Summary:
In this episode, David chats with Adam Schoenfeld, CEO and co-founder of Siftrock, SaaS company building machine learning solutions that help B2B marketers and sales teams operate more effectively. Adam, seeing the need for outbound sales in Siftrock, decided he was the perfect person to first start it and build processes prior to hiring. Listen as he shares his experiences and learnings from doing SDR work for a couple of months.
3 Key Points:
- Don’t let failure keep you from doing what you think is the right thing.
- Don’t be afraid to seek help when you need it.
- Be thoughtful when reaching out to your prospects and/or customers.
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 00:01 – Accelerate your growth at The Sales Development Conference on August 31, 2018
- 00:52 – Subscribe to our show on YouTube and review us on iTunes
- 01:29 – David introduces Adam to the show
- 02:20 – Adam has been in tech startups for 10 years
- Recently, he joined Siftrock
- 04:51 – Adam talks about his failure in entrepreneurship
- He learned a lot of lessons the hard way
- His main learning: find and latch on customer pain
- 06:17 – His interest in technology pushed him to become an entrepreneur even after a failure
- 09:55 – Adam didn’t understand what being customer-driven was at the start
- 11:10 – Start with the customer and the problems they deal with
- Everything has to start with them
- 13:37 – The lesson Adam learned from doing SDR work: It’s all about the prospect
- 14:31 – From CEO to SDR: How and Why Adam took an SDR position
- He experimented with his company’s outbound end
- Adam realized they didn’t know much about this position so he decided he’ll fill in the role instead of hiring right away
- 19:28 – You don’t need a thousand accounts to start
- 20:01 – Accelerate your growth at The Sales Development Conference on August 31, 2018
- 22:02 – BuiltWith and EverString were tools Adam used
- 22:23 – Knowing your persona well helps a lot in segmenting
- 24:50 – Telling customer stories versus Pitching
- 25:42 – Personalization is another key in reaching out to prospects
- 28:49 – Recognize that you are NOT the most important thing to your prospect the time you reach out
- Don’t waste people’s time
- 30:41 – Leaders inside the company needs to understand that SDRs “interrupt” people the whole day
- 31:48 – Having empathy and research skills are two main traits Adam looks for when hiring
- 33:34 – Adam shares how they track success of SDRs without metrics
- Reply is a leading indicator
- 36:17 – How Adam managed his business while doing an SDR job for 2 months
- 36:59 – Adam’s BIGGEST takeaway: Tune in to what’s going on
- 40:23 – Advice to CEOs: Listen to as many calls and read the email exchanges
- 42:35 – Connect with Adam on LinkedIn and on his email
- – Subscribe to our show on YouTube and review us on iTunes
- – Contact us to discuss your sales development needs
Resources Mentioned:
- Siftrock – Adam’s company
- BuiltWith and EverString – Tools that Adam used while he filled in the SDR position
