Summary:
Sales Development Representatives bring value to every company by connecting their offer to possible leads and customers — this work, however, is not as easy as it seems. What people don’t realize is the effort it takes to even just connect with a lead.
In this episode, Adam Weitzman, shares with us his experiences as a former SDR in SalesForce and as a current AE inLinkedIn. With David, Adam will walk us through why multi-threaded leads are much more feasible than having just one point person, how important building a relationship is, and how he uses LinkedIn to build trust with prospect leads.
3 Key Points:
1.Start considering having different points of contact in a company vs having just one.
2.Always build relationship and trust first before selling something.
3.Do something that your competition doesn’t.
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 00:00 – Talk to the experts at Inside Sales Team for all your sales development needs
- 00:46 – David introduces Adam to the show
- 02:27 – After school, Adam decided he will be in a banking-type role
- 02:40 – In 8 months, he left the job and managed to get into an internship program at SalesForce
- 03:06 – He later transitioned as a sales development representative (SDR)
- 03:28 – He was fortunate enough to be an account executive (AE) right after his SDR position
- 05:12 – SalesForce has a great way of training their talents
- 05:24 – The internship was a great opportunity to get a ton of exposure
- 05:58 – In his first month, Adam’s goal was to inform the SDRs who to reach out to, when, and why
- 06:21 – The biggest opportunity that Adam found in the internship was following through from start to finish
- 07:31 – Adam’s SDR role helped shape everything for him
- 08:06 – After his SDR position, he skipped becoming a BDR and went to take on an AE position at LinkedIn
- 09:11 – As an intern, Adam supported 12 BDRs with hundreds to thousands of accounts on his team
- 10:58 – There weren’t many opportunities for net new accounts
- 11:09 – The true measurement of effectiveness are based on the opportunities or pipelines that were generated from the intern’s efforts
- 12:33 – The relationship between interns and BDRs is crucial to success
- 15:01 – An SDR gets a list of inbound leads from SalesForce website
- 16:22 – If an SDR bumps into an influencer it will be one of 2 things: get help to be introduced to the decision maker or seek to gain information
- 18:04 – There are multiple people involved in buying decisions that SDRs are not relying on one point of contact anymore
- 18:38 – Adam’s goal in LinkedIn now is to identify people in an organization who are in the sphere of influence in buying decisions
- 19:57 – Adam shares about a multi-threaded sales lead
- 20:52 – “It’s all about building relationships and having conversations”
- 21:26 – Adam gets conversations started through personalization and genuine curiosity
- 21:41 – Be willing to learn and share about what you do to find commonalities
- 22:58 – Adam shares an example of upfront selling
- 24:01 – Learn to ask people or the answer will always be “no”
- 24:52 – “Who else should we have involved in this conversation?” is a great question to ask a point person who the decision maker is without offending
- 26:48 – LinkedIn is a platform that gives you information that can help you build a relationship
- 27:05 – Finding commonalities and understanding what’s important to a person without having to ask is valuable
- 28:29 – By interviewing thousands of salespeople, LinkedIn now knows that a lot of traditional sales tactics are not as effective as they used to be
- 29:14 – A few areas LinkedIn Sales Solution help businesses with:
- Knowing how many people are involved in the B2B buying decision
- Researching: 75% of research happens online before the company reaches out
- 32:07 – Revenue Disruption is a great book about the change in buyer processes
- 33:01 – Sales Navigator allows you to follow individuals and companies regardless of being connected with them
- 33:12 – Adam talks about how he used Sales Navigator to socially “listen,” get a relationship built, and eventually get his software sold
- 36:38 – LinkedIn is now a critical tool in finding out what people need
- 38:12 – Adam’s biggest tip to SDRs is to generate an opportunity with a much higher close rate by recognizing what happens in a buyer’s process
- 40:25 – Try something different your approach
- 41:00 – “There’s always different ways of going about doing things”
- 42:22 – Connect with Adam on LinkedIn
- 43:00 – Subscribe to our show on YouTube and review us on iTunes
- 43:08 – Contact us to discuss your sales development needs
Resources Mentioned:
- SalesForce – Company where Adam worked as an SDR
- LinkedIn – Company where Adam currently serves as an account executive
- Revenue Disruption – Book David recommends to know about the changes in buyer’s processes
- Sales Navigator – A LinkedIn integration tool that Adam uses to connect with individuals and companies
