?? July 2023 Newsletter

Welcome to The Monthly Drive! demandDrive’s newsletter for sales dev pros.

In this edition, we cover some sales hacks from our reps, highlight the importance of psychological safety, and talk about the?SDR ?? evangelist evolution.

Whether you’re an IC, Manager, or Leader, there’s bound to be something in here to help you make a positive impact on your day-to-day.

And hey, if you like what you see, give us a ?? and a share ??

All right, let's dive in!

“SDRs aren’t meant to do more than make phone calls, send emails, and book meetings.”

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In our opinion, the SDR function is often criminally underutilized.

But in order to unlock the real value of your SDR function, you have to support and enable them to go beyond their traditional responsibilities.?

We're talking about embracing dark social, front-loading value in their outreach, and leveraging customer insights to create a more compelling message.

Well, we're not talking about it as much as our guest for this onDemand - Sean Adams.

Sean believes that the SDR role is shifting from how we have been utilizing them (primarily cold outbound & high-level education) into a role akin to?product or brand evangelism. And that shift, while difficult to pull off at first, will create long-term, sustainable growth in a way that the current SDR model cannot.

We cover a lot in our ~30 minutes together.?Sean shares a lot of actionable tips you can take back to your own sales org to make a positive change today.

Watch & Listen:?From SDRs to Evangelists

Still using your old trigger event template?

The team at 30MPC published a?very?stealable idea in a?recent edition of their newsletter ???

It helps solve the biggest issue we see with leveraging trigger events - citing news (saw you raised a Series A), and then hard-pivoting into a pitch (now buy my stuff).

The example they spin up is a great answer to this?common pitfall. So good, that it almost doesn't even need the trigger to be compelling...

Steal all the plays?here !

(AJ and Alex also?tackled this topic for an Opt In ?if you want to dig a bit deeper)

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We all know sales coaching is important.

And yet according to Mindtickle, the average number of manager-led coaching sessions per rep per month is 3.?Three.?That's...not a lot.

On top of calling out the lower-than-expected numbers, Mindtickle provides some?easy-to-implement suggestions on how to improve the frequency and efficacy of your current coaching motion in their?2023 State of Sales Coaching ?study.

(AJ and Alex?tackled a similar study from Gartner in a recent Opt In ?if you want to dig deeper)

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Who Knew Cold Email Could Be Fun?

Lavender has always put out great content, but lately,?they've dialed it up a notch ?with their release of LavenderLand.

And over on their YouTube channel, Will Aitken dives into the world of cold email freelancing?in this surprisingly educational video ??

The role of the SDR has changed dramatically over the past 5 years.?

It’s no longer a “spray and pray” type of job. You win by making long-term deposits, remaining relevant over an extended period of time, and being authentic and empathetic in everything you do.

And for that to be possible, you need a certain level of psychological safety.

The ability to be you - while prospecting, while posting on LinkedIn, or with your colleagues - without being punished or scrutinized for it is a key component of success for top performers.

That's something our guest, Jagrit Gambhir, knows all about.

A former top SDR & AE turned marketer, Jagrit thrived in environments that prioritized psychological safety. That allowed him to fully immerse himself in an industry and build up subject matter expertise & key connections - and that helped make quota attainment a breeze.

We cover how leaders can enable and encourage that safety within their organizations, how reps can take advantage of it, and the results you can expect to see.

Psychological Safety for SDRs ?- 5 Questions with Jagrit Gambhir

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Every SDR goes about the job a little differently. The most successful SDRs employ numerous best practices, tricks, and life hacks to get the most out of their prospecting, like:

?? Developing their own nurture cadence outside of marketing

?? Maintaining strong communication with both sales AND marketing

???? The contentious “double dial”

Our recent internal SDR Symposium brought some of our most creative and outgoing SDRs to the panel to share their favorite tactics and hacks to making life as an SDR a good one.

As Alex summarized, their mindset for using and developing this tricks boils down to?“Hey, this is working ok, but what can I do to make it work better?”

The best SDRs are the ones who always continue to grow.

SDR Life Hacks ?- Opt In

We recently?upgraded the way we track our SDR's activity, and it's allowed our team to pull out some interesting data points.

This time, we took a look at an industry we have plenty of experience with:?Health Benefits.

We pulled dailyData from April (when we started tracking all of this) to the end of July for this analysis. A few notes based on the numbers:

• Timing in this space is crucially important (think open enrollment). And that means nurturing leads until they're ready to talk is also crucially important. Couple that with long sales cycles, and it makes sense that a lot of stats around email are higher here than in other industries.
• On that note, our reps are often building their own nurture cadences (again, increasing email numbers) - but they still work closely with their marketing counterparts. These reps are following up on inbound, running targeted outbound, supporting events, and are generally more involved than other industries we support (not by choice, but by necessity).?
• The lead rate is?much?higher vs. the rest of our client base, and that can be attributed to a handful of factors - one of which is?qualification criteria. We're not saying it's softer, but it's certainly unique compared to the more traditional BANT-like qualification some of our other clients employ. Benefits companies succeed with long-term engagements, and that means they value getting in front of decision-makers early and often - even when there isn't an active initiative to discuss. Matching their sales cycle with our success metrics just makes sense.
• Side Note: Adrienne Chen talks about this in her?onDemand?about the healthcare technology space . Similar idea, different industry.

Again, this data is coming from our internal sample of clients across varying industries, sizes, and prospecting motions. It's not peer-reviewed or statistically significant. Use it at your own peril!

Expect more insights like this every month! And if there's a particular metric you want to see highlighted, let us know! Just shoot AJ a DM and he'll get back to you???

And that's a wrap for this edition of The Monthly Drive!

We'll see you again next month with content around the 'perfect' cold call, how to build an effective ABM program, and a look at the brand new dD Academy ??

Have tips on building out a sales development team? What about effectively managing reps? The state of sales development today? We're always on the lookout for guest contributors!

Just shoot us a message (we'll always respond) and our marketing team will get in touch.

Is podcasting/webinaring more your thing? Get?more info on our show and how to get involved .