Hello Friends-
If you lead sales, inevitably you’ll be tasked to advise, build, tweak, or revamp the GTM or Sales Development process.
Anyone who has been through this process how important that SDR + AE relationship and alignment internally is to the sales process and customer buying cycle.
In this week’s edition of Stretch Weekly -
Great piece from Ryan O’Hara and team at LeadiQ as they hosted a debate of stars to discuss Inbound vs. Outbound
Ralph Barsi presents to sales leaders at Revenue Summit about the 4 key barriers SDRs face and how to overcome them to crush the competition
Plus, more sales snippets with best practices to lead your SDRs, BDRs, or XDRs to success and quota crushing revenues.
THANKS for reading!!
-Grant
And lastly - as always, if you find this newsletter valuable- subscribe or share it with someone who might as well 👊.
STRETCH SHARES
How The Top SDRs Overcome Obscurity & Crush The Competition
If you lead a team of SDRs, send them this video with Ralph Barsi right away. Ralph presents to sales leaders at Revenue Summit about the 4 key barriers SDRs face and how to overcome them to crust the competition. Highlights below.
5 Obstacles for success SDRs face:
Obscurity. Obscurity is one of the biggest problems that most SDRs deal with early on in their careers. If nobody knows who you are, how can you ever break out and become the SDR that you know you can be?
Lack of focus. Too many distractions.
Lack of activity. Jump on the Social Selling train - if not you are already YEARS behind.
Lack of execution. You prepped, you strategized and then you or your AE failed. (you fell, messed up, botched the call etc. )
Lack of continuous improvement. Master the craft of sales development. SDR tenure should be more like 2 years and not 6 months. Build your brand and get known.
Barsi Bombs:
“Hoping for a good year? Replace ‘Hope’ with ‘expect’. You can influence your experience and outcome.”
“Shift your mindset to attracting your audience and marketplace, instead of pursuing it.”
“Leaders: What bat signal are you putting out there to attract A Players?”
The Great Debate: Inbound vs. Outbound
Came across a great piece from Ryan O’Hara and team at LeadiQ as they hosted a debate of stars to discuss Inbound vs. Outbound.
As a Sales Leader, you are often in charge of heading up both inbound response (working with Marketing to develop the demand gen engine and how it appropriately syncs with sales) as well as an effective Outbound engine and strategy. Debate topics include:
Driving inbound Ideal Customers
Building a Demand Gen Engine
Leadfeeder has noticed is that the conversion rates are 20-21 times higher when reaching out within the first 5 minutes, than if they left that inbound lead for an extra half an hour or an hour or an hour. Focusing on speed to lead conversion is key.
Does Outbound Have a Negative Side?
Building Outbound Pipeline
Finding and Targeting Your ICP
"Outbound prospecting isn't the art of convincing someone that your product is valuable. Outbound prospecting is the art of making a good first impression"
- Ryan O'Hara
STRETCH SNIPPETS
🦸🏻♂️ Prospecting superhero Justin Michael (AKA the Tony Stark of Prospecting) gives us the top 13 lessons he learned from training thousands of SDRs. Then go vote on his poll and tell him what it takes to become a top SDR?
💡 Enjoyed the Ralph Barsi video above and want more? Check out this podcast featuring him and Jordan Benjamin as they discuss building and leading SDR teams.
🗣 Michael Hanson talks about one of the most common challenges he sees in SaaS sales teams: alignment between SDRs and AEs. Learn from his top 6 tips to ensure a better buying experience.
📧 SDRs: Update your sequences! Belal Batrawy tells us the word every single cold email or call script needs to ELIMINATE immediately is "help" and why…
✍️ Jeremey Donovan tells us: In prospecting emails, try putting your own company name and one of your customer's customers names in the subject line. Then segue authentically into your relevant value proposition.
🧠 Mindset
Thanks for reading!
My hope is if you find this valuable, consider sharing it with friends (or signing up if you haven’t already).
— Grant 👋
About stretch vp: confessions, learnings, and insights from sales leaders in SaaS
Compiled and aggregated from a network of sales leaders in SaaS, Stretch VP showcases learnings, insights, and experiences as well as best practices to overcome common hurdles, obstacles, and setbacks in your quest for excellence as a sales leader in SaaS.
Are you a VP, Director, thought leader, or content producer in the SaaS space? We’d love to have you contribute. Just reply to this email and I’ll be in touch.
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