With regards to the recent catastrophic events in Texas and as a former resident of South Louisiana I could not help reflect on the events which occurred in my life. Reflecting on the very challenging times in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and how overcoming many obstacles prepared me for overcoming obstacles in business, as... Continue Reading →
Our time is valuable. Every minute not prospecting and engaging potential clients is time lost. One of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned as an SDR has been to structure my day efficiently by balancing best practices, data analytics, and persistence. Keeping organized can be difficult for SDR’s that have pipelines of 200-300 leads, so... Continue Reading →
I recently took part in an online Twitter chat regarding the topic of discovery calls. To perhaps start to distinguish how to run effective discovery calls, it would make sense to firstly define what the actual objective of doing discovery is. I stipulated that that purpose of the discovery call is - ‘to identify areas... Continue Reading →
If you are looking to break into tech, launch a startup, or accelerate your sales career, it is essential that you find great mentors that can share direct and actionable feedback to help you grow throughout your career . Techstars is the perfect example of why mentorship is so important and how it is done... Continue Reading →
As a manager of a SDR team and a former SDR myself, I am quite familiar with the question, “What do you want to do next?” It’s an inquiry often asked of SDRs but rarely asked of account executives, pre-sales consultants, or even SDR managers. It’s a question people interviewing for an SDR role feel... Continue Reading →
A rule of thumb for being successful is to find a mentor who is successful and learn from them. Success leaves crumb trails. But, it seems as if anyone can label themselves an expert in anything. (I just updated my tagline to expert blog writer, yes, it’s that easy). But how do you find a... Continue Reading →
The hardest thing about sales is never giving up. Always staying positive. So many people talk about having 'thick skin', 'grit', and being able to bounce back from failure, but few can actually follow through with it. In baseball, if you win 30% of the time you are an all-star. In business, if you win... Continue Reading →
SDR? AE? BDM? SVP? Hustler...? Safe to say, I hadn’t had much exposure to the world of Inside Sales prior to Refract. I’d worked in field and event sales before this role, but entering the world of SaaS was a totally different ball game; I knew from the get go I was in for a... Continue Reading →
Fun fact: I did a quick search on LinkedIn to see how many SDRs there are right now, and between Sales Development Representative and Business Development Representative, I found 74.1k reps, just in the US. I’d estimate there are well over 100k reps out there, right now, grinding their way through a sea of prospects... Continue Reading →
When I first began applying for SDR jobs fresh out of school, I was already longing to have the titles and positions that came next. Account Executive. Customer Success Manager. Hell, Vice President of Sales. Those titles were desirable, they carried weight -- some semblance of power. SDR? That didn't sound nearly as powerful or important.... Continue Reading →
This article is not about qualification (BANT, ANUM, or the new "right" way of qualification), nor justifying your team is at X% on completion. This is about how to improve your completion rate; even if it is 1%. If your completion rate as a team went up 1% overall for 12 months would that lead... Continue Reading →
So, here it goes. I'd like to share in my experience to date in the SDR role. I don't think I'm "green". Not really sure if I was what you might call "green" when I walked in the doors. New to this role absolutely, but to come to find out tactically; it's made for me. For me,... Continue Reading →
To share more than just my own opinion, over the past 3 days, I have interviewed 6 different sales leaders and my very own team of SDRs and interns. It starts on the very first day I think that a true sales leader should strive to ensure that their employees know that they care about... Continue Reading →
While sales isn’t the easiest career out there, it is definitely one of the most rewarding. The only way you can expect one of your accounts to close is by first having prospected it. But you’ll soon learn that not all prospects are the same- and no, I don’t mean just their titles or the... Continue Reading →
Sales Development never ends… Remember when you were in High School sitting in Earth Science class and you thought,“Why am I learning this?..I will never use this in real life!”. Well it was true. Personally, I haven’t needed to know the difference between sedimentary and metamorphic rocks at all in my lifetime! The skill of... Continue Reading →