Harry Black

‘We need an SDR who has at least 12 months SDR/BDR experience at a SaaS company’. This is a common hiring trend I see right now and whilst indeed, someone with that experience may work out for you and I understand the logic, there are a few potential flaws I wanted to share about that expectation/requirement that may be preventing you from hiring your next superstar... 1. A great SDR will generally be promoted after 12-18 months in the role. 2. More experience = more expensive. 3. Many of the best performing SDR’s we see are those with as little as 6-12 months sales experience from sectors such as customer service, retail & hospitality. 4. Motivation > Experience. A poorly motivated SDR with a high skill level rarely works out. Confident in your leadership, enablement and product? Hire someone on motivation and attitude. Use the interview process to qualify their basic skill set, appetite to put in the work required and aptitude for learning and developing over and above their current skill level as an SDR. Hiring someone with 12 months SDR experience may work for you and I’m not trying to communicate that they are bad candidates, but when you actually consider what makes an excellent SDR, this requirement may be holding you back from hiring your next pipeline building king or queen. Always curious to learn from SDR leaders. What are some of the experiences of the best SDR’s you’ve hired? David Wilkins curious on your thoughts along with the SDR Leaders of EMEA!

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To all SDRs or anyone entering B2B sales, read this post to avoid falling into common traps. 1. The most successful AEs I have met were the best SDRs. 2. SDRs who didn’t excel in the role and are now AEs are still struggling to generate their own pipeline. 3. AEs who skipped the SDR role, often due to an MBA or strong interview skills, fear switching jobs and roles without inbound leads. They’ve never faced the grind of building a pipeline from scratch, filled with rejections. 4. AEs who have never been an SDR majorly rely on their SDRs or Inbound leads from marketing to help them build pipeline and if any Quarter they don't get inbound or enough meetings from SDRs they sh** in their pants. 5. When these AEs become managers, they often question their team—"Where are the numbers?" or "Why isn’t there a pipeline?"—instead of guiding them on building it. Lacking experience in pipeline generation, they fail to lead by example and eventually lose the respect of their team. Learn the art and science of being an SDR and excel at this job at any cost, you will never have to look back or depend on anyone for pipeline EVER. Prospecting and Generating Pipelines is fundamental to Sales whether you are an SDR, AE, Sr Manager, or VP if you don't know how to do OUTBOUND you will continuously live a sales life of fear and anxiety. So SDRs ask yourselves do you want to be such AE and Managers in the future who depend on others to determine their performance and faith or would you like to own your job? #sales #prospecting #outbound #pipeline #sdr #ae #b2b #saas

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‘We need an SDR who has at least 12 months SDR/BDR experience at a SaaS company’. This is a common hiring trend I still see right now and whilst indeed, someone with that experience may work out for you and I understand the logic, there are a few potential flaws I wanted to share about that expectation/requirement that may be preventing you from hiring your next superstar... 1. A great SDR will generally be promoted after 12-18 months in the role 📈 2. More experience = more expensive 💰 3. Many of the best performing SDR’s we see are those with as little as 6-12 months sales experience from sectors such as customer service, retail & hospitality 👊 4. Motivation > Experience. A poorly motivated SDR with a high skill level rarely works out 🤔 Confident in your leadership, enablement and product? Hire someone on motivation. Use the interview process to qualify their basic skill set, appetite to put in the work required and aptitude for learning and developing over and above their current skill level as an SDR ✅ Hiring someone with 12 months SDR experience may work for you and I’m not trying to communicate that they are bad candidates, but when you actually consider what makes an excellent SDR, this requirement may be holding you back from hiring your next pipeline building king or queen 🙌 Always curious to learn from SDR leaders. What are some of the experiences of the best SDR’s you’ve hired?

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‘We need an SDR who has at least 12 months SDR/BDR experience at a SaaS company’. This is a common hiring trend I still see right now and whilst indeed, someone with that experience may work out for you and I understand the logic, there are a few potential flaws I wanted to share about that expectation/requirement that may be preventing you from hiring your next superstar... 1. A great SDR will generally be promoted after 12-18 months in the role 📈 2. More experience = more expensive💰 3. Many of the best performing SDR’s we see are those with as little as 6-12 months sales experience from sectors such as customer service, retail & hospitality 👊 4. Motivation > Experience. A poorly motivated SDR with a high skill level rarely works out 🤔 Confident in your leadership, enablement and product? Hire someone on motivation. Use the interview process to qualify their basic skill set, appetite to put in the work required and aptitude for learning and developing over and above their current skill level as an SDR ✅ Hiring someone with 12 months SDR experience may work for you and I’m not trying to communicate that they are bad candidates, but when you actually consider what makes an excellent SDR, this requirement may be holding you back from hiring your next pipeline building king or queen 🙌 Always curious to learn from SDR leaders. What are some of the experiences of the best SDR’s you’ve hired?

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‘We need an SDR who has at least 12 months SDR/BDR experience at a SaaS company’. This is a common hiring trend I still see right now and whilst indeed, someone with that experience may work out for you and I understand the logic, there are a few potential flaws I wanted to share about that expectation/requirement that may be preventing you from hiring your next superstar... 1. A great SDR will generally be promoted after 12-18 months in the role 📈 2. More experience = more expensive💰 3. Many of the best performing SDR’s we see are those with as little as 6-12 months sales experience from sectors such as customer service, retail & hospitality 👊 4. Motivation > Experience. A poorly motivated SDR with a high skill level rarely works out 🤔 Confident in your leadership, enablement and product? Hire someone on motivation. Use the interview process to qualify their basic skill set, appetite to put in the work required and aptitude for learning and developing over and above their current skill level as an SDR ✅ Hiring someone with 12 months SDR experience may work for you and I’m not trying to communicate that they are bad candidates, but when you actually consider what makes an excellent SDR, this requirement may be holding you back from hiring your next pipeline building king or queen 🙌 Always curious to learn from SDR leaders. What are some of the experiences of the best SDR’s you’ve hired?

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Stop obsessing over OTE on its own. It's a vanity metric that doesn't really matter if loads of other factors aren't on point. I know a lot of AE's ''on €160k OTE'' who just earn their base salary. The achievability of the OTE and the impacting factors do matter: - Quality of leadership - Training & Coaching - Product Market Fit - % current team on target - Saturation of the sales team - Bonus Structure OTE is an important aspect of course, but all A players I speak with don't give much importance to the OTE figure on its own.

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🚀 Sales Confidence 2.0: Get SDRs Who Hit the Ground Running! 🚀 Tired of spending weeks onboarding new SDRs, only to realise they aren’t a fit for your fast-paced team? I know the challenges of hiring SDRs—getting the right person who’s not just great on paper but ready to sell from day one can be tough. Let’s face it, traditional CVs don’t tell you if someone has the grit to go out there to the market and have conversations. We provide pre-trained and pre-screened SDR candidates, ensuring your next hire can deliver results immediately, without the lengthy training process. Our Sales Confidence 2.0 ranking system highlights the most proactive, self-taught talent, so you can skip the guesswork and bring on SDRs who are proven to thrive in sales. 🌟 Meet Our Top Talent of today🌟 Jalil- an experienced B2C sales professional with entrepreneurial passion, showcased resilience and bravery in handling tough objections during his role play. Enrike -A charismatic listener who builds trust with strong questions, creating powerful, results-driven conversations. Zuhair- An adaptable professional with retail experience, skilled at handling tough conversations and solving problems creatively. Ali - An aspiring sales professional who thrives on the thrill of winning deals, bringing energy and enthusiasm to every prospecting challenge. Jiya - A versatile professional with a strong background in events, her energy and bubbly character from the role play can allow her to use humour to establish trust. Avishai- A future leader with a background in music, is a well-spoken and articulate professional who excels at getting to the point and handling objections with ease. If you are hiring reach out, remember 50% reduction fee.

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If you want to get promoted to AE, You need to have AE skills. And, unfortunately, most SDRs don't have them. Why? Because the SDR role and the AE role are very very different. If you just focus on developing your skills as an SDR and expect to get promoted to AE, You're kidding yourself. You'll get better as an SDR (which is table stakes for promotion), But you won't show you're ready for the next step. So how do you develop AE skills? By doing AE work. This means running calls. And it doesn't have to be customer calls right off the bat. Here's a strategy that worked for me: Schedule a mock call with a different person internally every week. There are 3 big advantages of this: 1️⃣ You get experience running calls and then get quick feedback on where you can improve 2️⃣ You get to work with different personalities and get different perspectives on how to best run a call 3️⃣ Word will get around internally that you're working on your AE skills, which will improve your internal personal brand This is how you take control of your own development. There are a lot of competition for these spots, So you need to make your promotion a no-brainer. There's no better way to do that than to do the job before you actually get it. #sdr #bdr #ae #sales #growth

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SDR Dashboards - what do you want to see? Gimme your top 3 stats/charts/reports you like to see on YOUR dashboard for pipeline gen. There's the obvious activity levels and SQL/SAL volumes but what else do you like to see.....

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🚀 Ready to tackle your SDR challenges like a pro? 📈 "Overcoming Top SDR Challenges: A Strategic Guide" is here to turn those hurdles into stepping stones for success! 🏆 🔍 Discover actionable strategies to: - Boost cold call success rates 📞 - Master objection handling like a wizard 🧙‍♂️ - Perfect your email outreach strategies 📧 - Streamline lead qualification processes 🎯 Why let challenges hold you back when you can conquer them with ease? 😎 Dive into the guide and transform your SDR game forever! Click the link 🖱️ https://nuel.ink/rzHb7I Don't keep all the secret sauce to yourself—share your thoughts in the comments! 🌟 #SDRSuccess #SalesTips #B2BProspecting #SAASFounders #SalesGrowth 👀 Let's crush those SDR roadblocks together! 💪✨

My Day 3 at ZoomInfo included a valuable 'Run Your Mind' session with Chris Hatfield from Sales Psych, focusing on stress and burnout prevention. Key takeaways: 1. Stress is a natural reaction, with our perceptions influencing how we manage it. 2. Burnout often results from neglecting our identities outside of work and overlooking our accomplishments. 3. It's crucial to pinpoint controllable stressors to effectively manage them. 4. Stay mindful of energy levels and prioritize proactive and reactive recharging strategies. Check out the pictures below for more insights!

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I look at this AE report every day at the moment: This graph isn't ❌ - Meetings Booked - Calls Made - Pipeline Generated - Deals Won (These graphs are obviously much taller 📈) This chart measures the number *meaningful edits* reps have made to Opportunities. We're tackling Salesforce adoption at the source. This keeps us accountable to our working hypothesis 🔄 - Meaningful data fuels our go-to-market strategy - CRM processes generate this data so must be followed - RevOps ensures this by making Salesforce useable (no annoying errors or useless fields) - Tracking this makes adoption specific and measurable Anyone else report on this / similar datapoints can RevOps use to drive process adoption forward? #crm #adoption #visibility #revops

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I try to network with as many SDR Leaders as I possibly can because, hey, it takes a village. I can’t help but notice common themes in what everyone shares they are struggling with - I’ve definitely been in these trenches before... and this reshared post articulates what so many SDR leaders go through... What I hear often... 1.) 𝐏𝐨𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩, 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐒𝐃𝐑 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐨, 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐩𝐢𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 I once had a leader tell me in my EOY review I should treat my SDR team like “𝐹𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑟𝑠” and I would look good to my CEO if I fired people with the highest salary so we could save a few bucks - yuck! (Yet I received no feedback or direction on strategy to find more pipeline in said EOY review) 2.) 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆! 𝐘𝐞𝐭, 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 I once had to spend 3-6 hours per week preparing data for a meeting where I spoke 3-5 minutes. And then I was always told I did it wrong, after following directions explicitly - yuck! (So glad those days are behind me now) Let’s change this narrative together! SDR leaders - find time to help other SDR leaders! Executives & Senior Leaders who own SDR teams, help with strategy! And if you don’t know how, swallow your pride and find a GTM consultant. #salesdevelopment

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You pay your Account Executives, Account Managers, SDRs, Customer Success, Marketing, and RevOps colleagues top dollar to optimise and maximise how they go to market. But they spend 72% of their time (on average), on tasks that are exactly the OPPOSITE of going to market. Sound familiar? Sales Intelligence used to be: 1) A vendor for contact data 2) A vendor for company data 3) A vendor for intent data 4) A vendor for spotting churn/renewal risk 5) A vendor for website tracking 6) A vendor for conversation intelligence Impact: 1) 72% of their time wasted in chasing after 90% of your TAM, that aren't currently even in market. 2) Finding out after notice has been given that your best customers have been shopping elsewhere. 3) 7 different vendors who don't talk to each other, operating in independent silos of inactionable data. Digital phonebooks & manually data mining across multiple vendors means that GTM specialists spend more time researching...not selling. It doesn't have to be that way... Imagine a world where: 1) Every seller can see what they need to personalise their outreach 2) Every seller can truly personalise at scale 3) Every seller can rely on AI to give them the pointers they need to be relevant AND personable 4) Every Account Manager can spot months & weeks in advance that their best customers are looking at other providers 5) Every RevOps person can standardise their data and insights into a consolidated view We're not in the 2021 economic boom, it has never been harder to convert conversations to dollars, especially in a time efficient way. You might be asking, is an alternative possible? Yes - #ZoomInfoCopilot. Launched to the world today after months of value creation & validation with our customers. The future is now, ready?

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🤯 “Ramping up SDRs, AEs and CS people  takes us no less than 6 months.” 💣 🙈 This is what I heard on a recent demo from  a CRO of a rapidly scaling tech business. 📈 Time to efficiency is a struggle Heads of Sales Enablement and Customer Success are going through across their commercially-driven teams… 📖 At the moment, they expect internal  sales and CS decks, call recordings,  business pitches, etc. should do the job. 🙄 But it doesn’t! 🗓️ They're wasting too much time for people to start performing, closing deals, effectively onboarding customers, reducing churn & upselling… ❌ Sometimes, they still don’t perform... And then guess what? Off leaders go through to recruiting mode again starting from ground 0. 🎯 Hence the need for action-based learning.  Not just passively reading through PDFs  and listening to call recordings. 👨‍💻 Below are some use cases we see our customers here at UJJI AI ✨ leveraging our tech for: 🔸 Business-specific lead gen and outbound 🔸 Pitching quick and easy over the phone 🔸 Delivering demos and answering queries 🔸 Effectively onboarding new customers 🔸 Efficiently implementing product features 🔸 Practising great customer support 🔸 Guiding customers to upselling 🚀 Ultimately, growing tech businesses comes down to predictable new business development, high customer retention and low churn. 💬 So, DM me if you want to see examples  of AI-powered. easy to build and consume knowledge equipping experiences. 👇 Anything to add to this, Sales and CS leaders? Gautam Rishi Rohan Dickinson George Heron Russell Mitchell Callum Hartley Jon Teale James Dixon Seán Colfer Caroline L. Guy Rubin Jake Carter David Muscat Arun Raveendran Steve Eveleigh Ayo Kukoyi,

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Hello SDRs - a good old hokeyism that I enjoy is "you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". What this saying is missing is how you choose to drink is up to you, but you need to drink. Own your process. Want to know more about the product/market, (yes i think this helps sdrs), go to your Sales engineering team. Want to learn more about top SDRs across all industries, find a mentor. So many of us are all to willing to help, as we've been in your shoes before. Lastly, own your persona learning. GPT tools make what use to be an exhausting and drawn out, possibly innacurate process, and turns it into minutes not hours. It's Wednesday, time to make the rest of the week awesome. #sdr #hokeyism

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Most sales managers waste their 1:1s. They focus on things like - Current activity metrics - How key deals are going - Current quota attainment - What else is in the pipeline As a result they turn their 1:1s into forecast meetings. Don't be that manager. Give your sales reps some room. - How are they doing? Mentally, emotionally? - Are they on track with their personal & career goals? - What are challenges this week where you can support? - In what areas do they need coaching to get to the next level? The point of 1:1s is to develop talent. Not to talk about day to day business. Repost ♻️ if you think 1:1s shouldn't be forecast meetings. What does your ideal 1:1 meeting look like?👇🏼 PS: Join 70+ members who receive weekly live coaching: https://lnkd.in/gTbPiShP

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Here's the stark facts in sales today. - 31% of reps are making quota - Nearly half (44%) of deals slip - Sales cycles are double digits longer, win rates are double digits down - Inbound leads are down - Salesforce recognised the need to increase pipeline coverage to by 50% (from x2 to x3) Most of those we speak to recognise all these challenges. But they are stuck. "Do more with less" is the message. They have cut teams and fought for those remaining. Their organisations are stuck with blind hope and knives sharpening. The only solution they know is to fire and replace. Because the real problems aren't acknowledged. The market has changed and it's harder. But are teams are not more skilled. The same teams, that could achieve in the old world are failing in this one. And the last message anyone wants, is we need to spend some money to solve that. "That's your job isn't it?" cries the leadership to time-starved managers and leaders. Anyone want to guess what's going to happen to sales manager average tenure (already at an all-time low of 18 months)????

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SDRs - Struggling with your ramp? Here are 5 tips to immediately improve your results and beat your ramp 1. Meet with 3 top performing BDRs, pick their brains on everything from Prospecting, Research, Sequences, calls, emails, Linkedin DM's etc. Once you have a good pool of knowledge on strategies that are working in the current market you can adapt it and make it your own. 2. Problem enablement: The most important thing to know is WHO you help and HOW you help them. Speak to your AE's who've closed business, CSMs and your own internal personas. The goal is to be able to crisply articulate how you can help a target persona in a target account get to their desired state. No one cares about WHAT you do, they care about how you can help them. 3. Volume: Practice makes perfect, you're not going to get good without the reps so get out there and prepare to fail. 4. Double down: If you find one medium is yielding more meetings then double down on that one, e.g if you're booking 5 meetings a month through call and 1 via email, try changing to a call only sequence for a while to see if it ups your results. 5. Feedback loops: Regularly ask your top-performing peers, AEs and your manager in your 121 for SPECIFIC advice. This means you'll always be growing your skillset. Make sure you're not getting advice from everyone though as this will dilute your focus P.S I'll do a part 2 of this next week but anything you'd add? For now, enjoy a picture of Emre Ceyhan and me at our recent Spike Week!

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