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SDR stories from hell
Today we’re looking at a sales tip so powerful, but so simple, you’ll feel silly for never having considered it before. Also, have you been writing ‘novels’ instead of cold emails? Time to fix that 👨🔧
In Today’s Jam
Sales Tip Of The Week: Write This Down!
The Sales Lab: Don’t Become an SDR Horror Story
Weekly Poll: All non-voters lose their commission checks
Sales Q&A: Presales Killing My Sales
The Ultimate Daily Schedule for Tech Sales Success
Sales Scene of the Week: When you’re buying something that isn’t being sold
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The Sales Lab🔬: How to avoid becoming an SDR horror story
Ever found yourself trapped in an SDR horror story (and you’re the SDR?)? If so, what did you screw up?
Did you come down with word vomit instead of actual communication?
Like this 👇
Or did you try to turn your cold email into an unpublished Stephen King novel?
Like this 👇
Yes – those are real-life scenarios where SDRs jumped out the window trying to entice prospects to buy their products.
Here’s 5 tips on how you can avoid becoming a real-life SDR horror story 😨
#1 Quality over Quantity
When starting in sales, it’s easy to think the more leads you grab, the better your chances at success. In reality, you want to focus on the quality of your leads, not necessarily the number. Would you prefer to book 10 weekly meetings and close a single sale? Or six weekly meetings with half of them fattening that commission check at the end of the month?
#2 Researching Your Prospects
There are some unconventional approaches to prospecting that work well. But at the end of the day, a little bit of research still goes a long way. The main thing is to make it count. And remember to keep it simple:
Check out your prospect’s LinkedIn page.
Find a link to additional information about them.
Find something they are passionate about.
Then (appropriately) center your pitch around this thing, OR use it as the ultimate icebreaker.
Essentially you turn what should have been a cold email into a warm email and you don’t end up in their junk.
#3 Be Creative
Reaching out to prospects is serious business. Still, that doesn’t mean you can’t have some fun with what you do. Why send the same kind of cold email that prospects get 1000 times a day when you can tap into what makes you or your product unique? Are you known for your humor? Throw some humor in the mix and make your well-researched pitch that more powerful.
Here’s an example of a cool email we found on HubSpot. It was written by Daniel Andersen, an SDR at the time, who reached out to a prospect whose webinar he had checked out, and he was sure to include something about her favorite food (a fact she shared during the webinar):
#4 Measure Your Results
You can collect all the best advice in the industry and improve your knowledge, but until you put things into action, you’ll never know for sure what’s working and what’s not. That means you can’t just execute and leave it to chance, but you have to revisit your efforts and determine what’s working, what’s not, and what you’re going to keep or toss. This goes for your sales calls, cold emails, you name it. Record and revisit them, measure your results, and grow over time.
#5 Measure Yourself a Master
The late Phillip Seymour Hoffman starred alongside Joaquin Phoenix in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master back in 2012. Seymour’s character Lancaster Dodd had a very interesting quote in that film:
“If you figure out a way to live without serving a master, any master, then let the rest of us know, will you? For you’d be the first in the world.” This film was heavily focused on the vices of a weird cult leader (Lancaster Dodd) and a PTSD stricken, sex-addicted alcoholic (to whom he was speaking) buuuuut never mind all that.
How does this relate to sales? A huge part of how you’ll become successful will rely on the people in your circle. Particularly, the people you choose to learn from. Have you found yourself a mentor? Are you surrounding yourself with people you can learn from? Take from them and implement it in your day-to-day to fine-tune your skills.
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Game Changers Of The Week🔥
The Ultimate Daily Schedule For Tech Sales Success
Booking weekly meetings can either be a nightmare or the ultimate stepping stone for a sales professional. The defining factor will be whether you have an appropriate system in place that allows you to be hyper-productive and eventually secure an AE role at your company (as opposed to burning out and losing your mind). Here’s the ultimate daily schedule that will allow you to crush quota and move up to an AE position in two years tops.
The SDR Team’s FUNdamentals
Hearing the word “no” is a big part of an SDR’s day, especially in a particularly bad week. A good way to avoid burnout is to discover ways to keep your SDR team engaged and motivated. This webinar throws in tips on how to land those big meetings that are real game-changers.
“Your stuff is just not relevant to me!”
The current sales environment is super fast-paced and chances are that’s changing no time soon. This means sellers must do their due diligence before reaching out to prospects. The Sales Evangelist tells you exactly how to sell the right product to the right people.
Listen to it on: Apple Podcast | Spotify | YouTube
The Last SDR Playbook Template You’ll Ever Need
If you’re building out your sales team and experiencing any of the below:
No idea what to prioritize
Inconsistency in the sales operation.
Confusion on what to track or how to track sales metrics.
Recent hires who aren’t learning fast enough.
Check out the last SDR Playbook Template You’ll Ever Need. A playbook consists of various tools that can streamline your sales operations, from KPIs and messaging to sales tools and user personas and challenges.
Sales Scene of the Week🎬
Make it $200m?
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