SDR Operations: knowing thy funnel
Hello revenue leaders!,
Welcome to the 96 new subscribers (đ) who have climbed aboard the RevOps Impact Newsletter this week. If you're reading this but haven't subscribed, join our community of over 797 crazy smart Revenue leaders. If youâre a startup interested in sponsoring a simple text ad in this newsletter it would go along way to helping me transition this newsletter to free for my readers. Reply to this email if youâre interested in receiving the RevOps Impact Newsletter media kit to learn more about the opportunity.
Hello from Rio de Janeiro!
Letâs talk about Sales Development Reps (SDRs). The purpose of an SDR (sales development representative) is to generate new business opportunities by identifying, qualifying, and nurturing leads through various sales and marketing techniques. They are typically responsible for the initial stages of the sales process, such as making cold calls, sending emails, and scheduling appointments, with the goal of creating a pipeline of qualified leads for the sales team to follow up on.
Ultimately, theyâre measured on the following:
Meetings Booked
Opportunities Generated
When the outputs donât quite measure up there are a few places to examine for SDR Managers and SDR Operations teams. Namely,
Unrealistic target setting
Activity volume decline
Connect rate decline
Ineffective communication channels (over reliance on email for example)
Low persona compliance
Low target account compliance
There are a few other places to look but this is where I would start. Before diving into each one letâs talk about SDR compensation plans quickly. Remember, show me an incentive and I will show you the behavior. Design good compensation plans.
When it comes to SDR comp plans there is one critical principle I abide by:
Compensation on what you can control
I see several types of compensation designs. One notorious design is to tie compensation plan to outcomes which SDRs cannot control. Hereâs a query on designing a comp plan around Closed Won. I understand the desire to set âone team, one dreamâ processes within the company, but I also think that even in sports every player has a specific role to play.
Remember when we talk about designing sales stages we are breaking down not only the technical components, but also the specific functional purpose of each step. SDRs do not participate in developing Mutual Action Plans, Pricing, Negotiations, and implementation timelines. So why leave any portion of an SDR compensation plan to the whims of the customer and sales rep?
Keep the plan simple. Compensate them for quality meetings booked and meetings that convert to opportunities. PERIOD. Anything else and you incentivize bad behavior and culture conflicts internally.
Meetings are down and so are calls
What's going on? Why did we miss target? Must be that we haven't dialed enough?
Maybe, maybe not.
Letâs dig into the usual suspects for understanding why we missed below.
But first just a quick primer on ensuring youâre tracking activity correctly via your CRM. Here are the basic steps for instrumenting your CRM properly:
Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:
1/ If youâre looking to further develop your Revenue Operations knowledge sign up for my courses in partnership with the RevOps Co-Op.
â Unleashing ROI course. A ten-week virtual, live instruction RevOps course designed to level up your RevOps Impact (R.O.I.). Lessons from my career scaling from $10M to $100M+. Join 50+ alumni. https://www.revopscoop.com/learn/unleashing-roi-course
â Sales Ops Masterclass. A six-week virtual, live instruction SalesOps course designed to take your sales operations skills to the next level. https://www.revopscoop.com/learn/salesops-masterclass
2/ Promote your Revenue focused startup to a newsletter with hundreds of revenue leaders. My eventual goal is to shift this to a completely free newsletter for my readers through sponsored ads. Reply to this email if youâre interested in receiving a media kit to learn more.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to RevOps Impact Newsletter to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.