Starting from nothing, a new Director of Business Development needed to build and enable a brand new SDR team in a month’s time. With Salesloft, the director assembled and trained a group of reps who exceeded their sales goals within IO Education’s first year of operation.
Who Is IO Education?
IO Education connects dozens of data silos that exist for teachers and administrators. School systems often use many educational technology tools with little or no integration among them. This disconnect makes it nearly impossible for educators to have a complete view of a student, complicating important decisions about that student. IO Education provides a powerful set of tools that enable seamless student and parent engagement, improved classroom efficiency, and constant awareness of student achievement.
A lot of districts are going to have 10, 15, sometimes more, applications that educators are going to have to log into. And that’s a huge problem because you can’t see the whole child. So, the reason IO Education exists is to connect all of those data silos. — Jason Smith, Director of Business Development at IO Education
Challenge: Build and Enable a New SDR Team in Four Weeks
IO Education’s Director of Business Development, Jason Smith, was hired in December of 2015 with a mandate to get a sales development team up and running by the start of January. His responsibilities included onboarding new sales development reps (SDRs), developing a sales process, creating sales cadences, and determining success metrics. All within a four-week timeline.
In addition to creating the team from scratch, the sales development organization had an aggressive sales goal for their first year, and a self-imposed expectation for measuring and forecasting ROI at the sales development stage.
Solution: A Framework to Engage Prospects at Scale
IO Education built their fledgling SDR team around Salesloft. The team created comprehensive sales cadences for every stage of the buying cycle and for every buyer persona. Prospects were assigned to a sales cadence created to meet their specific use case and need.
With this framework, the team was able to confidently engage prospects at scale, and personalize messaging for each recipient. Automated reminders and cadence steps also helped the team cover large volumes of prospects without ever dropping the ball.
I really can’t imagine doing my job without having Salesloft. I come into the office and the first thing I do is open up Salesloft to see what I’m doing for that day. — Allie Fionda, Head of District Relationships at IO Education
Results: Achieving 113% of Goal in 10 Just Months
The performance of IO Education’s SDR team blew away everyone in the organization. In less than a year, the team went from non-existent to exceeding their stretch goal by 113%.
In addition, Salesloft helped IO Education define the most important metrics for the sales team. SDRs were even able to create a model for predictable pipeline growth, increasing forecasting accuracy.
We went from, in January, everyone showing up, to the company just being astounded by the performance of the team. — Jason Smith, Director of Business Development
Want to Learn More?
Do you need to ramp up a sales team while streamlining the sales workflow and process? Learn how Sales Engagement can help. Check out the ebook, The Sales Tech Stack: Your Guide to Sales Engagement.