Scaling B2B sales: my key lessons from 2019

2019 was a landmark year for Cognism. We experienced rapid revenue growth, we were voted one of LinkedIn’s Top UK Startups and we more than doubled our sales team’s headcount.

It’s been hard work, but very educational as well! I’ve learned a lot since I joined Cognism, helping to scale the sales team in Business Development and Sales Team Manager roles before moving into the Inside Sales Director role.

What are my key takeaways from 2019? The start of a new year is a perfect time to reflect. I’ve written down some of the things I’ve learned from working in sales at one of the UK’s fastest-growing startups. If you work in outbound sales, I hope you’ll get some insight from them! 

Here are my essential lessons from 2019 for scaling B2B sales:

Hire well

We hired 19 new SDRs in 2019. How did we find the right people? We looked for overachievers, not necessarily in sales but in their personal or academic lives. They had to be people who would go the extra mile, be creative and driven to succeed. They also had to have a real passion for a career in sales.

Our recruitment process was forensic and thorough. We took the SDR job spec and worked backwards, identifying the types of skills that a good salesperson needs to demonstrate. For example, if you’re cold calling every day, you have to be resilient and positive in the face of rejection.

Then, we revamped our list of recruitment questions, including questions that candidates couldn’t necessarily prepare for. They required the candidates to think on their feet, which is a great quality in a successful salesperson.

Want to see the questions we ask at interview? Take a look at our sales recruitment blog: “10 questions to ask when hiring an SDR”

I’m pleased to report that our strategy worked! We found the high-performing salespeople we needed. Every new SDR at Cognism started on a Monday and they were ramped up to cold calling prospects in 3 days. By Friday, every one of them had booked a demo!

Don’t rush hiring but rush ramping up (in order to ramp quickly)

We took our time to find the right people, but once we found them, we ramped them up extremely quickly.  

We have an 8-week plan for each new SDR. During the first few days, we give them a little bit of product knowledge, just enough for them to start selling quickly. Then we get them on the phones!

Once they’ve mastered the basics, we increase their product and industry knowledge incrementally, giving them something new to learn every week. By Week 8, they’re experts! We don’t go in for long training periods or classrooms for new starters.

Take advantage of that ‘new job’ energy

Whenever someone starts a new job, they’re hungry and motivated. We try to keep them that way by getting them on the phone quickly, while they’re still energetic and keen to impress. Getting them started with cold calling early also means that they will book demos early (as all of our new SDRs have done) - which is a massive boost to their confidence. Increasing their confidence also means that their cold calls will be more successful.

Introduce a mentor/mentee scheme

At Cognism, we assign every new SDR a mentor, someone they can learn from and go to if they have questions or concerns. It’s a great way for junior colleagues to learn from their more experienced peers. Also, if the SDR’s line manager is away, they can go to their mentor if they need anything.

A mentor/mentee scheme is the key to creating a culture of shared learning. It means that the mentees can be coached in “soft skills” that aren’t part of their day-to-day responsibilities, such as how to deal with lulls or interact with colleagues. For a lot of our SDRs, working at Cognism is their first job after higher education. They may not know how to respond to people or situations in a professional way; having a mentor helps to give them those skills. The mentor also helps to align their mentee to our company values.

Put in optional training sessions

Why optional? We want our SDRs to be self-motivated. They have to want to learn and improve. It creates good habits around self-learning and personal development. If they need additional support, they can also use this time to ask for extra help.

Share knowledge across the team

One really useful thing we did in 2019 was to create a Slack channel for sharing our best or most successful cold call recordings. It means the team can learn best practices and innovate together.

Create an SDR playbook

We developed a company ‘sales bible’ for all our new starters. It includes team rules, cold call structure and scripts, email cadences, instructions for using tech and applications - everything a new sales rep needs in one place!

If you don’t have a sales playbook in your company, my advice is to create one now! If you do have one, then my top tip from 2019 is to always keep it updated. Your playbook should be constantly changing and evolving as your processes evolve. Review your playbook regularly. Are there any processes that can be improved, simplified or accelerated? 

Always A/B test!

In 2019 we tried a lot of new things. We ran several short-term experiments including ABM campaigns and a new strategy for enterprise prospecting. Sure, some of our tests failed, but that’s how you learn what works. As long as you analyse what the impact will be before you run the experiment, don’t be afraid to do it.

When you run A/B tests, always allow input from your team. Their contributions can really help improve the effectiveness of the test.

Sign up for my webinar!

On Monday 3rd February, my colleague Jonathon Ilett and I will feature on Cognism’s next live broadcast! We’ll shed light on the methods we’ve implemented that enabled our company to more than double our revenue last year. It’ll be an interactive webinar with anecdotes, practical tips and tricks and a live Q&A. Don’t miss it!

Register your interest here!