On the hunt for sales development practitioners, Aaron Ross introduced us to Collin Stewart.
Collin is a true disciple of the Predictable Revenue strategy. In fact, he founded Carburetor, a full service prospecting and lead generation service, based on the premise of Aaron’s model.
With this in mind, we asked him for his philosophy of sales development.
Here are a few nuggets Collin gleaned from using Predictable Revenue for himself and his clients:
At the basis for the sales development strategy- good salespeople make very expensive SDR’s.
You’re paying your Account Executives to close deals, not cold call. They should only be focused on prospecting the top 5% of the pipeline.
To ensure you are building a team of world-class SDRs, provide your reps the tools they need to reduce the “manual labor” they’re required to do on a daily basis.
Collin discovered four of the biggest challenges prospectors face:
1. Reaching Out To The Wrong People
Reaching out to the wrong people and companies makes hitting quota a nightmare.
Building targeted lists of people who can use your product effectively is key. Make sure you’re getting the most accurate positions and contact data for your prospects.
2. Little or Erratic Follow-Up
Sales aren’t made on the first contact. It takes time and multiple touches to close a deal.
Which means that reps need to be prompted to follow-up on a set schedule. This goes hand in hand with the cadence strategy used by successful sales development teams.
3. Lack Of Strategy Behind Outreach
There’s often no real organizational system besides, “make x-number of calls per day or send x-number of emails per week.”
Be more specific. How many times will you call a prospect? Will you leave voicemails? Plan everything so you can test different strategies.
At Salesloft, we use a system of seven touches over a week as follows:
4. Too Much “Manual Labor”
As companies increase their expectations from prospectors (target more accounts, make more calls, send more emails, reach out to prospectors through more social channels) they run out of time due to the “manual labor” prospecting requires.
Prospectors simply don’t follow up enough.
They can’t because they struggle to stay organized and keep up with all this activity and end up flailing around most of the time.
Solution? It’s important to reduce the manual work and help the SDR team stay organized so that their follow-ups are effective and consistent.
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If you’re familiar with sales development, you might have heard some of these perspectives before. Many of Craig Rosenberg’s posts address similar concepts and challenges.
As you continue building your SDR team and become a leader in the sales development practice, we recommend you follow Collin on Twitter @Carb_io or connect with him on LinkedIn.