The best AEs are SDR champions.
They don't:
→ Treat SDRs like EAs
→ Reject qualified opps
→ Criticize them publicly
→ Limit their prospecting
→ Refuse to take meetings
→ Demand but never give back
The best AEs:
→ Treat SDRs like partners
→ Give credit where it's due
→ Celebrate their work publicly
→ Collaborate on prospecting strategy
→ Take meetings and give feedback after
→ Provide consistent coaching and support
They respect SDRs for the work they do.
And know it's a win-win to be a champion.
Cheers to all you SDR champions out there
Usually, the best AEs are ones who've been in the SDR shoes for long enough to understand their challenges. Some people get quick into the AE roles and their lack of experience shows in how they treat the SDRs.
This is such a valuable post Laurence.
👏👏
See this too often from AEs. Most top performers have a close partnership with their SDR, unfortunately others choose to treat them as inferior and put unnecessary guardrails around their prospecting.
It’s incumbent on us as SDR leaders to stand up for our team members in these cases.
#partnership#collaboration#empathy#success#WorldClassBDRs
Helping SDR leaders build top-tier teams and crush quotas, stress-free | Founder @ The SDR Leader | Leader @ Workday
The best AEs are SDR champions.
They don't:
→ Treat SDRs like EAs
→ Reject qualified opps
→ Criticize them publicly
→ Limit their prospecting
→ Refuse to take meetings
→ Demand but never give back
The best AEs:
→ Treat SDRs like partners
→ Give credit where it's due
→ Celebrate their work publicly
→ Collaborate on prospecting strategy
→ Take meetings and give feedback after
→ Provide consistent coaching and support
They respect SDRs for the work they do.
And know it's a win-win to be a champion.
Cheers to all you SDR champions out there
When I made the transition from SDR to AE, I noticed right away that the majority of my peers treated SDR's poorly. It was a stark reminder to my first month as an SDR, where I booked a record breaking number of meetings, but none of them closed.
Back then we were on a Round Robin. It was a little bit like the wild west. I had thousands of leads and the majority would be considered fringe fit, as they would likely require some workarounds. I booked 30 meetings that first month, all of them poorly qualified. I was learning.
In that first month, it felt like AE counterparts were there to break my spirit. Some would even go as far as begging me not to pass them meetings, even though they were up on RR. Fast forward to month 2, those meetings started closing. They started closing at a pretty noticeable rate. Sentiment quickly changed and I now had AE's fighting for my meetings.
I don't know if this is something I am necessarily proud of, but I held a grudge. I intentionally passed over the AE's who weren't supportive in that first month. My best leads that I knew would close, went to those who celebrated my early success even though they didn't benefit initially. At one point, one particular AE Ben Bradley and I had a 100% close rate on leads I transferred. Shake & Bake.
Moral of the story is this, as an AE, when an SDR would pass me thier first meeting and come over afterwards to apologize with fear in thier eyes, I would tell them the same thing. You book em, I'll close them. Find any warm body that's willing to talk. Your only job this month is getting comfortable with getting a yes and ensuring a smooth hand-off. Next month we'll start working on quality. This strategy consistently kept me around a 40% close rate on SDR transfers. It saved me time on cold calling and prospecting and allowed me to focus on what I did best. Closing deals.
As a sales leader, I will always honor the lessons learned from that 1st month in tech sales. I will always be an advocate for SDR. Build your SDR up, help them gain confidence and coach them. Not only will you benefit from it, you will build unbreakable relationships where everyone wins and you will get to have a huge impact on the trajectory of someone's life who decided to make the jump into sales ✌🏾
Helping SDR leaders build top-tier teams and crush quotas, stress-free | Founder @ The SDR Leader | Leader @ Workday
The best AEs are SDR champions.
They don't:
→ Treat SDRs like EAs
→ Reject qualified opps
→ Criticize them publicly
→ Limit their prospecting
→ Refuse to take meetings
→ Demand but never give back
The best AEs:
→ Treat SDRs like partners
→ Give credit where it's due
→ Celebrate their work publicly
→ Collaborate on prospecting strategy
→ Take meetings and give feedback after
→ Provide consistent coaching and support
They respect SDRs for the work they do.
And know it's a win-win to be a champion.
Cheers to all you SDR champions out there
| Snr. Sales Development Leader | ex-Braze | Series C ➡️ IPO | 📈 Builder of sustainable pipeline generation teams & systems | Founder of Consulting Group RevRocket |
AE’s quick tip to get more from your SDR this week…
Don’t be an a$$hole.
Don’t treat them like sh!t on your shoe.
That means you…
- Turn up to your 1:1
- Answer their slack questions
- Put qualified Opps in pipeline
- Tell them when they’ve done a good job
It’s hard to be a world class AE.
It’s not hard to be a good person and colleague.
As an SDR I booked a record 96 qualified demos in a month.
I wasn’t even the best cold caller on my team.
Here’s what new SDRs think matters most:
❌ Handling every objection flawlessly
❌ Picking the right time of day to call
❌ Sending the most persuasive personalized emails
The truth is it’s simpler than that.
Here’s what top performing SDRs *know* matters the most:
✅ Consistency
✅ Embracing the grind
✅ Priorities
In practice that means:
Doing the same highly productive activities over and over even when:
→You’re having a bad week
→You’d rather be huddling a friend
→You don’t want to add new prospects
→The phone “feels dead”
→You’ve already hit quota
Yes, that’s really what matters most.
Being great as an SDR is 80% process, 20% skill. And that’s why it’s so difficult.
P.S. CallCloud's mission is solving SDR's process pain points, you'll 2x your dials and hate it a lot less. Individual SDRs can try us free (link in comments).
Are you struggling with top of funnel? SDR Teams underperforming? Cold calls and emails going unanswered?
It's because you're doing Outbound like it's 2021 still.
Here is the modern strategy for Outbound in 2024. A step by step guide on how to revitalize your TOFU.
Free from Bravado.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
https://lnkd.in/g8K96Gyn
We moved to an AE to SDR direct pairing in 2024 and I’ve gotten to work closely with Richard Purcell.
It would have been easy for us to just meet and immediately go into attack mode.
Deciding which accounts to target and how we are going to crush quota.
Challenge every AE to not think of them as “your SDR” but a true partnership.
You first need to learn about each other, how you are motivated, your why, and your own career and personal goals.
Like a 30 min mutual discovery call.
Without this alignment, you’re building off a foundation that doesn’t exist.
One of the first things Rich mentioned to me was his intent to become an AE.
Pumped to share that the mission was successful.
Rich blew past his number, built internal champions, got to 'power', and built a roadmap for success.
And he officially just got promoted to Commercial AE! 🎉 🎉 🎉
Best advice you'd give to an AE and SDR duo??
P.S. We used this account planning sheet to stay on aligned with each other. Can snag (free) here: https://lnkd.in/gYwCjD2Y
The BEST way to be a top AE in 2024…
It's called "Help your SDR".
The way it works is:
1. You look over your accounts
2. Find the lowest hanging fruit
3. Book a meeting with your SDR
4. Recommend tactics for messaging
5. Give the SDR all the credit for winning
6. Repeat every week and never ever stop
This ''new secret way'' gives you:
- 11.3x the pipeline coverage you had
- 349% better chance at closing
- 1x new best friend for life
How to get started as an AE…?
Look in the mirror 😊
(Every AE should be doing this)
Will you try the ''secret way''?
P.S. Repost ♻️ to share this top secret.
I just want to give a shout out to Tito Bohrt and his product Altisales.IO. I just had Tito walk me through it, its awesome. The question Tito poses on his site sums it up perfectly: "Here's a challenge. Go find the connect rate per SDR this week. Got it? Now go figure your top 5 best performing email templates... Hard? Now imagine you had all this at your fingertips." It does so much more, you can score your reps emails and responses to help sharpen their skills. For dials you can compare connect rate across your team.
Instantly know if your messaging is resonating. Pinpoint exactly what to train each SDR/Rep on. Im a big fan, and just thought Tito deserved a shout out.
If you want to speak to someone who really puts the science behind prospecting its Tito. We can all learn a ton from him. Great work Tito!
I wanted to give a shoutout to our SDR Team that hit 139% to quota in Q2!
This incredible performance is due to three main factors.
1. Autodialler from Kixie: Boosted our outreach efficiency and made sure we were contacting every lead.
2. Local Call Presence: Connecting with prospects in their specific area code drastically increased connect rates.
3. Relentless Individuals: This SDR team always gives their best effort and consistently finds a way to get the job done!
Thank you Aljun LagriaAdil ShaikhNathan McCorkindaleKent FalkRanjit ShindeMichael PatolaTyson Camrud
Looking for new opportunities
5moRespect is key, I've seen too many AEs that treat SDRs like they're lesser.