time leading people.
The best leaders live by the following: My top priority is to increase the skills of each rep and the performance of my team. To do that, I’m going to create a robust learning environment.
EMC is a company that understands this. Its EMC Sales Associate Program (http://sdrbook.io/EMCPROGRAM) takes individuals looking to begin a sales career and, according to its program brochure, offers them “intense technology training, live lead generation preparation, and invaluable mentoring to get [them] ready for the future [they’ve] always dreamed was possible.”
Groupon shares this philosophy. Its recruiting video Sales Development at Groupon puts this thinking front and center (http://sdrbook.io/GROUPONSDR).
Coaching is not a component within the sales manager role; managing is now a component of the new coaching role.
Hot Seat First, a rant. If you really want to be a fantastic coach, I’m going to tell you something you may not want to hear. You (or your first-line managers if you’re the executive sponsor) need to make calls.
I personally make at least ten outbound calls every day. I do it to vet technologies, to validate lists, to test new messaging, etc. The benefits of firsthand experience are amazing. Making calls should be incorporated into your schedule.
At the risk of beating a dead horse here, the benefits to coaching surpass anything else you can do—from compensation, to gamification, to the beer cart on Friday afternoons. If you want a world-class team, you (or your first-line leaders) need to provide world-class coaching. No shortcuts, no excuses.
The CFO asks the CEO, “What happens if we invest in developing our people and they leave us?” The CEO responds, “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?”
Remember the Groupon recruiting video I mentioned earlier?
Helping your individual reps grow their professional skills is a critical success factor for retention.
Consider what SAP Chief Executive Officer Bill McDermott has to offer. In an interview with HubSpot’s Emma Snider (http://sdrbook.io/SAPBILL), he shared: As a leader, you have to deeply care about the people who follow you—not just in terms of what they can do for you or your company, but how you can help them achieve their dreams and aspirations in life. Workplaces shouldn’t be prison cells—they should be places where people come to flourish and fulfill their dreams.
Just Listen by Mark Goulston. Reps would share their top three takeaways on communicating with hostile or resistant people.
One option I highly recommend is the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals (AA-ISP).
