When it comes to setting goals for Sales Development Reps, a lot more than quota comes into play. Sure, it’s an SDR’s top priority to hit their monthly numbers, but Rome wasn’t built in a day — and neither is quota. Sales development is a game of inches, and building up to monthly milestones is a daily process.
For starters — every rep has their own personal process around prospecting, emailing, and dialing. And when it comes to dialing, the best place for a rep to start is to learn their personal cold-call to qualified appointment ratio. This ratio is the understanding of an individual rep how many calls it’s going to take to set a qualified demo with a prospective customer.
For example: if a rep knows that historically, it takes themselves about 100 calls to set 10 qualified appointments, then that reps ratio is 1:10. And if their goal is to set 4 demos that day — they know they’re going to need to make at least 40 calls. Or 50 calls for 5 demos. Or 150 calls for 15 (hey, dream big).
The point here is, if a rep knows exactly how many calls it’s going to take to set a qualified appointment, then what they lack in certain areas (experience, skill, technique, etc.) they can make up for in numbers. And with numbers comes practice — which ultimately grows into experience, skill, and technique — and then crushing quota.
Every rep should know how many calls it takes to get a conversation, and how many conversations it takes to get a demo. By knowing this ratio you will be able to focus on your [daily] personal number in order to hit your goals.” –Tyler Bliss, Salesloft Sales Development Team Lead
So we figured out the “secret formula” to hitting monthly quota. Now what?
Sure, you may know exactly how many calls it takes to set a certain amount of qualified demos. But what is going to guarantee that you, as a rep, can stay motivated to make those calls every single day? The new Salesloft Sales Development career matrix outlines the compensation and promotion progression for SDRs, and the different aspects of each level of rep. But even those don’t put goals into a daily perspective.
That’s why it’s important to incentivize SDR’s on a more granular level to keep them on the phones and reaching for those numbers every day. Here at Salesloft, we have a system in place for demo-setting milestones that have absolutely nothing to do with promotions or compensation, just straight incentives:
- 50 Demos – College Flag
- 100 Demos – $100 Bottle of Whiskey/Bourbon/Scotch (SDR’s choice)
- 150 Demos – Second Monitor
- 250 Demos – Noise Canceling Headphones (Bose or Beats)
- 450 Demos – Engraved Watch
If you knew you were building, day by day, for a goal that was going to take you a year to reach — tell me you wouldn’t feel discouraged at times. But if you knew that each day you were making small steps that were building towards an end goal, and getting small rewards along the way, you’d be sure to jump those daily hurdles like a boss.
Staying on the phone can be a grind, but that’s why the Salesloft Platform was designed as a home to Sales Development Reps. Want to get on the phone and make more meaningful calls? Try out the Salesloft Sales Dialer today.