Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! In this throwback edition, learn about the dangers of misleading subject lines (and what to do instead) in 6 minutes!

Here’s the deal: There are a lot of emails out there.

The “sea of bad prospecting” continues to grow every day.

What are you doing to stand out?

If the answer is “trick your prospects,” you’re wrong…and right?

Now, we’re not advocating for your to send out emails with subject lines like “your husband and my child.” Messages like that might score you an open and a quick read, but it will also demolish any trust or credibility that you or your brand might have with that prospect.

Trust us, open rates are a vanity metric that isn’t worth destroying your reputation over.

When we say “trick” a prospect, we mean personalizing the subject line for the prospect more than using it to sum up the nature of your email.

Get creative. Find out what your prospects are passionate about. Research their company and uncover goals or challenges. See if they’ve appeared on a podcast or webinar and grab a quote!

Novelty, continuity, and relevance are your friend.

You need to grab their attention with relevant information - otherwise, your message will drown in the sea of bad prospecting.

Opt in to build a structure around creating catchy - not tricky - subject lines.

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Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn about prospecting during the holiday season in 7.5 minutes!

The most wonderful time of the year…can also be the slowest time of the year. Especially for those of us that are prospecting.  

And let’s be real - you should be prospecting during the holidays. AJ and Alex tackle some of the reasons why (and how to do it effectively) in an episode of Opt In.  

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Additional insights from our SDR team can be found here! 👉 https://www.demanddrive.com/blog/joys-of-holiday-prospecting

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Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Snag a recap of our onDemand webinar in 8.5 minutes!

What you need to know before building & scaling out your SDR function.

Taking a kid out of college and expecting them to generate revenue after a couple of weeks of training is…well it’s absurd.  

But sales leaders continue to build SDR functions with the mentality of "hire a rep, train them quickly, reap the rewards."  

That might have worked ~5 years ago, but there are nuances to building a high-performing team in today's environment that need to be considered.  

And consider them we shall.  

As you might imagine, a company that builds and manages sales development functions gets asked a lot of questions about team structure, compensation, motivation, etc.  

The nitty gritty stuff that you have to consider if you want to build a successful, sustainable team.

AJ and Alex cover 6 common questions & pitfalls in our recent onDemand event. From there, they teased out a couple of “aha” moments to highlight in an episode of Opt In.  

As the SDR function becomes more strategic, the investment in and management of your reps becomes more important.  

Opt In to modernizing your SDR function and building it with sustainable success in mind.

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onDemand Event: https://lu.ma/getting-started-with-sales-dev

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Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn about the importance of critical thinking and knowing your "why" in 7.5 minutes!

Hey there listener! AJ here 👋   

Recently, I received a good email from an SDR - one of the better ones in a while. And as I was reading it, something dawned on me.  

It was my email.  

*dun dun dun*  

Alex and I talk about the situation (and my response) in our recent episode of Opt In. But the big takeaway I want to impart here is the importance of critical thinking.

Leaning on and learning from your peers is critically important as an SDR. But if you just copy what they do, you’ll never learn why it works. And if you don’t know why it works, you can never make strategic changes to scale it out or adapt it for different situations.  

You can’t circumvent the need for continuity and relevance by copying good templates.  

Opt In to understanding why something works versus copying it because it does work.

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Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn about the importance of company culture & engagement on SDR success in 7.5 minutes!

Don’t look for culture fits, look for culture adds.  

Building a sales development team is hard enough. The moving pieces (your SDRs) are unique individuals that require different levels of attention, support, and encouragement.  

You shouldn’t expect or want them to blend in with the existing culture of your team - you should want them to progress that culture and continue making it a great place to work, learn, and grow.  

But you have to make that possible. And SDRs have to be proactive. Like Alex said…  

"You don’t have to like the people you work with, but you should feel obligated to get to know them."  

It’s more than just happy hours, random coffees, and being active in your Slack/Teams channel.  

It’s breaking out of your comfort zone, figuring out how you can best contribute to the team, and refusing to settle into the background.   

Because if you don’t, the already difficult job of an SDR can become isolating. And that’s a recipe for disaster.   

AJ and Alex touch on some tactical ideas for teams & individuals to create and evolve their culture.   

Opt in to being a social butterfly, not a suffering caterpillar.

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Episode Page ➡️ https://www.demanddrive.com/podcast/culture-and-engagement

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Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn how to create a bountiful harvest of leads this holiday season in 6.5 minutes!

Through the holiday season, it’s especially important to remain consistent and innovative with SDR techniques.   

In this season of giving, let’s review a few points of interest that are sure to provide a bountiful harvest of leads for you moving into the New Year.  

🧹 Freshen up  

🦃 Don’t gobble your way through conversations 

🔥 Don’t overcook your prospect 

⏲ Timing is imperative 

🔮 Set your menu in advance

Get all of our advice here: https://www.demanddrive.com/blog/feast-on-leads-holiday-season

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Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Snag a recap of our onDemand webinar with Lindsay in 7.5 minutes!

One of the biggest reasons SDR teams underperform?  

It’s not a lack of tech. It’s not bad management. It’s not limited training.  

All of those things are problems, but they pale in comparison to bad goal-setting.  

More often than not, leadership teams end up creating unattainable, unmeasurable, and unmanageable goals for their SDR function.  

That trickles down to the SDR manager, who attempts to build a team that can hit those lofty expectations…  

And that trickles down to the SDR, who ends up burning themselves out in the process.  

Then, it’s ‘rinse and repeat’ with a new crop of reps.  

AJ and Alex talk about how you can solve this problem in our latest Opt In.  

In it, they cover some of the points that Lindsay Frey (dD Co-Founder & CEO) made in her onDemand Webinar on Forecasting and Capacity Planning.  

Some of the big takeaways include:  

📈 Math scales infinitely - sales KPIs don’t. You have to consider the point of diminishing returns. You’re managing people, not a dashboard.  

🔮 Goals need to be rooted in hard numbers - examine your historical conversion rates and set reasonable inputs for those outputs.  

🍐 Match your incentives and your desired outcomes. Don’t measure your team on quantity if you need them to produce quality meetings (and vice versa).

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Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! In this Rewind, we look back at our 2nd ever-recorded episode where we tackle the idea of being the "delta" in 6 minutes!

The idea behind this episode started when AJ & Greyson (of SDRev fame) interviewed François Bourdeau for the SDRepresent video series.

In it, when asked a question about what the best SDRs are doing, he brought up the idea of being the delta between what your prospects can find about you online and what they can’t.

Basically, instead of leaning on feature/function for prospecting (think copy/paste website content in an email), the best reps are able to leverage anecdotal stories about how they’ve helped other customers solve similar problems or challenges.

That resonates more powerfully than reading through a bulleted list of features. AND it’s not something you can easily find online - these stories are coming from the unique perspective of the rep. They’re more personal and relatable.

Less product-heavy, more experience-heavy.

It’s not easy (if it was, everyone would be doing it), but if you want to level up your prospecting then you need to start humanizing your messaging.

Opt in to being the delta between what prospects can find about you online and what they can’t - because that’s what drives buying decisions.

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Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Snag some tips on improving your 1-on-1 meetings in 7 minutes!

How many times have you heard an SDR mumble “that meeting could have been an email” under their breath?

Ten? Twenty? Hundreds of times?

To all the managers out there nodding along, the blame isn’t fully on your reps. After all, how much preparation and effort did you put into your last 1-on-1?

Internal 1-on-1 meetings are a necessary evil (too harsh?). There are certain topics or scenarios that are too nuanced or complicated to cover over text - be it email, Slack/Teams, or an SMS message.

But it doesn’t mean that every meeting you have with your reps has to be dry, complicated, or long.

AJ and Alex dive into some strategies around 1-on-1 meeting structure in this Opt In. They talk about the importance of an agenda, staying cognizant of schedules, and the cost/benefit of non-work talk.

Opt In to breaking the traditional mold and running a meeting that all parties enjoy.

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Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn about some of the common pitfalls around asking for a meeting in 6.5 minutes!

You’ve done your research. You found the right contact. You got them on the phone. You discussed pains & challenges, diffused objections, and uncovered a need you can solve.  

Now all that’s left is to book a meeting and toss them to your AE. Easy, right?  

😬  

Easier said than done, that’s for sure.  

AJ and Alex talk about some of the common mistakes SDRs make during that final step of the prospecting process.  

From over-qualifying a prospect to talking them out of the meeting to moving too quickly, there’s a fine line to dance as an SDR. It’s all about knowing why you’re reaching out, uncovering a need or interest, and getting comfortable with the “ask” of setting up next steps.  

Like pretty much anything in sales, the tighter the framework the easier it will be to see success.   

Opt In to building a process that gives prospects a “bite of the cookie.” Don’t not give them the cookie, and don’t give them the whole cookie (trust us it makes sense when you watch the video 😅).

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