I’ll openly admit that I hadn’t heard the term SDR until I actually became one. I’d previously done lead generation for a corporate payroll company, but wasn’t terribly successful at it. I remember hearing a summary of what an SDR actually does and thinking “Oh, I could rock the hell out of that”. Although, a big part of me was uncertain of myself – we all have our human moments – I was still up for a new challenge.
But as quickly as I found my confidence, I lost it just as fast. This was a new game I’d never played before. I thought I had it in the bag…but I had to learn how to play first. I remember thinking the same rules applied as when I was doing lead-gen at my old company…I hammered the phones all day. Banged out 150-180 calls and did almost nothing else all day. I even worked through my breaks just craving that sweet victory of a set meeting. But I wasn’t seeing the results to match my efforts. There were days where I’d scratch my head, wondering why. Discouraging, to say the least.
Don’t get me wrong, self-competition can be a healthy thing and hitting the phones hard is good. But just like a cake, if you leave out ingredients it could ruin the entire baking process. I was leaving out social touches, I was leaving out impactful email sequences, I was leaving out my creativity…a recipe for a mediocre and borderline bad-tasting cake. The last thing I wanted was a strategy that was subpar at best.
I decided to attack it from a different angle, observing other veterans who were having success, stalking the LinkedIn profiles of some of the thought leaders in the space, taking lots of notes and using trial & error to determine what worked best. I found the right combo of quality ingredients to make an AMAZING cake.
So there you have it, kids. Don’t leave any ingredients out of the cake batter. If you’re not that good, do what it takes to get better. If the cake sucks, stop leaving out ingredients and try again.
Simple as that.
-Rubi Rodriguez-
Rubi Rodriguez was previously employed as a National Sales Representative at Paychex before transitioning into an SDR role at Inside Sales Team. She has worked on several projects for Adobe and is currently working with a new client called Ushur. Rubi loves 80’s movies/music, rock band tees & Thai food.
Leave a Reply