How To BuildA Successful

SalesDevelopment

Team

IntroductionAs the B2B landscape has changed rapidly in recent years, an increasing number of innovative businesses have adapted by separating their sales teams into specialized units as a scalable, efficient way to build and sustain pipeline. This growing trend, led by technology companies, has been to divide sales teams into two distinct categories that focus on different stages of the selling cycle – “business generators” and “business closers.” And the sales development representatives (SDRs) are those generators. Think of the SDRs as being the foot soldiers on the front lines. They do the heavy lifting at the front end of the sales cycle. SDRs are responsible for qualifying inbound leads and making outbound calls and emails. They book meetings and schedule demos. Their hard work sets the stage for the “closers” – the account executives, who are responsible for turning those prospects into closed deals.

“You can really build pipeline, which is the Holy Grail of any company’s growth, if you dedicate internal resources to the sole task of generating appointments for the account executives,” said Lars

Nilsson, the Vice President of Field Operations at Cloudera Inc. “If you leave lead generation to an account executive – forcing them to qualify, sell and close – it’s very difficult to build pipeline. They lose focus. So you must put together a specialized team that’s very good at evaluating leads and deciding where there is value.”

There is no one, single way to build a strong sales development operation. But there are common traits to creating a strong SDR team.

The three essential ingredients to success are “technology, process and people,” according to Trish Bertuzzi, the CEO of The Bridge Group and a sales development expert. And while it’s true the idea of sales development has been around for years under different names, specialized SDR teams now are becoming THE way of maximizing productivity. This eBook is a guide that will help teach you how to establish a strong sales development foundation, hire and train the right people, and then equip them with the proper technology they will need to build a robust, qualified pipeline.

Table of contents

How to create your sales development processFinding your target market .........................................................................................5The SDR job descriptions ............................................................................................6Building your team .........................................................................................................7Defining key metrics ......................................................................................................11

How to hire the right SDRsCharacteristics of top SDRs ...................................................................................... 14How to find talent ......................................................................................................... 16Interview best practices ..............................................................................................17Compensation guide.................................................................................................... 19

How to manage your SDR teamOnboarding versus on-going training ....................................................................21Keeping up morale ........................................................................................................21Balancing “now” and “the future” ...........................................................................22Building a team identity .............................................................................................22

How to encourage creativity

How to equip your SDRs with the right solutionsExample technology stacks ..................................................................................... 26Day-to-day activities and useful tools ..................................................................27

STEP ONE

How to Create Your Sales Development Process

Of course you want more revenue, but what good is it if it isn’t

predictable?”Aaron Ross, Predictable Revenue

A well-organized SDR team functions like an engine. It runs smoothly. It’s predictable, accountable and scalable. It requires minimal oversight from the executive team. But the first step is deciding what exactly that engine should look like. “You can’t expect to build a team without structure and a process,” said Jason Vargas, managing director of sales development at Datanyze. “It’s a mistake to hire people without a foundation in place. You need to understand what your company needs before you start building a team.”

So, let’s map out how to build this machine based on what we have learned from hundreds of successful sales development teams as well as detailed interviews with industry thought-leaders.

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Finding Your Target Market

You need to estimate both your Total Addressable Market and Serviced Addressable Market. This will help you create a target list of accounts for your SDRs to pursue and also give you a sense of how many people you ultimately can hire. This is important because identifying high-value targets is a core tenet of Account-Based Marketing, which is the growing trend in the B2B sales space. The goal is to focus on a more limited number of accounts – companies – that have the greatest chance of producing revenue rather than chasing after a vast number of leads of questionable value.

• Total Addressable Market: The total number of businesses with the potential to buy your product.

• Serviced Addressable Market: The portion of the total addressable market that your company currently has the ability to support. (Consider geographic, technical and resource constraints).

When planning the team, use your Serviced Addressable Market – or a particular segment of it – to estimate how many SDRs you will initially need. The Total Addressable Market will identify future growth opportunities as resources become available. To uncover your available market, you will need to consider utilizing technology solutions that can help you identify new, high-valued accounts based on a variety of business data qualifiers such as:

• Company revenue

• Industry

• Geography

• Number of employees

• Software providers

• Alexa ranking

PRO TIP: A common mistake when choosing targets is to think too broadly. Don’t just rely on widely available lists such as the Global 2000 or Alexa 10K. Although these prospects likely can afford your product, not all of them are going to be worth your time. Many will not want, or need, your solution. Before hiring SDRs, a great deal of thought needs to be placed on having a clear understanding of your ideal prospect. “You have limited resources and you can’t sell to everybody,” said Brian Birkett, vice president of sales at LeanData. “So you want to look at your customers, figure out what they have in common AND use those commonalities to identify a manageable subset of all the other potential targets out there.”

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The SDR Job Descriptions

Once you have a fresh list of ideal prospects, the time has come to build a dedicated sales development team to start pursuing them. Let’s start by identifying the two different roles an SDR can play: Outbound and Inbound.

• Inbound SDRs: These are the qualification juggernauts of a development team. They dazzle prospects with insanely fast, personalized responses to contact requests or any other form of inbound communication.

• Outbound SDRs: These are the lifeblood of sales development and will make up the majority of your team. You give them a list of target accounts, and they will do their best to put your closers in front of the best, high-revenue accounts.

And just to be clear, your SDRs likely will be handling both Inbound and Outbound roles when you are

first starting a development team. This is known as a “hybrid” SDR system. So you will be targeting job candidates who have strong skills in both areas. Later, as your team matures, you probably will want to specialize your SDRs into the different jobs.

Think of the roles this way: The Inbound SDRs are the farmers and the Outbound SDRs are the hunters. The Inbound SDRs are responsible for evaluating all the leads that come directly to your business. Someone visited your booth at a trade show. Downloaded a piece of your content. Watched a webinar. They have done something to show up on your radar. The Inbound SDRs will evaluate those incoming leads and feed the qualified ones to the account executives. Meanwhile, the Outbound SDRs are the searchers. They are actively prospecting new accounts from your target list with cold calls and emails.

PRO TIP: Many sales managers see the value of separating the SDR team into Inbound and Outbound roles as soon as possible because the tasks require different approaches. “The benefit is you’re helping the SDRs focus on one specific job,” said Jin Daikoku, Director of Inside Sales at Netskope. “When you’re an inbound SDR, you’re welcoming an interested party to your company. You want your Outbound SDRs to focus just on hunting. If you’re spoon-feeding them leads, they’re not going to be hungry and they’re not going to want to go hunting. Inbound SDRs are casting a net and Outbound SDRs are hunting with spears.” At the same time, Daikoku believes it doesn’t make sense to split the team until you are generating enough workable, qualified leads each month.

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Building Your Team

How many SDRs you need likely will be a moving target when you’re getting started. So, experts suggest beginning with a few SDRs and then adding to your headcount as needed. If you are subdividing your SDR team into two units, there are three questions to consider when deciding how many Outbound SDRs are required:

• How many closers will they support?

• What are my company’s revenue goals?

• How many accounts are in my serviced addressable market?

1. SDRs to Closers: According to a Bridge Group survey of 222 B2B technology companies, a common practice is to employ one SDR for every 3.9 account executives. For high-growth startups looking to penetrate a less mature market, the ratio is closer to 1:2 or even 1:1. A few other factors may also affect your ratio:

• Inbound leads. If your company already generates a healthy amount of qualified inbound leads, you may want to broaden this ratio to 1:5 or 1:6.

• Deal complexity. If your sales cycle is on the shorter side – less than, say, six weeks – chances are your closers can handle more accounts and your ratio should be closer to 1:3.

• Upward mobility. Where will your best SDRs be in one to two years? In most cases, the SDR role serves as a launching point for a sales career. You will want to be able to reward your top SDR performers with promotions when Account Executive positions become available – or you will lose them to better job opportunities. You will need to create a ratio between SDRs and Account Executives where advancement is both attainable and occurs on a regular basis. But we hesitate to recommend a specific ratio because turnover will be different at every company.

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2. SDRs to Revenue: Another way to determine SDR headcount is to align it with revenue goals over a certain time period. The formula below was created by Evan Robinson, InsightSquared’s director of sales, to persuade his CEO to hire five Outbound SDRs. It essentially works backward from your revenue target to determine how much pipeline must be generated and how many SDRs will be needed to create it. For a detailed description of the formula, check out the full post.

3. SDR Capacity: A third way of determining how many SDRs you should hire is to conduct a detailed analysis of how many touches it will take to effectively work your target account list. Match that with how many touches an individual SDR can make during a specific timeframe. Here are a few factors that affect both calculations:

• Leads Per Account. When calculating touches, Matt Bertuzzi, a sales influencer with The Bridge Group, notes that you should first identify the average number of leads per account. For companies selling to small businesses, there may only be one to two leads to approach inside an account. But for companies selling to enterprise-size companies, this number could be as high as 10 to 15. That, of course, dramatically impacts the number of accounts your SDRs can work.

• Touch Capacity. Kevin Markl, the SDR Manager at CallidusCloud, uses the number of touches his team produces each day to determine how many SDRs he should hire. For example, let’s say your SDRs can each make 100 touches each day, split

between outbound calls and emails. Assuming a 20-day work month, this means they make about 2,000 touches per month. Now, let’s say each lead receives 10 touches before being closed. This means your SDRs can each work about 200 leads per month – or most likely 10 to 15 percent more when you factor in the leads that close before an outreach cycle is exhausted.

• Lead Seniority Level. The number of accounts your SDRs can effectively handle is impacted greatly by the seniority level of your average lead, according to Trish Bertuzzi. To reach the C-level, your SDRs likely will need to put in more touches to get past more gatekeepers.

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Inbound SDRs

If you don’t have a hybrid team, you may very well need fewer dedicated Inbound SDRs. But that is completely dependent on your business’ sales model. If you are creating a new category or are a smaller, less well-known company, you likely will be need more Outbound SDRs who are hunting up business and introducing your company to targets who may have never heard of you or your solution. But “logo” companies that have wide appeal and broad support will have more inbound leads that require the harvesting process.

The larger point, though, is don’t underestimate the value of the Inbound SDRs. This graphic tells the story about their importance when they immediately follow up on leads.

Craig Rosenberg, co-founder of TOPO and a sales development expert, believes the typical number of leads an Inbound SDR can handle is between 200 and 500 a month. This number will vary greatly depending on your qualification criteria and the presence of a lead scoring system. Companies that have an automated scoring mechanism in place are able to handle about 90 more leads a month than those without one, according to TOPO. But an important point to remember is that if you are an innovative company that is utilizing an Account-Based Marketing strategy, you will be less concerned about tracking leads and more focused on touches within a high-value target account. You will be thinking more about the quality of your touches than the quantity.

SDR Manager

If your SDR team grows to larger than three to five reps, it will be time to invest in a manager with the skills and expertise to scale the operation. Sales development was born from the idea of specialization. So having your SDRs report directly to the vice president of sales or the vice president of marketing is not going to produce the results you desire. You want to have someone focused solely on the team.

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In a perfect world, an SDR manager would be promoted from within your existing team. “Find someone good who has grown up inside the company,” said Jason Vargas, of Datanyze. “It’s a great reward. Besides, your team wouldn’t want somebody brought in from the outside who they probably would have to train in your system anyway.”

Your SDR manager will have key responsibilities:

• Hiring. The SDR manager likely will not have the final say in hiring decisions, but should play a significant role. His or her input should be taken into consideration throughout the process.

• Onboarding and training. Each time a new SDR is hired, the manager has the responsibility of ensuring they start producing – fast. The manager should work on creating a dedicated Sales Development Playbook that covers the core principles of sales development – lead sourcing, lead research and lead outreach.

• Finding new tools. There is an incredible amount of technology solutions available to make SDRs more productive in their day-to-day routine. The SDR manager should be up-to-date on the latest industry advice and always testing new products that push the team to be even more efficient and productive.

• Monitoring performance. Choosing the right metrics and reporting on these numbers is crucial to the success of any SDR team. A manager should be comfortable using your CRM’s analytics features and able to report on the team’s performance with hard data.

PRO TIP: Sales managers emphasize the need to be adaptable when you are building your SDR team. You constantly have to reassess how the team is performing and what adjustments need to be made. Nothing should be written in stone because circumstances change – especially as the team grows. “What you learn is that as you start adding people, systems break down,” said Jason Vargas, of Datanyze. “It doesn’t mean you have done anything wrong. But you do have to modify and create a new system. And then when you add even more people, it will break again. It’s a constant process of tinkering. You’re always going to run up against new challenges and have to regroup.”

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Defining Key Metrics

Craig Rosenberg, of TOPO, believes there are two metrics to track in sales development. Operational metrics reflect your SDR’s day-to-day activities – such as individual touches. Strategic metrics are a representation of your team’s overall performance – pipeline and revenue. We have added a third category called performance metrics, which focuses on the outcomes of the operational metrics.

Operational metrics

Emails sent

Calls made

Leads sourced (for outbound SDRs if working a new target

market)

Leads qualified (for inbound SDRs)

Performance metrics

Email replies (we don’t recommend

tracking open rates because this can be misleading)

Call connects (should not include

connects with gatekeepers)

Voicemail callbacks

Leads contacted to deal conversion rate

Strategic metrics

Number of qualified deals created for closers

Total amount of pipeline generated

Total amount of revenue generated

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Operational Metrics: Most of these metrics can be tracked fairly easily within your CRM as long as your SDRs are properly logging emails, calls and leads created. When ramping up your team, you will want to work with each SDR individually to get a feel for their skill level and so you can set realistic goals. With operational metrics, do not mistake activity for productivity.

Using only activity to measure performance will ultimately hurt your SDR team. Make them focus on what truly matters – booking qualified meetings. That’s productivity. “You have to look at what’s truly important for your SDR team to accomplish,” said Jason Vargas of Datanyze. “I don’t care if you made 50 calls today. I’m not going to ask you to engage in pointless activities as long as you are achieving the goals that really count. Everything you do should be results-oriented. You should want to grade people on success.”

Performance Metrics: These metrics are a bit more difficult to track within your CRM. So, consider using a sales automation solution like Yesware and Outreach for emails and RingDNA or InsideSales.com for calls. The main performance metrics that you will want to monitor are replies to emails, connects to calls, and lead-to-opportunity conversion rate for new leads sourced.

Strategic Metrics: Think of these as your ingredients for making a comprehensive, executive dashboard. These metrics should provide answers to questions like:

• How much pipeline has the SDR team generated this month?

• How many qualified opportunities has the SDR team passed on to the account executives?

• What is the revenue generated this month from deals started by the SDR team?

PRO TIP: When it comes to tracking performance metrics, arranging meetings with prospective customers is the No. 1 goal of SDRs. But many sales managers believe that it’s not enough simply to have meetings or demos scheduled. Instead, those have to be actually completed for an SDR to get credit. This way, the SDR has more incentive to ensure the meeting actually occurs. “What this means is that the big push doesn’t come in those final few days of the month,” said Caelum Shove, the Business Development Manager at Extole. “It actually happens in the middle two weeks when your team is trying to book meetings before the end of the month.”

STEP TWO

How to hire the right SDRs

Great vision without great people is irrelevant.”

James C. Collins, author of “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don’t”

Any entrepreneur or leader who has been in charge of building a team understands the immense challenges in finding, teaching and empowering the right people to excel at their jobs. Managers often say that hiring is the most difficult part of what they do. It is an inexact science as you try to project if a candidate will be a productive fit into your team. That skill takes time to develop. Here is some of what we have learned over the years – from screening thousands of candidates and conducting hundreds of interviews – that can help you choose the best people.

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Characteristics of top SDRs

Before diving in, we should note that successful SDRs come from a variety of backgrounds. Some are introverts while others are extroverts. Some envision long careers in sales while others see it as stepping-stone to other things. Some are excited by the challenge of cold-calling, while others look at a phone with the sense of dread. It can be a job both for those who have a wealth of experience as well as for those who are fresh out of college. But all must have a commitment to quality work and a desire to embrace your company’s culture.

Are they passionate?

Being an SDR can be really, really challenging. The job takes hours of preparation, consistent hard effort and a never-say-die attitude when things aren’t going as planned. (And things rarely ever go as planned). Many SDRs become discouraged, burned out or – worst of all – complacent. SDRs must be able to persevere through adversity and remain upbeat. So look for people who are coming in the door passionate about your product and industry.

Are they confident?

This is a job where you will hear “no” much more often than “yes.” And yet SDRs immediately have to pick themselves up and jump back on the phone – only to possibly get shot down once more. It can be easy for SDRs to start second-guessing their abilities. Are they able to learn from rejection and remain optimistic through the inevitable rough patches? Part of the interview process will be judging if a candidate is naturally confident. Jin Daikoku, of Netskope, notes that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results. “But if you think about it, that’s exactly what sales development is like – especially prospecting,” he added. “The last 79 phone calls went to voicemail and weren’t returned. But you have faith that the 80th call is going to be different. That attitude is difficult to maintain. Yet that’s exactly what you need to see in an SDR.”

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Are they concise?

SDRs are notorious for overloading prospects with too much information in lengthy emails that detail product features and benefits. When they are fortunate enough to get a decision-maker on the phone, they sometimes can become carried away and begin spouting acronyms and ROI statistics. “The best salespeople are good conversationalists,” Eric Gonzalez the senior manager of sales development at Glassdoor. “You want a natural style because it’s too easy to sound like a robot when you’re selling. But you also need to know when to stop talking.” So determine if your potential SDR can be concise.

You should consider giving candidates a writing assignment. In fact, this might be the most important thing you do as part of the interview process. A writing sample will give you a great idea about the communication skills of prospective SDRs. Ask candidates to send you a sample outreach email as if you were a prospect. Do they use an economy of words? Can they succinctly make a personalized pitch in a few sentences that are clearly understood?

Are they competitive?

Just like many sports, sales can be bruising. And there is a scoreboard. Did you hit your numbers this month? People who have competitive personalities – self-starters who push themselves and enjoy seeing how the match up against others – can thrive in an SDR environment.

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How to Find Talent

Much of looking for candidates is common sense. You post the job. Spread the word through social media. Maybe hire a recruiter. But another tactic is to not just wait for candidates to come – or be handed – to you. Instead, you should consider using the same skills that you expect your SDRs to possess: Actively prospect and think creatively.

Always be on the lookout: Sales managers should constantly be searching for new talent. Datanyze, for instance, has two of its current SDRs looking for prospective candidates on the side – and they are rewarded if someone they identify becomes a colleague. Having a “bank” of prospective candidates also can be helpful if you have to replace someone quickly or are ramping up your SDR team.

Think differently: When you are tied to preconceived ideas about what kind of background potential SDRs should possess, you may be self-limiting your talent pool. Look outside the sales field. Consider candidates who have unusual job and life experiences. They could be hidden gems. “You just can’t think about an ideal profile because you might be missing out on somebody spectacular,” LeanData’s Brian Birkett said. “If you have an open mind, you might find a diamond in the rough.”

Work a network: Consider the profile of your company’s current employees. You might see common traits that can help you locate prospects with similar backgrounds who could be a good fit for your culture. Are you hiring a younger profile? Then tap into college networks in your hunt for fresh talent. We’re not just talking about alumni groups, but also other organizations that build deep, innate bonds – fraternities, sororities, athletic teams, bands, ROTC and so on. These kinds of candidates, of course, will have less experience. So you must look for personality traits such as aptitude, drive and inquisitiveness when evaluating them.

PRO TIP: Jason Seeba, chief marketing technologist at BloomReach, likes to look for “undiscovered talent” in unusual places. He has hired SDRs from law schools, the financial world, the oil and gas industry, and advertising. In fact, he prefers to look outside of the technology industry and seeks out people who don’t have traditional SDR experience. “I’m looking more at who a person is rather than what a person has done,” Seeba said. “I want smart people who are good communicators and are likable. People still buy from people. And they want to buy from people they like.”

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Interview Best Practices

SDR candidates should be taken through a well-defined interview process that involves a combination of phone screens and in-person interviews. You know the drill. Candidates are asked a variety of behavioral and situational questions in hopes of teasing out whether they will be a good fit for the job. But Glassdoor’s Eric Gonzalez notes that candidates always will talk about being motivated, conscientious, competitive and so on. But he likes to ask a key follow-up question: Give examples. “People are always going to give you the right answers in interviews,” Gonzalez said. “But I want to hear examples of what they’ve done that backs up what they are saying. Show me.”

In our experience, some of the best interview techniques mimic elements of the job that an SDR performs. With that in mind, here are several questions that will help you get started on identifying your future top performers.

1. Take me through your resume — in 90 seconds or less.

One of the most valuable skills any SDR can have is selectivity. He or she must be able to decide what information is most important, and then communicate it clearly and quickly. Asking candidates to give a short overview of their resume forces them to be succinct and focus on the experiences they believe are most relevant. Then, you can ask additional questions that dive into specific areas of their background.

2. Describe our product as if you were explaining it to your grandparents.

This one is fun — and can be tremendously effective. If your candidates are well-prepared, they have a general understanding of your product or technology solution. They probably can “speak the language.” But how good are they at explaining the product’s core value in simple terms? So, ask the candidates: Describe it to your grandparents. This will challenge their ability to communicate in basic, easy-to-understand phrases that are jargon-free and accurately convey what your product does.

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3. You have to book a sales meeting by tomorrow. How do you do it?

Asking a candidate to take you through this job-related task gives you insight into their thought process as well as their ability to improvise. You will want your candidate to be as thorough as possible without receiving too much guidance. For candidates who have been SDRs before, you should expect their response to be pretty refined. So challenge them through every detail.

4. What is one feature we could add to improve our product?

Give your candidates the opportunity to demonstrate their creativity – and preparation – by asking them what they would do if they were given the keys to the product. How could they make it better? This could spark a real conversation that brings out your candidate’s passion for not only the job, but the company as a whole.

PRO TIP: On an SDR team, it all comes down to productivity. An empty seat hurts – and that includes when there is someone sitting in it. That’s why Eric Gonzalez, of Glassdoor, believes you must be incredibly selective when hiring. “We’re always really, really picky,” Gonzalez said. “We hire smart people who are motivated. One good SDR hire is worth two or three other SDR hires. That’s why we’re willing to wait to find just the right person. And we’ve found that if you put a smart, capable SDR around other smart, capable SDRs, they all will naturally become more competitive.”

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Compensation Guide

According to that Bridge Group survey of 222 B2B technology companies mentioned earlier, the nationwide average SDR base salary is $46K with average, on-target earnings hovering around $72K. Of course, compensation should be competitive within the bounds of your market and the experience of each SDR. It’s also important to remember that a strong economy means that good employees are in demand.

Bonus plans are fairly objective. But we recommend that you consider the following criteria that are based on quarterly performance metrics:

1. Number of qualified deals created. A common way to calculate an SDR’s bonus is to have a predetermined number of deals that you would like each to create for the quarter. Attach this to a dollar amount. If an SDR achieves 95 percent of quota, he or she will receive 95 percent of the bonus. If you are concerned about SDRs hitting their quota and becoming complacent, you can always allot the bonus by assigning a dollar amount – say $50 – for every deal created.

2. Amount of qualified pipeline generated. Similar to deals created, the amount of pipeline generated can be based on a pre-determined number. We define pipeline as the total amount of potential

revenue an SDR has generated based on the monetary value a closer has assigned to each deal. Let’s say you set a pipeline goal of $500,000 per SDR. This means that if an SDR creates 50 deals that have a total pipeline value of $400,000, they have hit 80 percent of quota.

3. Revenue generated from deals created that have closed. If you are most concerned about the outcome of the deals created by your team, you may prefer to compensate SDRs based on the amount of revenue they generate for the company. Typically, SDRs will receive between .5 and 5 percent commission on each deal they create that closes. Datanyze doesn’t recommend this compensation path, though, because the majority of the sales cycle is out of an SDR’s control. LeanData, on the other hand, thinks it’s an under-leveraged tool for greater business success. While it might sound unfair to be tying an SDR’s compensation package to the close of deals because so much is indeed outside the control of the SDR, it doesn’t change the fact that the ultimate goal is to grow revenue. The company moves forward on closed deals. Everyone has skin in that game. And SDRs must feel like they have a stake instead of being able to say: Well, at least I did my part. Don’t look at me.

STEP THREE

How to Manage Your SDR Team Process

They are the future of your organization...”

Brian Birkett, LeanData

Your team is up and running. Now the slog begins. How do you keep your SDRs productive in spite of the barrage of rejections? This will be the biggest challenge of managing an SDR team.

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If we’re going to be honest, we need to acknowledge that nobody grows up dreaming of being an SDR. It’s a pathway to bigger and better things. The job can be demoralizing. It’s not fun to call people and have them hang on you. It’s infuriating to know that your emails are being opened, and yet you are still being ignored. An SDR team manager has to be a coach, a cheerleader, a therapist and, yes, sometimes even a drill sergeant. But most of all, it means knowing when to be each one of those. It’s the nature of the sales development job that sometimes it can feel like there is a black cloud hanging over the team. You have to find ways to let the sun shine through – turning that negative energy into something positive for your SDRs.

Onboarding versus on-going training. The onboarding process for new hires will provide basic information to get SDRs started. But the training can never stop. A continuing improvement program where the team acquires new skills and tactics is a must. Krista McMillan, Sales Development Practice Leader at TOPO, has written about how SDR coaching is seriously lacking in most organizations. This is a risk because 74.5 percent of SDRs have less that one year of work experience, and most have no prior sales experience, McMillan noted. It’s why TOPO recommends four to six hours per month of coaching for each SDR. There always will be something your

team can learn to help them do their job better. SDRs should share wins with each other and brainstorm lessons learned from losses. The more skills and knowledge SDRs possess, the greater the chances for success – which obviously will make them feel better about their jobs.

Keeping up morale. It can be tedious work spending your day working the phones and sending out emails. “Sales development is a little bit like shoveling sand,” said Netskope’s Jin Daikoku. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t whistle while you work.” And hopefully find some polished diamonds, too. That means putting effort into creating an enjoyable work environment – a place where the dress code might be casual but the work approach is professional. More than that, it’s about finding ways to create an atmosphere that “owns” the inherent frustrations of the job. For instance, there could be value in gathering an SDR team together to share the most negative comments they’ve received that week. It can almost become a contest of “top this one.” It’s not about bringing people down, but rather lifting them up as a group – and beyond. OK, we’ve had a good laugh about those tough moments. We moved past them. It’s out of our system. Now on to the next challenge.

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Balancing “now” and “the future.” You want to get the full potential out of your SDRs while they are in this role. That means keeping them focused on the “now” – their productivity. But you also must be invested in “the future” – their future. Being an SDR is an aspirational position. They can have a relatively short shelf life at this job. So you have to balance the day-to-day expectations with their big-picture, professional development. “They are the future of your organization,” said LeanData’s Brian Birkett. “From a motivational perspective, it’s great to be able to have real career path discussions with your SDRs from Day One. You know they’re going to be thinking about their future. You should be, too. If they know you are thinking about their long-term vision, it will help keep them working hard now as they accomplish the task at hand.”

Building a team identity. SDRs are a tribe unto themselves. They are the only ones who really know what it’s like to be there down in the trenches. Their colleagues sitting next to them understand the frustration of feeling like you’re not getting anywhere . . . and the sheer elation of hard-earned success. That creates a natural camaraderie. Extole’s Caelum Shove encourages his SDR teams to act just like that – a team. “You have to stress that you really are all in this together,” Shove said. “Sharing knowledge across the team is very important, especially when you come across a formula that is working. This is an email that worked for me. This is a phone pitch that worked. You want your team sharing ideas and helping one another.”

PRO TIP: Glassdoor’s Eric Gonzalez believes actions speak louder than words when it comes to keeping the morale strong on a sales development team. “It’s super-important that the SDRs see people who have been promoted into the account executive roles, and who are really killing it there,” Gonzalez said. “They need to be able to see that if they put their time in the seat and grow, they not only will get promoted, but they also can do well.”

STEP FOUR

How to Encourage Creativity

Creativity is what gets results...” Jason Seeba, BloomReach

You have hired the right people. You gave them the proper training. Now, empower them to be creative. The highest performing teams think outside of the box.

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PRO TIP: “Creativity is what gets results,” said BloomReach’s Jason Seeba. “It’s really as simple as that. Sure, you can send out 10,000 emails through Marketing Automation with a touch of a button in a single blast. But the reality is you can get better results with one, thoughtful email than those 10,000 impersonal emails. People respond when you approach them as individuals.”

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Yes, the job involves qualifying inbound leads and and cold-calling prospects. How much creativity can that require? The short answer: An amazing amount . . . if it’s done correctly. You didn’t hire robots. So why do you want them to act in a robotic fashion? Sparks of inspirations can lead to unique, unusual approaches to engage prospects can be just the thing that separates your team from the herd of other SDRs out there trying to capture the attention of people inside a high-value target account. Going beyond the normal boundaries can produce extraordinary results.

Personalization: You will give your SDRs email templates and phone call scripts. But if they all sound the same, there will be no personal connection that cuts through clutter and makes your message stand out. You have to create hyper-targeted pitches that speak with a prospect and not at them. Phone calls and emails have to be aimed at an audience of one. That takes effort, doing your homework and yes, creativity. The SDRs have to be given the freedom to tailor their pitches.

Show, don’t tell: This follows on the idea of personalization. You have a great product. Your SDRs know how to explain its value. But when you only have a few seconds to capture a prospect’s attention, your SDRs need to immediately show the value of your solution and how it will resonate with their needs. Don’t just tell them that this will help. Make the business case for them.

Be Curious: Don’t monotonously trudge through the same approach, over and over. If phone and email tactics aren’t working, they need to be changed. You need to encourage your SDRs to be curious about finding new, better ways to break through to target accounts.

STEP FIVE

How to Equip Your SDRs with the Right Solutions

The result can be a system that works at lightning speed.”

Lars Nilsson, Cloudera

Part of the reason for the proliferation in dedicated sales development teams can be tracked to emerging technologies. A wide array of tools now can help automate processes early in the B2B sales cycle that previously required intensive manual labor. That includes technology to locate target accounts, identifying the people inside them, and then cadence technologies to engage them. You should be investing in tools that give your SDRs more time in the day to be actively selling.

One word of caution, though. Think hard about what would be nice to have versus what you really need. “If you use too many tools, you really can overdo it,” said Jason Vargas of Datanyze. “There really is a point of diminishing returns. There’s so much technology out there that it can be easy to become overwhelmed.”

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Several sales executives graciously have shared the technology stacks that help their SDRs be more productive.

Caelum Shove, Extole: Salesforce.com, SalesLoft, LeanData

Jason Vargas, Datanyze: Salesforce.com, Outreach, Datanyze, LinkedIn

Jin Daikoku, Netskope: Salesforce.com, InsideSales.com, Data.com, DiscoverOrg, LinkedIn, Outreach

Eric Gonzalez, Glassdoor: Salesforce.com, ToutApp, Try Prospect

Brian Birkett, LeanData: Salesforce.com, Linkedin, Marketo, Yesware, Clearbit, Datanyze

Jason Seeba, BloomReach: Salesforce.com, Marketo, Datanyze, Leadspace, LeanData

PRO TIP: Cloudera’s Lars Nilsson specializes in providing his sales development teams with technology tools that improve speed and efficiency. “The science of selling has developed so fast,” he said. “If I can give my people automated tools to make the process faster, that’s a beautiful thing. It takes good people to execute. But you can do it a lot quicker if you have the right technology and then add to it the right process. The result can be a system that works at lightning speed.”

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Finally, we have compiled an outline of some of tools that might be useful for your SDRs on a daily basis. By no means is it an exhaustive list. But it should help your team get started on the right foot as you begin to generate more pipeline and grow your company’s revenue.

CRM Salesforce Microsoft Dynamics SugarCRM PipeDrive Close.io Base CRM Zoho Streak

List buildingDatanyze Mattermark Import.io Kimono Labs Spiderbook Clearbit Leadspace Bedrock Data

Company directories LinkedInCrunchBaseAngelListGlassDoorYelp

Social sellingFollowerwonkLittle BirdSellerCrowdSocedoInsightpoolHootsuiteRapportiveMentionCharlieAppDiscover.lyConspire

Account data and enrichmentDatanyzeLeanDataInsideViewReachforceDiscover.orgMixrankZoominfoNimble

E-SignatureDocuSignEchoSign

Contact data and enrichmentLinkedInLeadgeniusDatanyzeData.comHooversLeadSpaceInsideViewClearbit

Email findersToofrDatanyzeSalesLoftConnectifierRapportiveDiscover.lyAnyReachSellHack

Outsourced lead generationoDeskTaskUsLeadGeniusCarb.io

Email cadence automation and trackingYeswareOutreach.ioSalesLoftToutAppSideKickPersistIQSendbloomGrooveCirrus InsightSignals

LEAD automation and trackingLeanDataInsideSales.com PowerDialerRingDNAConnectAndSellFive9AvayaBroadsoftShoretelRingcentral

Sales gamificationBadgevilleRivalryHooplaBunchBallAmbitionLevelEleven

Predictive scoringInferLattice Engines6SenseEverstringMintigo

Presentations and ScreensharingClearslideSeismicJoin.meSpeekappGotoMeetingFuzeWebEx

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Datanyze provides an all-in-one sales intelligence platform designed to help businesses uncover, research and reach new prospects when the moment is right. Our platform delivers more qualified leads, accurate lead information and increases overall revenue for high-growth companies like HubSpot, KISSmetrics and DoubleDutch.

Datanyze is the preferred platform for over 200 sales development teams. Our solutions include:

• Lead Generation and Expansion: Build your list of perfect prospects filtered by revenue, size, technologies and more.

• Sales Prospecting: Research your prospects and get contact information in a tenth of the time.

• Business Data and Enrichment: Enhance your CRM with accurate and up-to-date account information.

• Predictive Lead Scoring: Uncover the best prospects inside AND outside your CRM.

Schedule a 1:1 demo with a Datanyze expert today!

WE’RE PASSIONATE about simplifying the B2B sales process through data-driven marketing. Our technology is purpose built for account-based selling strategies. LeanData customers like Marketo, Cloudera and DemandBase are seeing increased revenue attribution and greater sales productivity.

Click here to learn more or receive a demo on routing, converting, campaign to opportunity matching, or account-based nurturing and reporting.

LEANDATA SIMPLIFIES LEAD MANAGEMENT SO YOUR COMPANY’S SALES ORGANIZATION CAN FOCUS ON CLOSING DEALS.

• Match inbound leads to accounts, opportunities and customers

• Auto route leads to the right owner

• Auto convert leads to contacts using custom business rules

• Nurture leads and contacts based on account-specific details

• Measure marketing effectiveness from campaign to close