What’s going to happen to SDRs and prospecting teams in the future? The sales development function is always changing. We spoke to Josh Roth to hear how he thinks prospecting teams and the role of an SDR is going to change. Here’s a hint, it’s an exciting time to be an SDR right now. Below is a quick summary of the conversation, but listen to the full interview via the YouTube video below.
Here’s how the structure of prospecting teams is going to change…
Prospecting Teams Using Marketing Skills
Morgan: You mentioned marketing. Have you had any thoughts of going back? And what are some things that you studied while you were in marketing that help you and your SDR leadership role and as an NSS sales rep?
Josh: When I started as a sales rep, I think you were still able to sell with a phone and Google. We were still at the point where if you would call a company maybe headcount is 5000, you still might be able to get the decision-maker on the phone just by saying, “Hey, I’m looking to speak to this person”. So we had a little bit more success there.
Now with all of the different gatekeepers, administrative assistants, phone systems, that can kind of block your way, the model is really shifted. What I learned was to create. You really need to create in sales development. But I would argue with sales as a whole, you have to create. You can’t just sell with a phone and Google anymore. One out of every 18 calls to a decision-maker will get answered. That statistic was as of two years ago. So I think it’s probably closer to one out of every 22 or even 25 calls now.
You’ve got to create posts on LinkedIn, do podcasts like you’re doing, really be sure to create valuable content. Don’t just repurpose stuff. I mean if you go on LinkedIn, I can’t tell you how many people are just repurposing Gary V or Grant Cardone content. Go in and create your own, talk about your own experiences, do a debate, do awards, anything that can get people saying like, “This person has experience that he or she knows what they’re talking about”. That’s what I learned in marketing that is so applicable to sales dev today. Create. Do what you got to do, but create.
The Future of Prospecting Teams
Morgan: Now let’s go into the topic of where do you see the SDR role going? Where do you see the model going? What are prospecting teams going to be like?
Josh: You know, I think that you’re gonna end up seeing reps starting to build careers as top of funnel SDRs, you’re going to see compensation that’s going to become equal to what building a career is worth as opposed to having three month ramps, six, nine, twelve month timelines as SDRs, I think you’re going to start seeing it being a two to three year career as an SDR and filtering into either account executive work or actual SDR leadership where you’re going to jump into like a BDM for example. I see from an organizational structure standpoint, where it could go.
I think the other way it could go is cycling into full-cycle reps as opposed to SDR and BDR where you have a similar title. Where an SDR and account executive, similar title, similar roles, everyone is full cycle, but typically the account executives will have a larger book of business accounts may be reassigned, whereas SDRs are going to be more up that kind of initial outreach. I think you’ll see the life cycle of SDRs just be elongated a little bit instead of kind of these 12-15 month roles, I think you’ll see them instead about two to three years.
Compensation Plans
Morgan: Are you going to see where people are going to be compensated more on pipeline that they source that’s getting close? Are people just going to stick with meeting was just scheduled and completed? That’s how they’re going comp. Do you feel like that’s going to change in the model?
Josh: I think realistically what I would like to do is kind of similar to the account executive lane. If you’re self prospecting, if your bringing in leads (I’m assuming this isn’t an outbound function) I would rather you get compensated at a higher rate than if you were just bringing in, for example, a demo request or interest level call that is through demand gen function. If you’re bringing someone that’s brand new, I want you to be compensated more. More than if someone that’s already exhibited interest or clicked through on an email. I just want to structure that a little differently from a comp standpoint.
That’s a wrap. Join us next time
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