Thousands of college students graduate each year with massive debt and few transferable job skills.
At the same, thousand of SDR jobs remain hard to fill and fall into “churn ‘n burn” due to misaligned expectations on the part of the candidates.
James Nielsen has set about to change this. By tapping into the ancient practice of mentorship, he’s turned the SDR Recruiting model on its head with his company, Vendition.
Listen in as we discuss how he started with this new approach and the learning he’s done to perfect this program! Employers, candidates and leaders all need to hear what he’s doing.
Also, be sure to check out The Sales Development Conference 2019, August 23rd in San Francisco! Three tracks this year, Leadership, Revenue Operations, and Rep Training. Bring your whole team. Early Bird tickets are almost sold out so grab them before they’re gone too, right here → http://tenbound.com/conference/
Big thanks to Darryl Praill of VanillaSoft for making this podcast possible. Check out their new Sales Engagement solutions here… https://www.vanillasoft.com/solutions…
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Notable Quotes:
“From a candidate perspective, again, they’re applying for jobs with zero experience or training, and so when they come to us and they tell us what they want and what they’re looking for in a job, there’s a huge amount of trust that they have that we can find the right role for them within sales development.”
– James Nielsen
Brief Summary
When we think about doctors, traders, plumbers, and a lot of other professions, having an apprenticeship isn’t a very foreign concept. And it’s understandable because in those professions, you really do need to learn the nitty gritty nuances to be able to do really well. So why don’t we have that as commonly in Sales Development? Good thing James Nielsen and Vendition are working on changing that.
Today’s Guest: James Nielsen
James Nielsen is an engineer who grew fascinated with helping companies grow their revenues until he saw the severe lack of trainings, apprenticeships, and mentorships for aspiring Sales Development reps who have never done the job before. That’s why he founded Vendition, where they help college grads and career switchers land jobs in tech sales.
The episode touches on the following key topics and ideas:
- Check out the 2019 Tenbound Sales Development Conference (00:00)
- David introduces the episode’s guest, James Nielsen (01:02)
- James Nielsen, sales development, and Vendition (01:50)
- Identified the problem and coming up with a solution (03:56)
- Making sure the SDR is a right fit culture-wise and relationship-wise (05:48)
- The push and pull between Vendition, the HR department, and the sales development managers (07:55)
- How Vendition works with competitive markets (09:22)
- What James and Vendition tell candidates about sales development (10:55)
- What James Nielsen thinks about how sales development is viewed (13:13)
- Sales development should be its own department (15:20)
- Is AI ready to take over the Sales Development profession? (18:27)
- Humans are better at selling than robots (at least will still be in the next couple of decades) (22:32)
- The value of training encompasses from SDRs to CEOs (23:33)
- Apprenticeship programs in sales (27:30)
- Vendition spearheading apprenticeships in the Sales Development space (29:11)
- A story about a CEO and how you get used to rejection when you’re in Sales Development (30:37)
- The best way to connect and get in touch with James Nielsen (34:04)
List of Resources Mentioned in the Episode
Enjoyed this podcast? Want to listen to more episodes to enrich and accelerate your sales career? Hop on over to Tenbound.com!
Next Episode: https://tenbound.com/podcast/episode-92-henry-schuck/
