?? June 2023 Newsletter

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

In this edition, we continue to hammer home some cold calling best practices, recap what we learned from rewriting 50+ cold emails, and share how you can level up your follow-up game (and why that's so important).

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!

Email send rates are at all-time highs, and engagement rates are at all-time lows.

What gives? ??

We tapped Greyson Fullbright, Entrepreneur In Residence at SalesEngine and founder & creator of SDRevolution, for help.

Firstly, because the systems he uses to develop and test cold emails & messaging are incredibly thorough.

And secondly, because he co-hosted the SDRescue series - a live show where he and a guest broke down sales emails and rewrote them in front of a live audience.

We asked him to recap the biggest takeaways from the 50+ episodes of the show. Not only did he give us a big three, but he also talked about where most SDRs fall short and how they (and their leadership teams) can develop new ways of creating and testing compelling cold emails.

Watch & Read: What We Learned After Rewriting 50+ Sales Emails

So you think you’ve exhausted your market?

Rev tackles the age-old question: do we double down on our ICP, or try targeting a new market?

While a Gartner report suggests that teams should avoid the temptation of breaking into a new market, they suggest that there are instances where it makes sense to "leave the fortress."

We agree - especially on their idea of deploying a sales SWAT team.

The same topic came up in an older?podcast episode of ours with Austin Fuller. "Red Teaming" for sales can be a viable approach to testing new markets and determining whether or not you should allocate core resources to that cause.

Would you build a SWAT team? Or are you happy holding down the fort?

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Have you ever triple dialed someone?

To me, it feels icky. As soon as I see 3 dials from the same number, I assume it's a real emergency - and that's not the mindset you want a prospect in if they pick up.

But nothing in sales is absolute. Armand from 30MPC talks about a triple dial he received and how the rep navigated the situation ??

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Caspian Lewke of Gong?is more than just a meme king - he's been dropping some great insight & advice on outbound prospecting as of late.

His recent cold email playbook does a great job at walking you through the fundamental components of a good cold email strategy ??

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AI is great...but it doesn't have the capacity to replace human-to-human interaction.

Tim Ensmann shared some great examples?where AI like ChatGPT is still limited, and why leaning into your human nature is still hugely beneficial ??

Tech isn't a silver bullet. And all of the AI and automation tools won't replace?an SDRs ability to understand and connect with their prospects on a human-to-human level.

Are we saying to not take advantage of tech? Heck no. Teams should absolutely be embracing these new tools as they continue to evolve.

But remember that they're just tools in your arsenal - not your whole strategy.

Do you remember your first cold call?

How did you feel when your hand moved to pick up the phone (or load up your digital dialer)? Nervous? Excited? Some combination of the two?

For a lot of reps, that feeling of anxiety, fear, and discomfort doesn’t go away quickly. Depending on their mindset, training/guidance, and management, it might?never?go away. And we know that you know that neglecting the phone entirely is a bad look for (virtually) all reps.

So how can you get over that fear of picking up the phone and start making cold calling a regular part of your outbound motion?

We asked out guest, Christian Erba, how he turned his fear and reluctance of cold calling into his greatest weapon as both an SDR and AE.

Christian talks us through his early struggles as an SDR, how he shifted his mindset to love cold calling, and the advice he has for anyone experiencing the same feelings he did when first starting out.

Don't Fear The Phone?- 5 Questions with Christian Erba

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Let’s do a little “read and react” exercise. Below, you’ll find an objection that SDRs face on a regular basis:

“That sounds interesting. Why don’t you send me some information to look over and I’ll get back to you?”

How did you feel reading that?

Most current and former SDRs (ourselves included) probably felt a tinge of positivity followed by a slap of reality.

?? They said they were interested!

?? But when I send someone more info, they don’t always get back to me.

Maybe they’re just brushing you off. Maybe they really are interested. Either way, a lot of reps dread the next step in this process - sending an email off into the void, hoping to hear back.

And while there are plenty of tactics you can use to solidify those next steps (tentative date on the calendar, confirming the type of content they want to read, leveraging AI summaries), our guest for this podcast has turned his attention to the content itself.

Itai Amoza, CEO of Storydoc, believes that creating more interactive content to share with prospects not only helps with our objection scenario above but actually helps bridge the gap between that initial conversation and getting decision-makers on board.

We talk with him about the challenges SDRs face engaging prospects today and how they can tweak their processes to deliver a more personalized and compelling buyer experience.

Just Send Me Some Information?- 5 Questions with Itai Amoza

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 grouped our reps by productivity - those at 85+% of goal, the those under that number:

Digging through our dailyData since May 1st showed a few trends:

1?? There isn't a huge difference in activity numbers between the two groups.

The reps closer to or above goal aren't blowing their activity numbers out of the water - and they actually make fewer dials on average. My guess is they're simply more efficient/effective than the other group. Maybe a byproduct of training retention and mastery of the fundamentals?

2?? Phone activities look to be more valuable in general.

For both groups, phone outperformed email in both QC rate and Lead Rate. That doesn't mean you should ditch email entirely, but skewing activities towards the phone vs. email could help with connect & lead rates.

3?? Average activities were lower than I expected.

Obviously, there are outliers on both sides, but in general more activities =/= more leads. We had reps at 300+% averaging 20 dials, and reps at 25% averaging 40+ dials. My take? Working efficiently within your system is better than making empty dials to hit daily quotas.

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

We'll see you again next month with content around the outbound ?? inbound motion, how to find and foster psychological safety within your sales role, and a template for the 'perfect cold call.'

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.