As a sales development representative, I am responsible for creating new opportunities and identifying qualified customers. I collaborate with the sales team to identify and pursue these opportunities and use my communication skills, organization, and research skills to do so. Here is more about SDRs.
Sales Development Representative
A sales development representative (SDR) is a type of sales person who works within a company’s sales team and reports to a manager. Their job is to develop new business, which usually involves working to generate sales leads, qualify them, and turn them into new business.
In some cases, they may also be responsible for managing customer relationships.
What is the work of a SDR?
A SDR’s primary responsibility is to nurture and qualify leads to move them through the sales funnel.
Both sales development and sales representatives play important roles in meeting and exceeding business targets. However, it’s important to remember that these roles are different, and that communication between these two groups is key to successful collaboration.
The VP of sales is responsible for managing a team of sales reps. The VP of marketing is responsible for generating new leads to feed into the SDR team. The SDRs are in charge of following up with qualified leads to the point when they’re ready to make a purchasing decision.
After the lead has been qualified, sales reps step in to “position” the products.
SDR Skills
Video prospecting, active listening and adaptability, follow-up, resilience, coachability, self awareness, organization, curiosity, relationship-building and overcoming objections are all important skills for salespeople.
1. Video Prospecting
Video Prospecting is when you reach out to your prospects in a personalized, short, 2-minute or less, video clip.
Using video to prospect allows you to make a personal connection with your prospects without having to schedule a call.
If you’re looking for software for your video outreach, both Loom and SoapBox by Wistia are great tools.
An SDR only needs to be able to record themselves on their phone, and be interested in meeting with a prospect in follow-up conversations, in order to create an effective video.
Create a short (less than 2 minutes) video where you introduce yourself and your company, provide some value, and encourage them to call you.
The more video templates you create, the easier it will be to crank out personalized video content. In no time, you’ll be able to create high-quality, custom-tailored messages as easily as you would an email.
2. Customized outreach strategies
As an SDR, it can be tough to balance quality and quantity when reaching out to new contacts. On the one hand, you want to reach out to as many qualified people as possible. On the other hand, you don’t want to waste your time on people who aren’t interested.
On the one hand, you want to build a strong sales pipeline for your sales reps. On the other hand, you know it takes time to build relationships with your prospects. I see successful salespeople shifting their focus from the quantity of their outreach to the quality of their outreach. By focusing on building strong relationships, they are able to connect with a smaller number of high-quality contacts.
3 Actively Listening and following up
Sometimes, sales development reps aren’t able to get in touch with a prospect by phone, so a voice mail is the next best alternative.
A presenter at a past training session said that if you left 25 high-quality messages, you’d receive at least one call back.
But if you don’t leave a voice mail, your chances of receiving a call back diminish greatly.
In just a short message, you have to convince a potential customer who you’ve never spoken to before to pick up the phone and call you.
Some salespeople prefer to be brief when initiating a call. “Hello, my name is [sales person] from [company]. I’d like to talk to you about [strategy].”
Call me back at (555) 555-5555.
I personally like to add a bit of value when doing this. For instance, “I noticed you recently did X.”
Here are a few tips that I hope will help you.”
Practicing leaving good, effective, and concise messages is indispensable for SDRs.
Don’t just record activity for the sake of recording it. Be intentional about each action you take, and remember that every interaction you have with a prospect is a potential opportunity.
4 Resilience
While sales dev reps don’t close sales, they’re responsible for generating new qualified opportunities.
They spend most of their time sending out emails or making phone calls. That can be tiring.
In addition to all the technical skills, resilience is a soft skills that can’t really be taught. It takes a lot of practice and experience.
If you’re feeling down or demotivated, it will come across on the phone and your prospective client will sense it.
No matter how great you are at sales, you’ll make bad calls and make mistakes. It’s natural to get frustrated, but don’t let one negative experience ruin your entire day.
Although letting these negative feelings prevent you from talking to anyone for the rest of your day will negatively affect your 15 following phone calls, don’t let them ruin your prospects’ days as well.
Learning how to stay resilient in the face of adversity now will be an invaluable skill to have in the future.
5. Teachability
One skill we value highly at HubSpot when hiring SDRs is their ability to receive and act on constructive criticism. While confidence is great, an SDR’s ego can get in the way of receiving constructive feedback.
The best SDRs understand the importance of coaching and actively seek it out from high-performing peers. They also desire honest feedbacks from their managers in order to continuously improve their skills.
The best way to get better as an SDR is to ask for and receive regular, constructive feedback from peers and your supervisor. If this isn’t possible, try to schedule weekly check-ins with your manager for feedback and coaching.
6 Stay Organized
The secret to being a successful SDR is to manage your time effectively. This means prioritizing the tasks you need to do each day, such as emailing, making calls and attending meetings with your manager.
Keeping a schedule and sticking to it, whether through writing out a daily task list or using a scheduling tool, will help your sales reps stay on track with their sales prospecting.
7 Curiosity
Curious SDRs want to learn about new products, industries, and organizations. Being inquisitive about these things will help them in their role now, but will also help them as they advance in their career.
SDRs should thoroughly understand the products they’re selling, as well as the buyer personas that are being targeted.
Finding new information about your prospects is fairly easy and often times, it’s completely free. You can gather information internally through your company, through free online sources like blogs and training videos, through conferences, and through conversations with your colleagues.
Continuous learning is a hallmark of successful SDRs.
8 Build Relationships With Prospects
As an SDR, you are tasked with building a relationship with your prospects before passing them off to your AM to close the deal.
To be successful at building relationships, you need to be able to communicate well with a variety of people in a variety of different mediums.
Whether you’re sending an email, conducting a presentation, or sending a recorded message, you’ll want to make sure that you’re communicating your points in a way that keeps your audience interested.
9. Be able to overcome Objections
Overcoming pricing objection is the top challenge that 35% of salespeople face, but it doesn’t have to include you.
Most sales reps get better with overcoming sales objection as they gain experience. They begin to understand all the solutions that their company offers and see them work in a variety of situations.
When you can demonstrate that you can solve their pain point, you develop the trust with your lead that’ll influence whether they buy from you or not.
Conclusion
Sales development representatives play an important role in the sales process, and they need a mix of skills to be successful. Excellent communication, research, and organizational abilities are essential for any SDR. With these sales development skills, you can help your team identify and pursue new opportunities successfully.
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