Summary:
In this episode, David interviews Chris Bryson, head of North American Sales Development at SmartRecruiters. Tune in as Chris shares how they use data to help SDRs get better at their work and produce more results. He also shares the process on how their company implemented the changes towards success.
3 Key Points:
- Look at the data and learn how to analyze and review it.
- The leadership should take time to allow the people to learn.
- Let the SDRs focus on making sales.
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 00:00 – Subscribe to our show on YouTube and review us on iTunes
- 00:40 – DiscoverORG – The world’s leading prospect intelligence platform
- 01:02 – David introduces Chris to the show
- 02:35 – Chris says the best decision he ever made is to go from finance to sales development
- 03:20 – Chris first worked with PandaDoc in San Francisco where he met Taft Love
- 04:26 – With SmartRecruiters, Chris worked as a frontline sales manager
- 05:33 – The company’s work is data-driven by necessity
- 06:16 – They had problems in sales development
- 07:35 – The SDRs were concerned about how they connect with people
- 08:05 – The company decided to quantify the data and made a bucket for success
- 09:32 – The problem with using CRM is reporting
- 10:07 – Buckets should be aligned with the different dispositions in Salesforce
- 11:31 – The end result is to move people to set appointments
- 12:09 – Data made it possible to see the connect rate and make better decisions for the next steps needed
- 13:02 – When the skill gaps of the reps were identified, they went into the data-driven sales coaching
- 15:05 – The coaching framework was built to teach people on how to open and close a call
- 16:32 – The first step is to actually talk to the team and review the data
- 17:33 – This was done to set the philosophy on how the team will run and why coaching is important
- 18:04 – DiscoverORG – The world’s leading prospect intelligence platform
- 18:46 – The company used the tool Guru for documentation
- 19:43 – During formal trainings, participants were required to write down their questions
- 20:34 – Roll out was done through the training or a coaching session
- 21:04 – Homework is assigned using their own tool and the reps also have to complete a scorecard
- 22:23 – The manager reviews results with the rep on a one-on-one session
- 23:20 – If something didn’t stick he management will do another review
- 23:56 – Chris meets with their SDR manager on a weekly basis to review reports
- 25:45 – The biggest thing they made a mistake on is to move too quickly with the changes
- 26:26 – Leadership should take time to allow people to learn
- 27:32 – Chris says he would hold back even more if he can do it again
- 28:36 – Chris encourages any SDR manager to keep on making contacts and stay in touch
- 29:31 – SmartRecruiters has the ability to keep in touch with people
- 29:47 – Leverage the use of LinkedIn
- 30:04 – Go to events and meet people face to face
- 31:31 – The head of sales development is almost an SDR for people
- 32:06 – SmartRecruiters is hiring more enterprise account executives as part of their scaling
- 33:37 – With prospects, they have an application experience scorecard
- 34:17 – The company has a research team that helps the sales development team in innovative projects
- 35:22 – “Use data intelligently to create value”
- 36:12 – The sales cycle becomes ROI oriented
- 37:14 – Invest in decentralizing the SDR role
- 38:02 – Chris says they took away the activities that are most likely to be neglected and gave it out to contractors
- 39:56 – Increase the pipeline to demonstrate the ROI for hiring the contractor
- 40:26 – Sellers can just focus on selling and not on unrelated tasks
- 41:09 – It’s insane to pay a lot to an SDR to do data entry
- 41:57 – Connect with Chris on LinkedIn
- 42:34 – Subscribe to our show on YouTube and review us on iTunes
- 42:41 – Contact us to discuss your sales development needs
Resources Mentioned:
- PandaDoc – company Chris first worked in
- SmartRecruiters – company where Chris works now
