Mastering Sales Development

Latest Episodes:

Superstar SDR 6: Jess Wilson from Vidyard May 02, 2019

Show notes

Hi all! Today we will reverse engineer the success of Jess Wilson, from Vidyard. Jess won the March Madness competition at Vidyard, and she does a terrific job to create highly engaging prospecting videos. If I am the expert of Cold Calling, Jess is the expert of Video.

If you want to join the series or nominate a colleague, please tag them in the comments or send me a message. We've already had Mikey Pawell (direct email), Louise Trump (email), Allie Hudson (cold calling), Jackie Lipnicki (cold calling) and Sam Silverman (Strategy) participate.

The topics covered, are indexed below. I have bolded my favorite answers. If you don't have 30 minutes to watch this, just jump around.

Welcome Jess!

Topics covered:

0:00 -> Intros

1:40 -> What is Vidyard?

3:50 -> Day-to-day at Vidyard. Target accounts and researching leads.

4:30 -> When to add video to your sequences

5:20 -> SDR metrics and Quotas of success at Vidyard (context for SDR working similar size deals)

7:20 -> Jess' success. Getting to 266% of quota!

8:10 -> Dissecting Jess' work using video

9:15 -> Jess' example of how to prospect and record videos!

14:25 -> Team structure, training and development @Vidyard

16:30 -> Leveraging video as an AE for recaps!

19:20 -> Tech stack @Vidyard

20:30 -> finding leads, using sequences, and Account-based videos.

25:30 -> Cool Spiffs and employee motivation

If you liked interview, please review it and share it!

Do you work as an SDR? Are you way above quota? write an email to podcast@altisales.com, I want to feature you in the Superstar SDR series!

Cold call training 4: Allie Hudson from Docebo Apr 29, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to the Cold-calling Training series!

Our guest on the show today is Allie Hudson from Docebo!

Allie saw that I was doing cold-calling training online and immediately jumped in, so I had never talked to her before this video.

If you need to improve at cold calling and want to join a training, send an email to podcast@altisales.com. We want the audience to learn various tips and techniques from the mistakes we make here =)

PS. If you're bored, scroll down to the Content index and jump directly to the specific sections that are most useful to you, I've highlighted the ones I recommend.

0:00 Intro & Buyer persona

1:20: Allie's first cold-call (she's incredible!)

4:20 Tito's reaction to Allie's call

5:55 Allie's second call

8:20 Tito's reaction to Allie's call

8:40 Allie's third call

11:45 Allie's Analysis of her calls (Matching energy, brand recognition,

15:00 How Tito on-boards SDRs into AltiSales

16:00 How Allie became so good!

17:35 Allie's tips on how to become this good, and Tito's cold-calling jiu-jitsu

Superstar SDR 5: Mikey Pawell from DocSend Apr 25, 2019

Show notes

Hi all! Today we will reverse engineer the success of Mikey Pawell, from DocSend. I hate to admit it, but in this occasion I actually felt like Mikey was executing something 10x better than me. It was humbling to talk to someone whose figured out direct mail to this level. If I am the expert of Cold Calling, Mikey is the expert of Direct Mail.

If you want to join the series or nominate a colleague, please tag them in the comments or send me a message. We've already had Louise Trump, Allie Hudson, Jackie Lipnicki and Sam Silverman participate.

The topics covered, are indexed below. I have bolded my favorite answers. If you don't have 40 minutes to watch this, just jump around.

Without further ado, welcome Mikey!

Topics covered:

0:00 -> Intros.

1:30 -> What is DocSend?

2:10 -> Team structure, reporting, tools. Small team, mostly outbound. Sales Nav, Outreach

5:30 -> Contact distribution across SDRs

7:10 -> Call scripts? Email Templates

8:20 -> What Mikey does to get better very day.

9:40 -> Meeting quota, Buyer Personas, and Quota.

13:10 -> Where Mikey gets Meetings from.

14:00 -> things Mikey has done to get meetings. MIND BLOWN!

16:00 -> How Mikey finds the information he needs to do direct mail.

17:20 -> An example of how Mikey would personalize a direct mail campaign to me.

21:30 -> COLD OUTBOUND WORKS! Customers close that had no intent to buy, but Mikey identified them as good targets and eventually closed a deal!

23:20 -> Having fun as an SDR. Be a giver! You'll get them excited

28:00 -> What keeps SDRs Happy. Salaries, and why SDRs try to get promotions very quickly.

32:20 -> Favorite Spiffs!

Cold call training 3: Andrew Kamegawa from Persado Apr 22, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to the Cold-calling Training series!

During these sessions, I meet with SDRs from all over the world (our guest today is from San Francisco, CA) and have them mock call me and pitch me their product. After that call, I learn a bit about their product and cold-call them to pitch them their own solution.

Our guest on the show today is Andrew Kamegawa from Persado!

I met Andrew at an Outreach.io event and he was super excited about how I run AltiSales and help SDRs perform better. A few weeks later, I posted on Linkedin offering to train some reps on cold calling and he jumped on that immediately! Let's see what we've got here.

If you need to improve at cold calling and want to join a training, send an email to podcast@altisales.com. I have a different series for top performers called SDR Superstars, training is for those who are new to Cold-Calling (yet not necessarily new to the SDR role). We want the audience to learn various tips and techniques from the mistakes we make here =)

PS. If you're bored, scroll down to the Content index and jump directly to the specific sections that are most useful to you, I've highlighted the ones I recommend.

0:00 Intro

1:20: The ICP and the Psychographic profile of the Buyer Persona

5:25: Andrew's 1st attempt to cold-call

7:20: Explanation of the call, and how to react to busy people

8:40: Skip this.

9:25: Andrew's Second Call

16:00: Tito Learns more about Persado and Andrew's workflow.

18:25: Data personalization rationale!

20:15: Tito continues to learn about Persado and their tech.

21:18: Andrew talks about Persado. He clearly has gotten a lot of product training and at this point articulating it simply is really hard...

23:10: Tito's call.

28:00: Andrew Analyzes Tito's call.

29:00: Tito explains his call and teaches Andrew some lessons.

35:40: Cold-call Jiu-jitsu

37:20: How to convince someone to look at your product without telling them they're wrong.

39:20: How to combat the "we're already doing that" objection.

42:00: What if prospects don't want to open up

45:00: How energy level helps others feel more comfortable

Superstar SDR 4: Louise Trump from Degreed Apr 16, 2019

Show notes

Hi all! Today we will reverse engineer the success of Louise Trump, from Degreed. I had a ton of fun talking to Louise and learning more about her work. We both have a huge passion for learning and getting better.

If you want to join the series or nominate a colleague, please send an email to podcast@altisales.com. We've already had Allie Hudson, Jackie Lipnicki and Sam Silverman participate.

The topics covered, are indexed below, if you don't have 40 minutes to listen to this, just jump around.

Without further ado, welcome Louise Trump!

Topics covered:

0:30 -> Louse is at 400% of quota. What does that mean? How is it measured?

1:50 -> Target market, deal size, and metrics at Degreed

3:30 -> Inbound vs. Outbound team split.

4:20 -> Tools at Degreed

5:20 -> How much data does Louise get and how does she find more data / contact info?

6:10 -> Emails and calls. Self built vs. Leadership providing templates

7:30 -> The SDR to AE Handoff (and how they could to do it better)

7:50 -> The Sales Qualification criteria (and what best practices should be)

13:00 -> Compensation and accelerators beyond quota. (Why pay SDRs $200K)

13:30 -> Team structure. SDR to AE Ratio.

15:00 -> Strategies that Louise uses and how she thinks about "adding value" (examples below)

18:50 -> What does Louise mean by "adding value"? What does that look like and where does she find data from?

25:00 -> Email vs. social. vs phone

26:40 -> How Louise does Social Selling

28:10 -> How does Louise get better every day?

29:00 -> How to get any leader to give you advice? (Nicole Taylor, and Mark Kosoglow can attest to the fact that I meet with people late at night, and give them rides to the airport... I did miss the correct exit when driving Mark, might or might not have been on purpose to get extra talk time haha)

31:50 -> Books Louise loves.

33:00 -> How Louise uses direct mail

35:40 -> Favorite perk at Degreed for Louise.

37:00 -> The AltiSales SDR Presidents club (Quarterly, not yearly!).

39:30 -> Link to call recording training with Cognism

41:50 -> How to connect with Louise and Tito.

Cold call training 2: Darian Waite from PiinPoint Apr 09, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to the Cold call training series!

During these 20-30 minute sessions, I meet with SDRs from all over the world (our guest today is from Canada!) and have them mock call me and pitch me their product. After that call, I learn a bit about their product and cold-call them to pitch them their own solution.

Our guest on the show today is Darian Waite from PiinPoint!

At the end of the call I mention that I'll write additional feedback. It's all at the bottom of this blog post. If you need to improve at cold calling and want to join a training, contact us at podcast@altisales.com. I have a different series for top performers called SDR Superstars, training is for beginners, so that much of the audience that is new to SDR work can learn from the same mistakes =)

PS. If you're bored, scroll down to the index and jump directly to the specific sections that are most useful to you

Index:

0:35: Call context

1:35: The first cold call from Darian

2:25: Quick explanation of why Tito is so tough on cold-calling training

3:40: Darian's second try

4:20: Tito explains why he gives 1-2 pieces of feedback per week and no more

5:35: Darian's 3rd try

12:35 Darin talks about his background and training

13:45: Tito's thoughts on the call

16:00: Tito cold-calls Darian

20:20: Darian Analyzes Tito's call

21:00: Tito Explains what he did on the call.

22:00: How Tito as an SDR helps close accounts!.

Additional thoughts and comments for the audience:

First of all, I want to congratulate Darian and thank him so much for putting himself out there. Most people who sign up for this type of training are already good at it (Hector for example, and a few others that are coming soon). A person has to have huge courage, and a growth mindset, to be able to jump on these calls and get recorded while trying to do a call. Darian's willingness to learn is admirable and sets him up for success in the future.

Please take this seriously. To be able to help each other, we need to expose our weaknesses, so any form of online bullying is NOT TOLERATED. Having said that, I do want to give constructive feedback and help the audience think about the different areas where Darian could have improved and therefore learn from his mistakes as well.

Darian could do a better job of quickly explain the value proposition. Every SDR must know their "2 sentence pitch"
Asking questions as "does that sound correct?", "does that make sense?" or "Is that something you might find some value in?" or "does that sounds like something you do currently?" sounds very unconfident and disturbs the power dynamics of the call giving the prospect too much power. This will get the prospect to hang up after saying "we're not interested". It's an easy way out for them. The better way to do it is to ask the prospect a relevant question such as "how are you finding all your competitive information data?" or "What data do you wish you had, but you've had trouble finding?"
A few times the prospect gets cut off while asking a question or speaking, this could be seen as rude and get prospects to hang up. Always listen first and stay quiet until the prospects finished his thoughts.
Also, as an SDR, you must be able to ask questions that create a good conversation. In this case Darian sometimes answered my questions but did not ask something else back, or propose a meeting. It created some awkward silence.

If you liked training, and you believe your network would benefit from it, please share it!

Do you work as an SDR? Do you want to get better at cold-calling? Send an email to podcast@altisales.com, I want to feature you in the Cold-Calling Training series.

Superstar SDR 3: Allie Hudson from Docebo Apr 02, 2019

Show notes

Hi all! Today we will reverse engineer the success of Allie Hudson, from Docebo. I initially had Allie join me for Cold Calling training, that episode will be available soon!

I was so blown away that I asked her to also come participate in the Rockstar SDR series. We've already had Jackie Lipnicki and Sam Silverman participate.

If you want to join the series or nominate a colleague, please send an email to podcast@altisales.com or just message me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/titobohrt/

The topics covered, are indexed below. I have highlighted my favorite answers. If you don't have 30 minutes to watch this, just jump around.

Without further ado, welcome Allie Hudson!

Topics covered:

1:10 -> Allie's performance @110% during ramp!

1:50 -> Target market, deal size, and metrics at Docebo

4:00 -> Inbound vs. Outbound team split.

4:40 -> Tools at Docebo

5:40 -> How much data does Allie find for each contact?

6:45 -> Emails and calls. Self built vs. Leadership providing templates

7:45 -> Training at Docebo

8:50 -> Inbound vs. Outbound - Ideal Customer Profiles

10:00 -> The Outbound initiative at Docebo

10:30 -> The compensation structure at Docebo. (link to SDR to AE Handoff)

13:20 -> Quota at Docebo is 6 Qualified Opps. How many meetings turn into Opps?

15:00 -> How hard is it to ramp in 3 months?

17:30 -> Compensation model (SaaStr compensation, Why pay SDRs $200K)

20:40 -> Round robin vs. pod system. How to properly do round robin.

24:10 -> Quick call training example. (Link to cold calling training)

27:40 -> How does Allie get meetings. Phone vs. email vs. social.

34:00 -> Favorite spiffs and other incentives.

38:20 -> How to connect with Allie and Tito.

Cold call training 1: Hector Forwood From Cognism Mar 26, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to the Cold-calling series!

During these 20-30 minute sessions, I meet with SDRs from all over the world (we're starting in England) and have them mock call me and pitch me their product. After that call, we turn it around and role-play the opposite way, I learn a bit about their product and I pitch them their own solution.

Our first guest on the show is Hector Forwood from Cognism!

PS. If you're bored, scroll here is the index and jump directly to the specific sections that are most useful to you. I've highlighted the ones that I think you'll benefit the most from.

Index:

0:40: Call context

1:28: The cold call from Hector

5:10: Hector's thoughts on the call and more context on Cognism

6:20: Tito's Analysis of Hector's call

7:00: Tito Learning more about Cognism to prepare for the call

12:20: Tito Cold Calls Hector

15:50 Hector Analyzing Tito's Call

17:20 Tito Explains how he thinks about cold-calls and what he did

Superstar SDR 2: Jackie Lipnicki from ion interactive Mar 18, 2019

Show notes

Hi all! Today we will reverse engineer the success of Jackie Lipnicki, from ion interactive. I was shocked when I talked to Jackie, a total A-player both at work and outside of it. She hit almost 200% of quota at her company while being a player-coach, she is currently hiring SDRs in Boca Raton, FL.

Jackie is a self taught SDR who has mastered the craft.

If you want to join the series or nominate a colleague, please send an email to podcast@altisales.com.

The topics covered, are indexed below.

Without further ado, welcome Jackie Lipnicki!

Topics covered:

0:50 -> What is ion interactive?

1:20 -> inbound vs. outbound? How's it all split.

2:05 -> How do you find your data for contacts to reach out to?

3:15 -> How much research do SDRs do?

3:50 -> How many calls do SDRs make a day?

4:40 -> Email templates and calling script strategy.

6:00 -> How ion uses the 10-80-10 rule and how they started using a new awesome email template

6:45 -> dissecting why that email is working for them and how to test emails.

12:00 -> How ion interactive compensates SDRs and why their changing it soon.

14:25 -> Jackie reveals that she hit ~195% of quota

15:50 -> Where Jackie's meetings come from (hint: 75% via phone)

16:50 -> Who is the ICP and Buyer Persona for ion interactive?

18:15 -> Doing a mock call and dissecting Jackie's success!! (Hint: I was a pain in the butt to her and she still got me!)

23:30 -> How Jackie is training BDRs and helping them have executive conversations.

25:30 -> Pod system vs. round robin. What does ion interactive use? (cool innovative round robin per SDRs rather than a company round robin)

27:00 -> Spiffs at ion interactive.

28:30 -> Would Jackie go work from Cancun and set up a team there?

29:15 -> How to get in touch with us

Superstar SDR 1: Sam Silverman from Outreach.io Feb 19, 2019

Show notes

Hi all, and welcome to the first episode of the new SDR Superstar Series, where I (Tito Bohrt, CEO of AltiSales), interview the best SDRs out there and try to Reverse Engineer how they got there. This is not only about their best email or their best pitch, but the whole organization.

What keeps them motivated? How is their comp structure? What tools do they use? How much time do they spend finding prospects data. We cover everything.

Each episode will grab the best SDR from a certain company. If you are the best SDR, manager or a peer of a Superstar SDR, contact us at podcast@altisales.com to get nominated for the show.

To Qualify for the series:

- We'll have to verify with 2-3 people that you are indeed the best SDR in the company (or very close to the best)

- You have to be willing to share everything you know

- You need to be 100% honest about your work and what your company does to enable you

Without further ado, here's our first episode.

Welcome, Sam Silverman!

(If you'd like me to ask additional questions to future interviewees, please tag send us an email to podcast@altisales.com and suggest new questions!

Indexing the call:

1:08 -> What is Outreach

2:24 -> What does Outreach provide you in terms of Leads, Scripts, Templates?

3:55 -> Can you craft your own emails, or do you get templates?

4:35 -> Does Sam do Inbound, Outbound, or both? What are the rules of engagement?

5:52 -> How does Outreach structure compensation?

8:00 -> How much is base salary vs. commission?

9:05 -> How big is the accelerator kicker?

10:00 -> Sam Silverman's secret sauce to be the best SDR.

11:35 -> the source of Sam's meetings (phone vs. email)

13:30 -> How Sam strategically prepares for the week and gets his work done.

15:10 -> Minimum activity metrics at Outreach for SDRs.

16:20 -> Why does Sam go for the big fish Accounts?

17:25 -> How personalized are Sam's emails?

19:55 -> How are your lists segmented?

21:30 -> Last comments from Sam about SDRs as a career choice

How and Why to get in touch with us:

To learn more about how Outreach.io can streamline the workflow of any customer facing rep at your company, reach out to Sam Silverman.

To learn more about AltiSales can help you set up your first SDR team or help you make your team 3-4x more productive using best practices, reach out to us at podcast@altisales.com