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Building Your 1st Outbound Team: How To Get It Right the ...
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Aaron: Are those generally cold calls, or they’re calling direct? Is it follow up calls, if they have emailing because you can have multiple types of calls? There’s mapping calls. “Right, so it’s typically within the workflow cadence, whatever you want to call it. It’s the series of touches that you make at a prospect. Our first touch is always an email. Second touch is a phone call, third touch is another phone call, but we don’t leave a voicemail, so they called it a ghost dial.” It depends, we’ve done a lot of data gathering, data mining on when is the best touch that we actually get the most appointments booked. Really what I try…
Aaron: Have one person. “Have one person divvy up their time and designate call blocks and email blocks where they can devote their time specifically to prospecting because that’s when you’re going to get the best results when you can actually focus because it’s really difficult to switch gears to go from, “I’m a hunter to now closing to account management.”” Aaron: It could the founder who set aside a day, like Tuesdays, or something.
Aaron: …which is? “Which is step one. I’m sorry, step two, so the first phone call, ironically. What I really try to look at is, so when my reps, we track when they connect with somebody. When they connect with the prospect that we’re trying to speak with, I want to know how many of those converted to a meeting.” You could have a rep who sets up 30 meetings, and you’re like, “Man, that rep’s a rock star. Right on.” That rep also talked to 100 people, but you got another rep who set up 25 meetings, and talked to 35 people. I want to know what that rep’s doing, and I want to emulate that.
You could have a rep who sets up 30 meetings, and you’re like, “Man, that rep’s a rock star. Right on.” That rep also talked to 100 people, but you got another rep who set up 25 meetings, and talked to 35 people. I want to know what that rep’s doing, and I want to emulate that. “That is one of the most important metrics that I try to track and help coach my reps on, so the phone is vastly important.” Andrew: I couldn’t agree more. I think understanding what process is, you first have to understand how does your business make money? What are the economics? What are the unit economics?
Ryan: The way I would look at that is, when can you actually start tracking some actual data that you can start to see some trends in? For me, I think you’re looking at four, five, six months before you can really start getting some data that you can use to help you understand where you’re going, where’s the market, what can you expect as far as quotas? “You can bring people in right away and start churning results if you set up a pretty decent process, but to really have it be predictable…” Aaron: To see how it’s working.
Ryan: Exactly. I know there’s a lot of talk out there about people, process, tools. “First off, you need to, number one, make sure you have the right person running the team, building out the sales development team, business development team because if you don’t, you’re going to run into a lot of mistakes that are going to be made, that are going to set you back. You’re not going to be tracking the right data that’s going to help you be actionable.” That is the biggest mistake, quite honestly, that I see out there with…
Aaron: How long do you think you should be running a team, let’s say, it’s two weeks, a month, two months, before you feel like you might have a better sense of knowing how to evaluate the right tool, if you haven’t done it before? “So, if you haven’t done it before, the first thing I would recommend is get your process down. How do you want your SDRs to function?” Aaron: Process first, and then before tools.
A lot of people out there, I get calls all the time, “Hey, what tools should we use to help our SDRs and make them awesome?” I’m like, “Well, it kind of depends. What’s your process?” There are tools that are built specifically for certain processes. “Really, what the tool’s supposed to help you do is help your reps become more efficient, and then also help you with tracking data. Getting the wrong tool that doesn’t fit your process can be a real setback eventually.” Aaron: Why did you buy the wrong tool? Was it because someone told you to invest, and you just bought it? Was it because you didn’t…? What did you miss, if we’re evaluating, and we’re looking at this?
Aaron: Like? “For instance, is there a limit on how many emails my reps can send per day?” Aaron: Some of the tactical day to day.
It’s completely true. Still to this day, we’re about 18 or 24 months into it by now, and we’re still now tweaking, we know what to expect, but we want everything to go up and to the right. “You need to optimize, get with marketing, get with HR, go finance, pay these people.” You ever want to do a payroll and your commission check’s not working, that’s always fun to deal with, too.
Aaron: 12 days? “It could be two or three months, honestly.” Aaron: Obviously, you’re fast, too.
Aaron: Obviously, you’re fast, too. “For me, I think you’re looking at four, five, six months before you can really start getting some data that you can use to help you understand where you’re going, where’s the market, what can you expect as far as quotas?” For me, it’s normally four, five, six months. You can bring people in right away and start churning results if you set up a pretty decent process, but to really have it be predictable…
It’s completely true. Still to this day, we’re about 18 or 24 months into it by now, and we’re still now tweaking, we know what to expect, but we want everything to go up and to the right. “We really don’t know what the levers to pull to make things go up into the right til about 9 to 12 months from putting someone in the seat and saying, “Here’s the list. Call.”” You ever want to do a payroll and your commission check’s not working, that’s always fun to deal with, too.
Aaron: Or their last names. “Some of the mistakes I personally made is going out and purchasing the wrong tool.” A lot of people out there, I get calls all the time, “Hey, what tools should we use to help our SDRs and make them awesome?” I’m like, “Well, it kind of depends. What’s your process?” There are tools that are built specifically for certain processes.
Aaron: Wrong leader of the team. “Yeah, you’ve got the wrong person running it. It’s typically the first SDR you hire who really kicked ass. You’re like, “Oh my god, they’re amazing. You should be the manager.” They don’t have a clue what they should be tracking or how to coach somebody.” Aaron: Actually, I’m going to take that, it’s a great point I want to get to, and use that with Alicia here, which is, if you’re starting out and you either don’t have someone who’s a dedicated SDR or you can’t get a dedicated manager or dedicated SDR, you sort of have to work with part people, or part time.
In terms of a last tip to leave people with, let’s start at this end. “The last tip, don’t underestimate the infrastructure that it requires to build a sales team, an outbound sales team, especially from my experience of being a product driven organization, high organic growth, building sales on top of that, and building an outbound sales team, it’s vastly different.” Infrastructure, technology, HR, finance, you got to know what you’re getting into. You have to work cross functionally or you can’t be a maverick on the sales side.
Ryan: There’s a couple of things. Some of the mistakes I personally made is going out and purchasing the wrong tool. “There are tools that are built specifically for certain processes.” Really, what the tool’s supposed to help you do is help your reps become more efficient, and then also help you with tracking data. Getting the wrong tool that doesn’t fit your process can be a real setback eventually.
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