How to do Account-Based Selling as an SDR

As the role of the SDR changes and evolves, the rules of engagement change and evolve as well. The method of dialing 100-200 calls a day is outdated. We now do less and take a personalized outreach approach to our Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP). Now, you all may have heard of Account-Based Marketing, Account-Based Intelligence and Account-Based Everything. However, today I will be talking about Account-Based Selling.

So what exactly is Account-Based Selling?

Account-based selling is identifying the key accounts that you want to get in front of in your ICP and communicating with key stakeholders in those accounts with the right messaging. That means you are focused on specializing messages that resonate with key personas. This is important because a lot of people are sending marketing-automation-type emails and blasting out emails within the SDR role without any research or identification. Account-based selling allows you to have a more tailored message for those key personas. Now, they’re willing to agree to the meeting in which creates a smoother handoff to the AE.

Here are 3 key components of Account-Based Selling and how you can start using this in your SDR role.

Identifying your Customer Profile

First, the most crucial aspect you have to do first is identifying your ICP:

• Which key stakeholders are you looking to get in front of?
• Which accounts are you trying to get your message to?
• What industry is the best fit for your solution?

Figuring out the answers to those questions helps with the identification process. When I first got into my SDR role, I looked at our customer list to figure out who we were targeting and what companies we were looking to get in front of. Furthermore, I had meetings with the CEO, the CMO, and also the sales leadership team to ask them questions about the ICPs. I tried to figure out what are we targeting and how are we getting in front of them. So that’s the first step in account-based selling: understanding the buyers and what industries they are in.

Targeting the Right Stakeholders

Once you have identified the best-fit accounts, the next step is to target the key stakeholders you want to reach. For us here at Terminus, we are reaching out to B2B marketers, more specifically demand generation managers, account-based marketers, CMOs, VPs of Marketing and Directors of Digital Marketing. We’re trying to get in front of those people on a daily basis. So when I go in front of a company, I know exactly who I’m targeting. I’m not looking at the VP of finance; I’m not looking at the engineering team; I’m not looking at customer success. I’m looking at specific marketers. When you’re going into account-based selling, you’re looking at the overall account, not just this one person and treating them as a lead.

According to Gartner research, 5 to 7 people are involved in the decision making process, so it’s super important to make sure you’re touching those key people that would make that decision, and not just focusing on one person.

Tailoring the Right Message

The most important factor of this process is making sure your message is tailored to that specific account and key stakeholder. For example, if you’re reaching out to a demand generation manager within the tech software industry, you need to understand what their pain points are. A generic message is going to be opened and closed because they are already getting tons of those.

I went to SiruiusDecisions this year and asked a lot of marketers there how many solicitation emails do they receive a day. They told me they receive between 100 to 200 emails a day. So take that into account. If your message isn’t tailored, if you’re not account based selling, if you’re not really thinking about their paying points and what their KPIs are, you’re not going to be able to get in front of these key stakeholders and you’re not going to be able to set the meeting. So really think about the message that you’re creating.

How do you do that?

You go on LinkedIn and their Twitter. What are they talking about? Maybe they have a favorite show that they watch, and you can relate to that in your call or email. Perhaps you see something on Owler and you say, “Hey, congratulations on this award or accomplishment.” Maybe someone just got nominated for something. There are a lot of things you can do that take just 5 minutes of research. You’ve got to tailor that message so that you can get that demo.

If you don’t, you’re going to see a lot less success because you’re going to be blasting out emails.When I first started, I was not doing as much research as I should have. Now I’ve actually taken a very specific approach to personalize my message so that people see that I took time to care about their business and see them as an individual.

Because as the great Theodore Roosevelt said,  “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

So, those are the three things that are crucial for account-based selling. Account-based selling is so important for an SDR because there’s so much more automation and so much more blasting out currently. Get to know your prospects’ business and personalize your messaging so that you show the account that you care about them.

KEEP DIALING!

For more information on my SDR journey and #TheSDRChronicles. Visit sdrchronicles.com

*Originally Posted on SalesHacker