I spent the first 3 months of my job as an SDR doing the most self destructive thing an SDR can do; sending generic sales emails in bulk. Colossal waste of time.
I’ve been an SDR for almost two years now, and the most important thing I’ve learned so far is time is money. The way you manage your time throughout the day can make or break your commission for the month.
We’ve all heard of Account Based Marketing. ABM is the hottest buzzword in the industry right now, but how do you get SDRs to use it to their advantage? The first step in moving your sales process into an ABM play is successfully identifying who your best fit prospect is. This comes from a very solid understanding of what your product is, and who is going to be the decision maker and buyer of that product. I’ve found the best way to spend my day is, first finding the ideal account I’d like to reach, then spend time to research the account as a whole, and then breaking it down to researching each individual prospect.
Imagine spending an entire day emailing, calling, and reaching out through social avenues to a prospect that has absolutely nothing to do with what you’re selling…it would be devastating!
Once you’ve identified your best fit prospect, you can figure out what is going to resonate with them, and allow them to see the value in your product. This is where you need to become creative. Which outlet will be the best to reach them? I’ve learned through my experience that a combination of personalized touches is what works best. Email blasts DO NOT work!! No matter how revolutionary your product/service, your prospect has a trained eye to spot those generic sales emails from 2 servers away. This is where I think the age old saying “Quality over Quantity” comes into play.
Do your research! It’s the difference between “trash” and “reply”. I make sure when reaching out to a prospect to do my research. Whether it be something I pull from their LinkedIn page, their company updates, or an industry change, I make sure every touch is powerful and relevant. Find one fact, one pain point, one piece of data that’s exclusive to them and run with it.
Sure, I might not be able to make 100 calls a day or send out hundreds of emails a day, but my response rate and quality of conversations is totally worth it. Even if the response is not what you had hoped for, chances are you will get thanked for doing your research, or even better, you’ll get passed off to the correct point of contact.
My advice?
Take the extra fifteen minutes before making that call or sending that email to find out a pain point, something you might have in common, or even a fact about their company. You will stand out from everyone else who is still under the impression that email blasts get you somewhere. At the end of the day, it’s all about getting that response.
-Molly Mitchell-
Molly has worked at Inside Sales Team for a year and a half now, on behalf of their client Quri. Quri is the leader in Performance Driven Merchandising™, transforming the in-store experience by providing consistent, real-time, store-level visibility into merchandising conditions across all major channels and retailers in the US market. Molly has lead her team consistently as the top team at IST for the past 6 months. She also works with other clients like Adobe and Cherwell to help them turn their sales process into an Account Based Marketing play.
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