I never imagined I’d get so many interesting answers from SDRs. Over the past ten years I’ve hired and helped hire hundreds of Sales Development Representatives. If you are looking to hire Sales Development Representatives, I encourage you to check out my recruiting and staffing agency LatamCent.com.
For this experiment I ran back in 2019, I share some strategies I used then, in the past 5 years they’ve gotten a lot better and this is mostly a fun post and testing out some software, but overall worthwhile to glance through while multi tasking lol.
I didn’t want to test our new product with test email addresses, I wanted to run a real campaign, & in less than an hour I had a lead list & a campaign set up. In a few days I had 30+ leads, 19 of which were “won” & decided to participate in this fun blog post!
The best part about this blog post is that you can repurpose the same tactics & process for any outbound outreach, from recruiting to business development, PR outreach to link-building, you can do it all.
In this post I’ll cover how I generated the lead list of sales development representatives, how I crafted the campaign & the great answers I received.
The How:
Lead Generation (30 minutes)
I used Seamless.AI & LinkedIn Sales Navigator to discover 1,000+ SDRs working in software companies with 1-100 employees.
With LinkedIn Sales Navigator you can refine your search, I like to include:
- Industry
- Seniority level
- Specific job title
- Job function
- Location
- Years at current company
You can experiment with the filters here and once you find a sweet spot with “1k+ results” you’ll start using the Seamless chrome extension that overlays on LinkedIn. You’ll click “Find All” & Seamless will crawl the profiles to get you all the information they can on each one of your prospects.
After spending a few minutes on LinkedIn Sales Nav I move over to Seamless.AI where I download my lead list.
The most overlooked part of lead gen. The .csv file
Most people, myself included have made the mistake of adding their .csv file directly from the lead source. This is a mistake. Spend time refining your .csv.
Make sure:
- Titles are optimized: (Account Executive Mid Market -> AE)
- Company Names are Optimized: (Gong Inc – > Gong)
- Names are optimized: ie Nick names (Jefferson (Jack) Donals -> Jack)
Seamless.Ai will help me find about 50% of prospects direct dial phone numbers so I’ll create 2 campaigns. One with Phone -> LI – Email & the other with only Email/LI.
I go through the entire process in this video here if you want more detail on the lead generation portion:
Campaign Crafting (30 minutes)
You might have seen my posts on crafting Mailshake campaigns on 1.0 but it’s even better, faster, stronger (to quote daft punk) on Mailshake 2.0.
The longest part of the entire process was writing the blog 📝 post lol!
Initial Message:
The initial message pulled in the prospects first name, company & job title.
Follow up message & LinkedIn Outreach Task:
It’s still flabbergasting how many sales reps give up after 1 attempt, most of the replies will come from the follow ups. Research suggests to utilize 9 – 11 touchpoints across multiple channels.
If I had only emailed I would have missed out on over half the answers & wouldn’t have built new relationships which I was able to build on LinkedIn.
Depending on your deal size you might also want to leverage a Sendoso type platform to send direct mail or custom gifts. I’ve heard great success stories with sending prospects books, or even a pizza to the office (pre pandemic era).
Since seeing someone in the office is a rare sighting these days, Sendoso, has an even better case, where you can send e-gift cards such as a coffee pre meeting or an Uber eats credit so y’all can eat a virtual lunch together.
Here is a fantastic example from Gong to reduce their meeting no show rate.
Don’t let the paradox of choice stop you. For your original test, I’d keep it super simple with Email, LinkedIn & Phone. Then start integrating additional touchpoints & measure the ROI.
One of my favorite reports in Mailshake 2.0 is the lead driver report, this report proves that the initial email will only be responsible for a small percentage of your leads. You can even run A/B tests to see if a campaign with phone converts better than a campaign with only Email/Linkedin.
So let’s get back into why you are here, the great answers from the SDRs:
Shelby Freedman
My favorite part of being an SDR is my team, and the openness we have on collaborating together. With all the barriers of working remotely we are still able to get together over zoom and use each other as resources. I really enjoy the people I work with and everything they are able to teach me!
SDR at Xactly Corp
Ben Heyworth
I was a digital marketer for nearly 10 years before I made the decision to move over to sales. I learned that I was more interested in driving and interacting with people 1-1 than working in the shop, making sure the engine worked.
SDR at Cubicasa.com
George Baez
My favorite part of being an SDR has to be the many relationships formed and the networking that comes along with communicating with so many people. With the amount of people we are contacting it is interesting to see how so many people are connected in a variety of ways. Networking with so many people within a specific industry can be very beneficial and it is worth establishing the relationship!
Sales Development Representative at ActiveNav
Steve Nino
My favorite part of being an SDR is that I get to talk to so many different people, in so many different positions – from folks in similar roles all the way up to CEOs of corporations all across the globe. It’s definitely helped me learn how to talk to different individuals and to talk about things that matter to them and their (position-specific) goals.
You can’t use the same talk track with a VP of Operations as you would with a Director of sales or even an AE or SDR.
Outbound sales Development Representative at ZoomInfo
Hayden Rowe
Thanks for contacting me! The best part is helping sales teams like yours get in contact with more SDRs all around the world and be able to contact them directly by phone. Love to connect over a zoom call to show you how we can help your team reach more prospects.
If you are not opposed, you have 15 minutes tomorrow or Thursday?
Thank you,
When an SDR uses a cold email & turns it into a sales opp, you got to love that! Nice work Hayden.
Sales Development Representative at ZoomInfo
Nabeeha Kazmi
My favorite part of being an SDR is being able to talk and genuinely help people. Making calls all day can be exhausting but witnessing the excitement on someone’s face when you can truly help them out is what makes it all worth it!
SDR at University of Texas at Dallas
Elliot Olson
My favorite part of being an SDR at Tray.io is talking to industry leaders and working closely with our Account Management team to figure out how we can best drive additional value within our customer accounts. In short, I love the strategy aspect of the SDR role.
Sales Development Representative at Tray.io
Issak Meaken
Like most, I just fell into sales after school looking around for who was hiring. Did a year as an inbound sales rep for Dropbox and a year at Slack for Mid-market Sales Development. Honestly I have stuck around for how honest a career in sales is, I always know where I stand with a company based on the numbers I can put up. Some months are more stressful than others, but at least I know I will always have job security. If you can pick up a phone and call every day eventually you get pretty good at it.
Sales Development Representative at Weave HQ
Marlee Cerota
My favorite part of my role as an SDR is learning all aspects of this new and exciting industry. I come from a hospitality background and like so many others, I found myself looking for new opportunities after COVID-19 ravaged the travel industry. Admittedly, I’ve always had an interest in the marketing and advertising space, and to find a role that infuses marketing with the cannabis industry? Talk about a dream come true! I get to explore and uncover new brands, activate and nurture relationships, and ultimately, help to sell data, media and compliance solutions that are empowering businesses and the industry at large.
SDR at Fyllo
Amanpreet Kaur
My favorite part of being an SDR is getting to connect with new people all the time! I love building relationships and working with prospects to find the best solution for their needs.
Manager, Sales Development at Clearpoint Strategy
Gayatri Kurian
A. I add value to the business development process. In my opinion, we sales guys improving businesses and giving confidence that we can work more hard towards the betterment.
B. Empathy. Successful salespeople have the ability to genuinely empathize with the customer. To be effective in sales, you need to be able to empathize, so you can understand what your customer really wants and needs and then show him how you can give it to him.
C. I get a chance to talk to many intellectual folks out there. I think I learn every day while I outreach someone.
Sales Development at SalesIntel
Richard Kersten
Being able to be on the front lines of a growing and thriving business / company. Similar to an offensive lineman in football. It all starts in the trenches!
Sales Development Representative at Stirista
Marie Demesa
The best part of being an SDR is if I was able to provide potential leads turned into revenue. Because I was able to contribute not only our region but the whole organization.
SDR at Ekahaul
Iris Reyes
My favorite part of my role as an SDR is the people I come in contact with daily. The conversations that allow us to gain insight into what’s working (or not) for them and their business.
SDR at Keep Trucking
Cody Laughlin
Honestly, most people do not understand the life and process of an SDR, so this area is tough to explain.
With receiving either a ton of rejection all day or no one picking up (the most common) the job can be stressful and demoralizing.
My favorite part, though, is celebrating the little wins for myself and my team. We have an old-fashioned white board that we tally our calls, appointments set, and appointments booked. We all like to make a little show out of it when an appointment is set. Walking to the board to change our number and make a little joke, etc.
I like to celebrate with my team or enjoy the walk to the board when there is success.
The competitive teamwork mentality has shown more success and camaraderie since we have implemented this.
Sales Development Representative at US Signal
Dallin Ingalls
“My favorite part of my role as an SDR is the ability to make a living with my words only. It’s amazing how my 5 minute first conversations have turn over hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales. Yeah. Sales is King.”
Sales Development Representative at iPayables
Kyle Washburn
My favorite part about being an SDR is the hustle. With an uncapped commission, I come into work everyday (or get in my desk chair these days) ready to crush it and find more opportunities. There is no other role outside of sales in which your financial compensation is directly tied to your output. This is very motivating to me and I continue to hustle each and every day, getting myself closer to financial freedom.
SDR at Wistia
Vanessa Stonebraker
My favorite part is the challenge that comes with it every day. I think about it as a race until you get that one person over the phone!
Sales Operations Coordinator at Veristream
Virginia Ward
My favorite part about my role as an SDR is the opportunity to be a problem-solver each and every day. Which platform should I use to engage with X prospect? Will Y prospect find enough value and relatability in the case study I send their way? Helping a prospect find the right solution for their internal team is so rewarding, and I’m glad I get to solve problems here at Fivetran.
Sales Development at Fivetran
Conclusion:
SDRs are freakin’ awesome. They are at the frontline of your organization & often the first touchpoint a prospect or customer can have with your brand.
Are you an SDR? What’s your favorite part about your role?
