David Dulany is a Sales Development program building specialist. David is crazy knowledgeable and has deep experience in building highly successful Sales Development (SDR) programs from scratch for technology companies.
On this episode of The Salesman Podcast, David shares the steps you need to take to jump from an SDR (Sales Development Representative) role to account manager or similar.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- TENBOUND CONFERENCE – Join an elite group of Sales Development professionals
- David on Linkedin
- DavidDulany.com
- Book – The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)
Transcript
David Delany:
I don’t think everyone should be aiming for becoming an account executive or an account manager. I don’t think that it’s necessary to push people to do that. Multitasking is a productivity killer, and we don’t really realise that because there’s so many different tools and tactics and different things that we could be doing.
Will Barron:
Hello, sales nation. I’m Will Barron, host of The Salesman Podcast. The world’s biggest B2B sales show where we help you not just hit your sales target but really thrive in sales. Click subscribe if you haven’t already and let’s meet today’s guest.
David Delany:
Hi, I’m David Delany, founder of Tenbound and we help sales development teams to improve their performance. I just consider myself a cheerleader for the sales development practise.
Will Barron:
On this episode of the show, we’re diving into the precise steps that you need to take to move from SDR, sales development rep, into that glorified, that holy, that amazing account management or account executive position. Where very literally, as David explains on this show, your pay might double. With that, let’s jump right in.
Should All SDRs Aim to Become Account Executives? · [01:04]
Will Barron:
We’re going to dive into the topic which I get asked frequently, and I’m sure you do as well in your position sir, of how do we get from an SDR role to an AE role? And where I want to start with all this to start this conversation is should all SDRs, sales development reps, should they be aiming and eyeing up and moving towards and fighting and trying their chances and going after account executive positions or are some SDRs better suited for an SDR role?
David Delany:
Yeah. Short answer is no, not at all. I mean, there’s as many roles available in most growing companies as there’s types of people that are involved. I don’t think everyone should be aiming for becoming an account executive or an account manager. I don’t think that it’s necessary to push people to do that.
David Delany:
I think people should go with whatever strengths that they have, identify those and go where they can add the most value to the company. If you are excellent at setting appointments and prospecting and that’s something that you enjoy doing and that’s what you want to do, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with staying in the position and adding value to the company in that way.
David Delany:
If what really turns you on is closing deals and working with customers and taking them through the process, then definitely look at account executive. If you are more into working with the current customers and making sure that they’re happy and introducing them to new products and services, you may want to look at customer success.
David Delany:
There’s all sorts of different opportunities available. Especially right now, there’s a lot of momentum. We’re in a good economic period, at least here in the states, and it’s the sky’s the limit. I definitely wouldn’t be pigeonholed and trying to just focus on one end-game there.
Can You Move From an Average SDR to a Fantastic Account Manager? · [03:07]
Will Barron:
Can we go from being an average SDR to being a fantastic customer service or fantastic customer success or fantastic account manager? Is that a leap that we can make because clearly they’re using different skill sets?
David Delany:
Yeah. That’s very tricky because you were hired to set qualified appointments and drive qualified pipeline that leads to revenue, and so the business from a business perspective, they’re looking for that. That’s the end goal that they’re looking for from bringing you on, spending the money to give you the equipment and the desk and the training.
David Delany:
The business is looking for an ROI from the investment that they’re making in someone as a sales development rep. And so if you’re average in that, it’s hard to look toward the future at the company because you want to promote people that have been super successful in that role.
“You’ve got to really master your particular role and shine in order to be even considered for something else.” – David Delany · [04:35]
David Delany:
And so thing number one, I would say is, hey, you were hired to be a sales development rep, so really mastered that craft. I mean, blow people away at the company with how good you are. Then when you’ve been in the seat for a period of time, start to talk about different opportunities that might exist at the company. But thing number one I think is you’ve got to really master that role and shine in order to be even considered for something else, and so maybe take a step back there.
David Delany:
But to the second point that you made, yeah, I think, if doing sales development is not your thing and it’s something that you really have to struggle with in order to hit your number. And you are more inclined and strong with taking care of people and making sure that they get everything that they need and they remain customers, then that next step could be a customer-success role versus a closing role, for example.
What it Takes to Really Blow Your Boss Away as an SDR? · [05:16]
Will Barron:
It makes total sense. What does it look like? We’re just teeing things up here before we dive into perhaps some tactics of getting that next position and taking that step, that step up if we want to frame it like that. But what does it look like to use your words, David, to really blow your boss away as an SDR? What does it look like to really be away and ahead of the pack and to really stand out?
David Delany:
Yeah, I think, the one thing that I wanted to mention is that multitasking is a productivity killer. We don’t really realise that because there’s so many different tools and tactics and different things that we could be doing. That what I see out there a lot is sales development reps shifting from one task to another, and ping-ponging all over their day and really losing any momentum that you would need.
David Delany:
With anybody out there listening, I would take a step back and really block out time on your calendar for certain things. Where you shut down everything else and just really focus on, for example, doing the research. And then shut that down and then take that research and really focus on making the calls and trying to contact people over the phone. And then shut that down and really focus on writing your initial emails in your sequence.
David Delany:
You’ll be way more productive and that’ll roll up to better results, which you can then show that you’re producing, do that over a long period of time and then you’ll be queued up for a promotion if there’s one available. But thing number one, I think is definitely getting that multitasking under control because I see it as a major productivity killer out there.
Reverse Engineer Your Goal to Become an Account Executive and Create a Plan · [07:08]
Will Barron:
I want to come back to time in a second but just to double down on this. What makes SDRs stand out versus essentially they’re competitors, if there’s only one AE role and they’re all going towards it. Is it just number of appointments booked or should they be almost doing a publicity stunt for themself and booking that amazing gig or I guess that amazing phone call for one of the account managers that is unheard of that is next level, that no one else has been able to touch that account? Should they be focusing on one-off things like this, or is it just about getting the numbers and just being 10% above everyone else?
David Delany:
No, I would reverse engineer your goal as an SDR and crush it every month. Okay? Because at a higher level in the company, again, the reason that you’re hired as an SDR is basically to fill in a number on a spreadsheet, of the number of qualified appointments that you’ve been able to hit that month or that quarter. They want to see that that number is hit religiously month after month for a long period of time, so that they can get the return on the investment that they’re making in you as an SDR.
David Delany:
And so everything else is noise, really. It’s the amount of time that you’re spending on various tasks or helping your colleagues or organising the Christmas party or doing all these other things. Hey, those are great but at the end of the day, the business is looking for have you hit your number consistently month after month? And done it in a way without causing issues on the floor or being a jerk or something like that? I mean, that’s pretty much all it is.
“Please, if you’re listening, don’t come to your manager after three or four months where you weren’t hitting your number and now you want a promotion. Even if you planned the Christmas party and you help your colleagues and all this stuff. Look dude, the number has to be hit. That’s why you’re here. That’s why you’re in the seat.” – David Delany · [09:05]
David Delany:
And so really everybody out there, please if you’re listening, don’t come to your manager after three or four months where you weren’t hitting your number and now you want a promotion. Also, by the way, you were researching all these great accounts and you planned the Christmas party and you help your colleagues and all this stuff. Look dude, the number has to be hit. That’s why you’re here. That’s why you’re in the seat so it’s really, really important that that’s thing number one.
Will Barron:
I’ve never done an SDR role. I’ve done essentially account management is pretty much my background in medical devices. Everyone knew the brand, everyone knew the company. And I always found exactly what you’re describing there, David, of as long as I hit my numbers, nobody really gave a shit about me not turning up for this or this paperwork being late or me not doing my…
Will Barron:
My expenses were the worst. I was always six months late with the expenses, which caused problems with them. Accounting, they were chasing me. We had a company car, so it was all the fuel side of things I just never did. Because as I said, I knew darn well, my manager would cover my ass as long as I kept hitting that target.
How Many Months of Consistently Hitting Targets Does it Take to Be Worthy of a Promotion? · [10:08]
Will Barron:
With that considered, how long does an SDR need to keep their head down and hit these targets, smash these targets? How many months or even years do they need to do that before they should almost feel worthy of start asking about a promotion, start investigating it because clearly some of this is mindset. Clearly some of this is your interpretation of how successful you have in yourself and that confidence will pass across to other people. How long should we be doing all this for and really crushing it before we start reaching out for that next role?
David Delany:
Yeah, so there’s two things. One is if there’s any managers or sales development managers listening or even heads of sales that run sales development teams, it’s really the management’s job to set up what the career path and the promotion path looks like at the company.
David Delany:
I mean, it’s really important to say, “Hey, we want you to be in the chair doing the SDR job for 12 months. You have to hit your targets and you have to play nice with everybody for 12 months and then we will talk to you about promotion.” If you don’t have that written out on a spreadsheet and clarified for everyone, you’re setting yourself up as the manager for these really awkward conversations where that lower performer comes to you and wants to be promoted, so that should be set up.
“Before you even start to broach the topic of promotion, you have to hit your targets, play nice with everybody, and have a great track record for at least 12 months, otherwise it’s just annoying.” – David Delany · [11:52]
David Delany:
Now back to the SDR. If that’s not set up and that’s vague, I would aim for a year. I mean, a good 12 months of you hit your ramp targets and then you hit your targets consistently over the course of one year, before you even start to broach the topic of promotion. You’ve got to have at least that year under your belt, unless they come to you and they say, “Hey, you’re a superstar and we need somebody in this other department, so can you step up?” Hey, great, okay, then you’re all set. But before you start to do it, you’ve got to have that track record, otherwise it’s just annoying.
Why Would a Manager Promote an SDR When They’re Crushing it in Their Current Role · [12:32]
Will Barron:
That’s a succinct way of describing it. Okay, David, clearly, and I want to say this from the manager’s perspective first, and then hopefully we can pull some insights from that and reverse engineer it for the SDRs listening. Why would a manager pull someone out of an SDR role when they’re crushing it, when they’re doing really well, when they’re hitting their targets, when perhaps they’re on a different pay scale to an account executive?
Will Barron:
Why would they promote them versus just hiring an AE, an account executive from another organisation? Even better if it’s a competitor, they’ve got experience, they might already have that industry knowledge. Why would they want to promote someone rather than just bring someone else in externally?
David Delany:
Well, there’s a lot of layers to that question. One is if you’ve got top talent and you have an A player on the team or even a B+ player, those people are extremely hard to find and you want to keep them around. If someone is a highly successful SDR and they’ve been in the chair for quite a while, and they don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel at your company, then they will start to look around.
David Delany:
They’re being probably inundated with requests from recruiters to be pulled off of your company into a company that says, “Hey, we’ll double your salary. We’ll get you an AE job and it’ll be cake and ice cream.” They’re sitting there going, “Well, they’re not making it clear here at this company, so why don’t I just jump ship over to this other company?” And so what a lot of managers do is they feel like, we might lose this person so let’s go ahead and put them into an AE role if there’s one available.
David Delany:
The other thing is that I mentioned this before, but there’s a big pay bump between being an SDR and an AE and a lot of companies double the salary. If you see that available, you want to go for it because especially in the higher rent markets here in the states, you need that in order to just be able to have a decent lifestyle. They want to get out of that as soon as possible, get up to that higher pay bracket so they jump in there.
David Delany:
But from a business perspective, no companies do this. But it makes me think that you’re doubling the pay for a closing rep because it’s easy to line up closed revenue to the cost of that individual. It’s much harder to line up closed revenue to the cost of a sales development rep.
David Delany:
But the thing is which really to the business is more valuable? A, someone who consistently kicks out high-quality appointments leading to pipeline or someone who closes deals? There’s some people out there that are writing that maybe SDRs should be paid a lot more for the value that they bring, even though it’s harder to connect directly to closed one revenue.
Will Barron:
That might be a conversation for, and this is a scoop for everyone listening, we’re starting an additional podcast for sales leaders. It’s going to be hosted over at SalesLeadership.org. That’s perhaps a conversation to have there, but it seems like from the SDR perspective, it’s all leaping back to the same thing here of people will promote you, the management will push you, the opportunities will arise if you’re crushing it because they don’t want to let you go.
Quickest and Simplest Path to Becoming an AE · [16:00]
Will Barron:
You mentioned something here which I hadn’t planned on talking about but I think is an interesting thing to touch on. I guess there’s three options here. There is promotion internally with the company you’ve got. There is being bombarded by recruiters to jump down that alleyway and see where that path might take you.
Will Barron:
I feel like there’s a third option here for someone who is prospecting. Someone who is good at getting in front of people, getting on the phone and booking appointments, that you could prospect your own sales job in a company that you’d really like to be a part of and be involved in their culture. And you could choose a specific company to go at as opposed to go where there’s a job available.
Will Barron:
Of those three options, David, is there a better option? Is there a worse option? Is there a more efficient way to jump from SDR to AE between internal promotions, recruiters, and then just hunting out hiring managers for organisations that you want to work for?
David Delany:
Yeah. I would say that probably the simplest path and the quickest path is to take one of the recruiter calls and go in and try to convince them to hire you as an AE. They don’t know who you are. They don’t know what you can do. If you can go in and do a great sales job in the interview process and land yourself an AE job, then boom, you’re done, you got the job. You just bypassed all the political, back-office conversations and everything that goes along with staying at your company.
David Delany:
Now, the only thing is, the old adage is that the grass is always greener in somebody else’s backyard. That’s fraught with risk because you might get into the company and the company sucks. They don’t have any marketing. There is no SDRs. The product doesn’t work. The people stink. And so now you’re screwed because you just went from a company that you liked but wasn’t promoting you fast enough, to this toxic situation so you’ve got to be really careful about that.
David Delany:
I mean, looking back on my own career, I would really try to take a long view and look at if you’re an SDR, you’re doing really, really well. You want to become an AE or you at least want a promotion into a different part of the organisation but nobody’s getting back to you. They’re telling you to wait. They’re just saying, “Go back and hit your number and we’ll talk to you later.” I would take a step back.
David Delany:
Take the long view. Look at the industry that you’re in. Does it have a big future? Look at the product. Do you have a lot of good reviews of the product? Do people like the product? Look at maybe the investors that are in your company. Are they top-flight investors and do they have a track record of success?
David Delany:
Then look at your leadership team. I mean, are you inspired by your leadership team? Do you really enjoy, do they reach out to you and connect or are they a bunch of aloof people who never talk to you? I mean, take all those factors in and maybe take a step back and go, “Hey, you know what? I’m going to give this six more months and I’m going to crush it every month and I’m going to stick around and see what happens.”
David Delany:
Because you never know, you could walk in the next day and you have a new manager who really wants to work with you. You’ve got a whole new executive team. They release a product that’s awesome. Now all of a sudden, you’ve got tenure and you’re doing great at the company instead of jumping to something that you have no idea of what it might be like.
How to Use Your Ability to Crush Goals as Your Competitive Advantage in the Job Market · [19:43]
Will Barron:
I guess that might become a competitive advantage in itself of, and you can tell as the figures of this, if you know them on the top of your head, but I’m not sure how long people stay in SDR roles. I know for more traditional sales roles it used to be four years, now it’s down to 18 months, two years tops that people stay in their roles.
Will Barron:
If you’ve been crushing your numbers for two years straight as an SDR, you’re going to be top of the list when everyone else has been doing it for six months, a year, right? You’re going to be the first choice purely because you’ve been there longer, which is that’s the simplest skill to pick up, right? Just put your head down and don’t complain for a little bit longer than anyone else.
David Delany:
Yeah, definitely. I mean, again, believe me, if you have been crushing it as an SDR month after month, you’re just like clockwork, you’ve got to take a step back and understand your value to the company. I mean, pipeline is like oxygen for a sales team and you’ve proved for a long period of time that you can produce pipeline.
David Delany:
You have a lot of chips. I mean, you have a lot of bargaining potential with the company to say, “I can continue this for a long period of time or if you do put me in another role, I will crush that role as well just like I’ve done here.” So you’re in a great position.
How SDRs Can Demonstrate Their Ability to Crush Goals to Recruiters · [21:09]
Will Barron:
Okay. David, if we are getting called by recruiters, it seems like for an AE in the world that I’ve had in medical device sales, the one thing they want to know is whether you were over or under target for the five years in the foreseeable past or where you’re going to be for this year in the foreseeable future as well?
Will Barron:
What does an AE need to provide data-wise to show that they are crushing it? There’s a couple of extra questions I’ll tag on the back of this in a second. But we’ll start with that of what paperwork do we need to have if we can get it, that shows that we are doing well? And we should be in the conversation with a recruiter when they’re recruiting for a new position?
David Delany:
Yeah. With AEs. You’re asking about AEs, right, as opposed to SDRs?
Will Barron:
Well, we can touch on both but yeah, SDRs is what I’m focused on here. What do other than-
David Delany:
SDRs, yeah.
Will Barron:
…other than just saying the flippant words of, “Well, I kind of always hit my targets.” What do they need to bring to a recruiter to make that recruiter’s eyes light up, because that’s the thing that we’re looking for. We want them on our side, right?
David Delany:
Yeah. Okay. I would say you don’t need a tonne of evidence. I mean, if you have three or four pieces of evidence, that’s usually enough to have them change the subject, at least what I’ve seen. What I would look at is if there’s any award that’s granted for SDRs, if they do a president’s club or a certification for hitting your number, you definitely want to be able to point those out and emphasise those.
David Delany:
Even if there wasn’t an award, the next level that I would look at is do you have any stats, verifiable stats that you can bring to the conversation that demonstrate that you’ve been able to hit your number? Those should roll off your tongue very easily when you’re in an interview, so that there’s no doubt that there’s any authenticity issues in what you’re saying. I would know your numbers inside and out and be able to demonstrate those. Then definitely if you have any awards or any hardware that you can bring, that’s always helpful as well.
Why You Need to Build a Personal Brand as an SDR · [23:33]
Will Barron:
It seems like the perfect thing to do but I don’t know the legality of it, would it be to collect some kind of data on all the people you’re reaching out to, the people you’ve had success to, then go to your company’s competitors. Clearly there’s ethical reasons why this doesn’t work as well, and you can’t just rip a CRM system apart and drag that one place to the other.
Will Barron:
But I know the biggest pay bump I ever got was going from one medical device company to the competitor. I purely moved because I wanted to move further up to the North to be close to my family here in the UK and there was no jobs for the original company up here, so I shifted from one side to the other. Just the inadvertent intellectual property I had in my head, recruiters lit up as soon as they heard this. They basically found this job before it was available and set me up for it.
Will Barron:
Again, perhaps there’s a disparity between an SDR and the account management role that I was in from a pay scale. Clearly this all, from a recruiter perspective, they’re getting a percentage or they’re getting a placement fee, so that’s all they’re really interested in with all this. But that might be something to think about as well, if you are looking for a shift in roles, perhaps a competitor would welcome you with open arms if you’ve got good connections, good contacts with people in the industry.
David Delany:
Yeah.
Will Barron:
Final thing. Oh go ahead. You were you going to say something?
David Delany:
Yeah, I was just going to put a point on that. If you look at the role of an SDR from a high level, it is, it’s putting numbers in a spreadsheet of the number of appointments that you made and the pipeline and how that pipeline converts to closed one business. The further up you go in the food chain, the more that the business talks about is just numbers and a spreadsheet.
David Delany:
Just the fact of the matter is in 2018 and moving forward that we live in a freelance economy. I mean, that one day somebody could look at the numbers and go, “You know what, we don’t need an SDR team anymore.” Boom gone. Okay?
David Delany:
There’s all sorts of changes that could happen at any time. Ultimately, it’s a freelance economy and you need to take care of yourself as your own brand and your own incorporated unit. If you love the company, love what you’re doing, love the product and you’re making good money, stick with it. At any time anything could change, so work on yourself and leave yourself lots of options, because you might need them one day and never be rude to recruiters no matter what.
The Benefits of Looking After Your Own Best Interests as a Salesperson · [26:15]
Will Barron:
Well, I’m glad you said that and we’ll dive into that a little bit further. Because I was second guessing myself, as I was saying or alluding to looking after yourself first and you were slightly more blunt about it. Is that something that we should be focused on for the SDRs listening, AEs, everyone else listening? And what steps should we be taking to set ourselves up to be more anti-fragile or more robust in a very fast-moving sales industry?
David Delany:
Yeah. I mean, I think there’s still remnants of the old way of thinking where you go to school. The school system’s still set up to create automatons who will go and work in factories and they haven’t really changed much. And so you go through the school system, 20 years of the school system.
David Delany:
And then there’s still this mythology that you go in and you work your job and you do a good job and you’ll be happy, and it’s just that’s completely blown up. I mean, it’s the same level as like the tooth fairy or other things. I mean, it’s just gone. I mean, if you think that’s the way the world works.
David Delany:
I think it’s hilarious when every week people post on LinkedIn, how they start at this new company and they get a Mac and they get a T-shirt and a water bottle. For the next couple years they’re posting all this great stuff and then they’re gone and it’s like, come on.
David Delany:
The ultimate loyalty is how much value are you creating in the market yourself and how portable is that? Because it’s almost like the analogy of a ship out in the sea. I mean, you’re not part of an institution anymore. You’re really on your own and you have to build your skills and build your value in the marketplace so that you’re unsinkable.
David Delany:
I think a lot of people, they get bought into organisations and it’s like that could disappear at any moment. You’ve got to realise that your role could disappear, so you’ve got to be ready for anything.
Will Barron:
We’ll come back onto skills in a second and we’ll wrap up the show with that, because I want to dive into what skills we should be focusing on, trying to learn before we take that leap so that’s a smooth transition and we jump straight in and we’re crushing it.
Technology and The Future of Sales Positions · [28:50]
Will Barron:
But I want to pick your brains on what you just said there, David, of SDRs, it’s a somewhat new role to sales. It’s the predictable sales-revenue model that people are piggybacking to split up the sales role into these different segments.
Will Barron:
For someone who’s an SDR, should they be pushing themselves to get into an AE role because SDR roles are going to change, become nonexistent, develop into something else in the next three to five years? Should that be something even if it’s just at the back of their mind that AI, Google Duplex, which is making calls and booking appointments and sounding hilariously close to being an actual human. Should SDRs have all this at the back of their head when they are in their role plugging along? Should there be a real impetus and a real push for them to get that account manager position because the jobs might not exist in five years even if the company does?
“My sons are five and eight and what I tell them is that there’s basically going to be two jobs in the future. One is the robots telling you what to do and one is you telling the robots what to do. And so no matter what role you’re in or whatever position you’re in, you basically have those two choices in your future. For me personally, I’d rather tell the robots what to do.” – David Delany · [29:56]
David Delany:
Yeah. I mean, I think that everyone should look at it this way. My sons are five and eight and what I tell them is, “There’s basically going to be two jobs in the future. One is the robots telling you what to do and one is you telling the robots what to do. And so no matter what role you’re in or whatever position you’re in, you basically, you have those two choices in your future.”
David Delany:
For me personally, I’d rather tell the robots what to do. Taking it back to sales development, companies are going to need to build relationships with people and open new doors and build new pipelines, so that they can have a predictable revenue stream. I mean, I don’t see that changing anytime in the near future. Until I can say to Alexa, “Alexa, book me an appointment with the VP of Sales at IBM.” We’re not quite there yet.
David Delany:
I think that we still have a lot of runway in the sales profession. But I would think of it that how can you learn about all these new tools that are out there, become familiar with them, leverage them as your competitive advantage? And not get swept up in all the distractions and the complexity that’s out there right now, going back to that point of time management and things like that, that we were talking about before.
Essential Tools All SDRs Should Be Familiar With Before Trying to Become AEs · [31:30]
Will Barron:
Again, final thing before we get on skills. What stand-out tools or industry-standard tools should SDRs know about, even if they’re not using them perhaps because of the company hasn’t paid for it. But what tools should they know about? Then as an AE, what tools should we know about so that you can talk confidently about them perhaps in an interview process?
David Delany:
Yeah, I mean, so I would say that there’s a breakaway point in the market right now between the cadence tools and the sequence tools. I think it’s really important whatever part of the organisation that you’re going into, that you have some mastery over Salesloft and, or Outreach and beyond just the basic functionality. But you can go in and set things up in a customised way and be able to go in and pull basic data reports and have some familiarity.
David Delany:
Both of those companies are going to be more and more used throughout the organisation and sales, customer success, even marketing. Having a familiarity with those, how they work and how they integrate is super important right now. It’s in most, at least technology, SaaS companies that have SDRs, they’ve got one or the other of those so it’s right there. I mean, take a little bit of time and really learn how to use it and how to queue it up because you’ll probably be using it for the next few years.
Will Barron:
It’s funny you mentioned those two. I’ve got Manny who’s, I think he’s CEO of Outreach. He’s coming on the show and we’ve got a phone call with him about a few things. But am I right, I think they’re the two of the most funding, the most rapid growth out of that segment of the industry?
David Delany:
Yeah, they’re breaking away big time. There’s definitely competitors in that space and everybody’s got their own take on it but they’re breaking away at this point. They’ve got a lot of funding. They’ve got top talent. They’re run by incredibly smart, hardworking people so they’re going to be around for a while. Maybe not in their current iteration but they’re going to be around for a while, I think.
Skills That Are Crucial For the Account Executive Role · [33:50]
Will Barron:
Perfect. Good stuff. Okay. Well, David, I’ve got one final thing I want to ask you about, and that is the skills that we need to be developing right now, so that when we hopefully get this AE role, we can jump straight in and we can start crushing it immediately.
Will Barron:
I want to ask you two ways of what are the obvious one or two, three skills that we need to learn? Then what are the unobvious ones? What are the ones that we go six months down line, a year online, oh, I wish I would’ve picked that up beforehand?
“If you’re able to do your own prospecting, you’ll never starve.” – David Delany · [34:21]
David Delany:
Yeah. I mean the obvious ones are being able to do your own prospecting you’ll never starve. And so I always tell SDRs, “This is some of the most valuable one or two years that you’ll spend in your whole career. Because no matter what you end up doing, if you can build your own pipeline, you’re bulletproof in a lot of ways. You can always rely on yourself. You don’t have to worry about what the marketing department’s doing or even if you have an SDR when you become a sales rep because you know that you can do it yourself.”
David Delany:
Where I see people get in trouble is they get promoted to an AE and they go, “Oh my God. I just was prospecting for two years. That’s all I did. I never want to make another call again or send another email. I hate it.” Then they sit there and go, “God, you know, I don’t have any appointments. I’m not getting any leads from marketing and my SDRs suck.”
David Delany:
It’s like, “Bro, you’ve got to keep prospecting your whole life if you’re going to be in sales.” I mean, for the love of God, we didn’t even have SDRs back in my day. I’m 100 years old, so I didn’t have any SDRs, you had to do everything yourself. Learn how to fill your own funnel while you are focused on filling up the company’s funnel as an SDR. Learn that down.
David Delany:
The other thing, I mean, and I talked about this before, I’m just big on this right now. I think that with the development of all this technology, all these tools, all these helpful hints, going on social media. I think right now, what can really break people away is taking a little time out of this whole technology, screen craziness that we have.
David Delany:
Every once in a while, just going out into nature really with your notebook and a pen and a paper and just think about, okay, what’s working right now with me? What do I like? What do I not like? What can I do better moving forward? And just write that out in the old school way and come back refreshed.
David Delany:
Because I think if you’re spending too much time in technology reacting and ping-ponging back between things and multitasking, that it’s affecting people’s productivity and you need a little break from it. I would just encourage everybody, let things soak in a little bit, get away from it and come back and you’ll be much more prioritised and ready to focus and be much more productive.
Will Barron:
I love it. It’s funny you should say that. I’ve just come back from a trip to Ireland. I’ve got a bunch of family over there, so every couple years we go on a big road trip, drink too much Guinness and then a load of Irish whiskey. We go on a couple of Guinness tours and a couple of Irish whiskey distillery tours as well. It was a great holiday.
Will Barron:
The point of me saying this is I came back with, as you described, a full Moleskine notebook of ideas and new content ideas, new ways to promote. Then importantly, I just dumped a whole tonne of video content that we were planning out as well.
Will Barron:
We didn’t start the process of recording it but I probably would’ve still dumped it anyway. Because as you’ve got all these different things going on, as people are calling you, you’ve got your emails and recording these shows. I’m still selling the ad space. We’ve got a brand now who wants to sponsor the show for three years moving forward. The offer they booked was from two years to three.
Will Barron:
With all this going on it’s very easy to just go, “I’ll do everything. I’ll call this person. I’ll email this person.” As an SDR, perhaps you’re sending postcards out, you’re doing this, this and this. I think it’s really important to just spend that little bit of time every now and again, maybe once a quarter just to refocus and reassess because I get sucked up in all of this, I’m sure the audience do as well.
Parting Thoughts · [38:16]
Will Barron:
With that, David, I want you to tell us two things. One, Tenbound, what you do there. Then two, this ties into a bigger question that perhaps you can just round off slightly and we’ll finish the show with that. Tell us a little bit about Tenbound, and will you tell us a little bit then about the conference that you’ve got coming up? I’ve got down near the 30th of August.
Will Barron:
The reason I ask about both of them is I want you to tell us if there’s any resources alongside the conference. Or if there’s any other places we should be going, SDR should be going specifically to round off their skills as along the lines of the content that you put together and the consulting and the training that you do?
David Delany:
Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate that. We’ve been building up a Tenbound alumni for the last year-and-a-half. Basically, helping people who were SDRs and then they were promoted to managers, to really understand what it takes to manage an SDR team, a high-performance SDR team because there’s just not a lot of information out there on how to do that.
David Delany:
And so within the management classes, what we notice is people needed something to add on to that to keep it going. So we developed a coaching programme that can just take place over the phone or on Zoom calls. Where we meet up with the new managers once a week or once every couple weeks and go through the challenges that they’re having in managing a team. Right now the working title is just the Tenbound Coaching Programme and we probably need a better one. But we’re really excited with the early results that we’re getting and the new managers really seem to like it.
David Delany:
The other quick thing, as you mentioned on August 30th, we’ve got the Sales Development Conference, which it’s the second annual conference 100% focused on sales development. This year we’ve got a leadership track. We’ll be going into strategy and more of the high-level aspects of running a sales development programme.
David Delany:
Then we also have a rep track. So if a manager wants to bring their whole team, we’ve got some of the top trainers around the country coming in to do hands-on training on cold calling, emailing, mindset for success and things like that, so we’re really excited. That’s August 30th in San Francisco and it’s the Sales Development Conference.
Will Barron:
Perfect. I will link to both of those in the show notes in this episode over at Salesman.org. Just to final one because I don’t feel like I give the SDRs in the audience enough love, are there any books you’d recommend? Is there any other resources or any other blogs that you’d recommend for the lovely SDRs listening right now?
David Delany:
Yeah. I mean, table stakes are The Sales Development Playbook by Trish Bertuzzi and Sales Development by Cory Bray. If you haven’t read those, that’s number one, you got to read those. Those are sales development 101 and they’re a great foundation.
David Delany:
The other one that you might want to check out that’s a little bit outside of just the narrow focus of sales development is called The Morning Miracle by Hal Elrod. When you think about all those distractions and multitasking that we were talking about, he really gives you a strategy for how to maximise your time in the morning to quiet things down, prioritise, make sure you’re ready for the day.
David Delany:
You can go in and crush it and absolutely, blow your competitors out of the water and impress your boss and potentially get a raise or a promotion. I would definitely check out Morning Miracle, it’s made a huge impact on my life personally.
Will Barron:
Perfect. We’ve interviewed Hal three maybe even four years ago now, whenever we first start the show, so I’ll link to that show. It was probably terrible. There’s no video for it, but I’ll link to the audio in this show notes as well, so anyone can check that out.
Will Barron:
We’ll link to all other books you just mentioned, and I appreciate you plugging Trish and other people’s books there as well, David. With that mate, I want to thank you for your time as always, and for joining us on the Salesman Podcast.
David Delany:
Thank you so much. We’ll see you again soon.
