Advice to new SDRs (and their managers)

Prefer to listen? Here's a snippet from the recent pod where we talked about this in more detail ??

TL;DR: If you’re a new SDR, get on the phone. It’s the channel that books most meetings. But perhaps more important for new reps, it’s the channel you get instant feedback and learn the most from.

When I was an SDR, I used to love cold calling.

I appreciate not everyone feels the same, but how effective the phone is can’t be ignored, even if it makes you feel a bit uncomfortable to start with.

In recent years, we’ve seen reps shy away from the phone. It feels a lot more comfortable to hide behind an email and other forms of outreach.

But we’re still seeing that teams and individuals who are focused on cold calling, are the ones who are hitting quota. Even in this market. There’s always exceptions to the rule, but for the most part this applies.

In our recent podcast with Owen Richards, Founder & CEO at Air Marketing we spoke about this in a lot of detail, but here’s the key message, managers take note.

If you’re starting as an SDR, get. on. the. phone.

Owen went as far as suggesting that for the first month, he would only give reps a phone to use.

“Go have as many conversations as you can. If you get zero opportunities, I’m happy with that. But tell me what you’ve learned.”

And that’s the big point, especially for new SDRs. On the phone, you’re actually having conversations. You’re speaking to your ICP, learning what they sound like and testing out new messaging constantly.?

You could send 100 emails and get radio silence back.?

But if you’re having conversations, even if you’re not booking meetings, you’re learning.

All of these learnings immediately make you more effective on other channels as well.