Daryl Barnett

It's a tough market out there for candidates without tech sales experience right now... All of the peeps I've seen secure an SDR role from outside the industry - here's what they have in common👇 👉 They reach out to their potential future colleagues for advice/insight. 👉 They message their interviewer the day before. 👉 They follow up with short bullet-pointed takeaways afterwards. 👉 They come prepared with a tangible plan of how they're going to onboard/better themselves in their own time. For all my network trying to make the move into tech sales - introduce this into your process and keep pushing 🫡 #SDR #TechSales #Interviewing #Sales #SalesHiring

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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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Love these tips from Daphne to stop CSM’s being reactive and start being proactive

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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 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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‘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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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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𝗜𝗻 𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁 👇 Pack GTM | SaaS Sales Recruitment in Germany's salary benchmark report for SaaS sales roles across Germany will be released tomorrow! 📆 ⛷️ slide in my or Liam Peoples' DMs for a priority access! #sales #hiring #careers #startups #recruitment

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Salespeople don’t only care about money! It’s a common misconception that all sales folk are money obsessed and that their OTE figure is the single most important aspect of the job search. I have spoken to countless AE's who don't have compensation as part of their top 3 motivators. And, by the way, I’m not even saying being predominantly driven by money is a bad thing. I actually think it’s a good thing, but more on that in another post. Anyway, here are some other driving factors of a candidate’s job search that you need to consider when hiring: - Culture - Hiring Process - Product Market Fit - The quality of leadership - The quality of communication - The learning and development opportunities - Detailed career progression & effective performance management - The overall achievability of the OTE figure and promotion opportunities 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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Salespeople can add millions to the valuation of a SaaS company. That’s why it’s so important to make commission plans attractive. I speak to sales people every day who are looking to leave their roles because of their commission plans. Not culture. Not progression. But commission. If you are creating commission plans, make sure they: - Are uncapped - Include accelerators - Are SUPER easy to work out And most importantly are achievable! It's ok to pay a bit more whilst you are finding traction. Get this right and you’ll end up with a sales team that stays motivated and helps you hit your growth plans. Invest the time getting this right and you’ll see the impact on the valuation of your business.

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The SDR function is dying. Heard this plenty of times on here. But like many other departments it isn’t dying it’s changing. We have to be focussed on showing how we deliver revenue, not just top of funnel activities. Booking lots of meetings, even creating lots of new ‘opportunities’ for AEs to work is great but if none of them turn into revenue then we are at risk. And this isn’t just for the SDR team to work out; it must run through the company. From marketing to CS, all focussed on revenue. And this month I got to celebrate my contribution with my first couple of closed won sourced deals. Darn Enterprise sales cycles making me wait this long. 😂 And appreciate the gift to celebrate Tom. As an SDR do you track your closed won sourced deals?

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There is no outbound sales without high quality content. Earlier this week, Alex Allain and I chatted about common founder-led sales mistakes to avoid if you’re learning enterprise sales for the first time. In episode 37 (Founder-led Sales Mistake #1) of Decoding Sales (launching next week) we unpack why starting outbound without thinking holistically about your entire digital footprint is a key mistake to avoid. In this day and age, you can’t just start pitching your product. You have to start with disseminating digital value that then invites your prospects to do even more research into what you do and what your product stands for. With all the noise out there, the more you invest in a digital home for your content & views of the world, the more pull you’ll have with potential customers. What steps are you taking to build you and your team’s digital presence? Follow me and Decoding Sales for the launch of Episode 37 next week! We’ll unpack this topic while providing some tactical ways in which you can start growing your online presence as a startup founder. #founderledsales #founderledoutbound #salesmistakestoavoid #salespodcast

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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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I seem to be working a lot of SDR roles lately. 😍 Is it a sign that businesses see the value of a strong SDR function again? A common trend I have seen with sales teams over the last year or so is businesses removing the SDR/BDR function. So why is it coming back to build a team of SDRs? The truth is the role is changing, businesses are not necessarily looking for someone who is stepping into sales but seem to be leaning towards people who are already experienced in the space. So what are some of the things that make a prime SDR candidate in today's market? ⁉ 🤔 Curiosity - These people are genuinely interested in finding out more, they want to know the ifs, hows and buts of any potential prospect. 💪 Resilience - Just like that one friend in a nightclub when we were growing up they think with every no, you are closer to a yes. 📊 Appreciation of data - They understand metrics are not just important but necessary to improve their craft. 📖 Like a sponge - They absorb everything that is thrown at them, learning, refining and continuously improving. 📲 Multichannel approach - This is not a telesales role anymore, it is focused on different ways to reach people like LinkedIn, email and video. What else would you add to the list? #SDR #SalesDevelopment #SalesRecruitment

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got asked for some advice from leading successful Sales Development functions for over 10+ years...... so here's 7 tips if I was starting out! keen to hear others 🙏 as the list is endless: ❤️ give a shit about your people 📈 make data-driven decisions 👯 industry peer insight is most valuable 🤺 focus on driving habits, mindset, momentum, process & consistency 🕵‍♀️ perception is the enemy 💪 quality over quantity all day long 🕺 If you aren't competitive, you're in the wrong game #salesdevelopment #leadership #tipfromyouraveragesalesleader

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Always refreshing to see an executive really SELL to their ideal candidate why they should consider joining them Top candidates have options & it can take time, energy & MONEY to convince them that your option is THE option This week my b2b client (#vp of sales at a series b startup) and I worked together to close headcount with a HOT 🔥 candidate This sales rep: ✅ is a top 10% seller ✅ had other offers ✅ had high expectations for comp How we closed the deal: 💰Vice President of sales sat down with the rep multiple times to negotiate comp & break down the full package - going back to the #cfo multiple times to offer an attractive & realistic offering 💰Candidate trusted me to sit down, review and compare product position/tam, comp, growth and team compared to their other offers After weighing out all the options and incentives the rep accepted the offer with my client and they start in 2 weeks 🥇 Having a resource (me!) your ideal reps can sit down with who know the market, know their options and can advise them on all the little things that make your company great can help you close the talent you need after you have already made the investment getting them to #offerstage With my niche #salescandidates they know our relationship is not limited to the jobs I have open now and our relationship is bigger than that - providing a safe place for them to keep it real with me about any roadblocks in closing the deal ⁉️Are you a sales leader with low apps of quality or having to start over when your ideal rep doesn’t accept? Working with me can bridge that gap Are you a candidate with OPTIONS who could benefit from working with a consultant to refine your goals and brainstorm the pros and cons of certain buyers/icps and stages of companies? ⁉️ Creating happy, lucrative and long lasting partnerships in #gtm #saas is what I do all day every day I know my b2b clients and candidates DEEPLY and here to bridge any gaps Let’s make $$$ #sales #salesrecruiter #agencyrecruiter #sdr #bdr #accountexecutive #gtmsales

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Account Managers and Customer Success specialists, struggling to reach their renewal quotas- you are not alone ❗ Over the past 5 days, I have spoken to over 50 AM's and CS Specialists who have all told me the same thing, their renewals rates are dropping-off rather significantly 📉 Why? ESSER Funding...💵 During the Pandemic, Elementary and Secondary Schools received Emergency Relief funding, created in 2020 by Congress to address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigate learning loss. You may also know it as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARP). ⛑ The $13.2 billion ESSER Fund will now expire in September, causing key decision makers at the District level to have to manage spending. A natural side effect of this is not renewing some contracts with providers. 📑 So, moving forward, I want to offer my support to any AM's or CS specialists who are thinking about a new role or would just like to chat in general about the industry! ☎ #EdTech #AccountManager #CustomerSuccess #EdTechSales #Sales #ESSER #K12

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