Hiring your first bdr

Overall, It’s been a CRAZY month!

The idea for this post came because I was coaching a 3PL founder this week I’m an advisor on his growth strategy

He was about to hire his first BDR.

Wanted to know our secret sauce for scaling sales.

How we grew our team so fast.

I thought, "Perfect timing."

Let me tell you the story I told him.

It might just save you a ton of headaches (and cash).

(Psst... This one was in my Fulfill Labs newsletter from last week. 3PL owners, logistics marketers, and supply chain SaaS folks - click here to subscribe )

CONTEXT - My 500K mistake

Last year, I made a decision that I thought would skyrocket our growth.

Instead, it cost us half a million dollars and taught me more about sales strategy than any MBA ever could.

Here's what happened:

I got major FOMO watching our VC-backed competitors like Stord and Shipbob ramp up their outbound sales efforts.

I convinced myself that we needed to match their volume, or we'd be left in the dust…

So, I poured $500K into hiring 6 Business Development Reps and went all-in on outbound sales.

The result? A colossal failure.

We were nowhere near profitable.

The ROI from outbound was abysmal.

Meanwhile, our inbound efforts through content and referrals were still outperforming everything else.

But here's the kicker…

This expensive mistake led us to completely revolutionize our approach to sales and marketing.

The outbound trap

Looking back, I realize we fell into some classic traps:

1. We underestimated the complexity of signing warehousing customers…These aren't impulse purchases – they involve existing inventory, contract obligations, and complex decision-making processes.
2. We assumed other vendors' sales playbooks would work for us with these VC-backed companies. Spoiler alert: They didn't.
3. We thought more calls and emails would automatically equal more sales. We ignored the power of targeted, high-value interactions.

The epiphany

Just when I was ready to throw in the towel on sales altogether in March last year, I stumbled upon Chris Walker's demand capture model.

It was like a light bulb went off.

Walker's approach is all about being present when buyers are looking, rather than interrupting them when they're not…

It's about creating content that addresses real pain points and becoming the go-to resource in your niche.

This resonated with me on a deep level.

It aligned perfectly with what was already working for us – our inbound efforts.

what we changed

So, we made a radical decision. We scrapped our entire outbound team and pivoted hard towards a demand capture model.

Here's what that looks like for us now:

1. Content is King We're doubling down on creating valuable, educational content. Blog posts, podcasts, video content – you name it. We're solving real problems for our audience, not just pitching our services.
2. SEO is Queen We're optimizing everything for search. When someone's looking for 3PL solutions, we want to be the first result they see (and we do this well).
3. Community Building This newsletter? It's part of our new strategy. We're creating spaces for 3PL operators to share, learn, and grow together.
4. Strategic Partnerships We're collaborating with complementary businesses, co-creating content, and expanding our reach in organic ways
5. (if you want to hear about any of these specifically, reply and I’ll go deeper in another email)

It’s all about signals and working backward from there.

It’s working…

It's still early days, but the results so far are promising:

• Our inbound leads have increased by 30%
• Our customer acquisition cost has dropped by 50%
• Our lead-to-close ratio has doubled
• We’ve added another 20M+ in the pipeline from this demand capture strategy this year alone

Most importantly, we're building real relationships with our audience.

We're not just another vendor – we're becoming a trusted resource in the 3PL space.

Tracking...EVERYTHING

We used to track everything in Google Sheets.

Manual updates. Daily reviews. The works.

Then we switched to Hubspot CRM.

Game changer.

Now we're tracking conversions, sales cycles, deal sizes, and pipeline coverage.

Everything.

It's like going from a flip phone to an iPhone.

We can see which leads are hot, where deals stall, and our real close rates.

But here's the kicker:

All this fancy tech? Useless without the right strategy.

We're using this data to fuel our new approach.

Tweaking content. Optimizing our funnel. Focusing on high-converting leads.

The result?

We're working smarter, not harder.

Our pipeline is more predictable.

Our forecasts are really accurate.

I recreated our janky first sales tracker that you can use to begin with (only for my email newsletter subscribers) - click here to access it.

Focus.

We're all in on this new approach.

No more chasing shiny objects or copying competitors.

We're focused on providing real value and being there when our ideal customers are ready to buy.

Thoughts on this format?

Hit reply and let me know you reached the end and what you thought of this – it fires me up.

This was my first email in the specific newsletter for warehouses/operators and have hundreds already subscribed.

What questions do you have about growing your ops business? HMU with your questions and I’ll answer em’

p.s. I’m in NYC next week, let’s meet and talk shop.

Keep building,

-B