🎙️Transcript: How to Avoid SDR Burnout

Sales Hacker
"How to Avoid SDR Burnout"
JM Hood, Max Altschuler, Jon Birdsong, Ralph Barsi
September 30, 2016

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Summary

This panel discussion features sales development leaders JM Wilke (AdRoll), Ralph Barsi (Achievers/Blackhawk Network), Jon Birdsong (Rivalry), and Max Altschuler (Sales Hacker) exploring strategies to prevent SDR burnout and build sustainable, high-performing sales development teams.

The conversation covers expectation management, promotion pathing, skill development, compensation structures, and creating engaging work environments.

The panelists emphasize the importance of setting clear metrics, providing transparent career paths, fostering healthy competition, and encouraging creativity in prospecting approaches.

Throughout the discussion, they stress that SDR skills are foundational to long-term sales success and that embracing the repetitive nature of the role while finding creative outlets is key to avoiding burnout.

BIG Takeaways

• Set Clear Two-Year Expectations Early
Ralph Barsi advocates for a two-year SDR commitment established during recruiting, broken into four six-month periods with specific skill development milestones. This longer-term approach prevents premature promotions that often lead to failure in AE roles and ensures SDRs master fundamental skills that will serve their entire careers. Early expectation setting during recruitment prevents burnout caused by misaligned career timelines.

• Metrics Drive Accountability and Prevent Ambiguity
Clear, measurable performance metrics (like seven demos per week) give SDRs concrete objectives and eliminate confusion about what success looks like. When managers hold reps firmly accountable to these numbers, it creates respect and clarity. Transparency in metrics across the team ensures everyone knows where they stand without constant manager intervention.

• Master Fundamental Skills That Transcend Roles
The prospecting, networking, and follow-up skills learned in SDR roles apply throughout entire careers, from AE positions to CEO responsibilities like fundraising. The repetitive nature of SDR work isn't a weakness but an opportunity to perfect fundamentals, similar to Michael Jordan practicing free throws alone. These skills become the foundation for long-term professional success.

• Create Skill-Based Progression Rather Than Time-Based Promotion
Instead of automatic promotions after set timeframes, structure advancement around demonstrated skill mastery. This might include moving from SMB to mid-market to enterprise accounts, or from junior to senior SDR roles. Focus on capability development rather than seat time, and communicate precisely what skills and metrics are required for each progression step.

• Balance Individual Recognition with Team Collaboration
While healthy competition drives performance, overly aggressive individual competition can damage team culture and create burnout. For teams under five to eight people, prioritize team goals initially. Use transparent leaderboards and metrics to create visibility without requiring manager intervention, but ensure recognition systems celebrate both individual achievement and collaborative support.

• Align Compensation with Long-Term Success
Structure compensation to reward sustained performance rather than short-term spikes. This might include base salary adjustments, performance bonuses, and equity opportunities. Avoid compensation models that encourage SDRs to game the system or prioritize quantity over quality. Regular compensation reviews demonstrate investment in team members' growth.

• Encourage Creativity and Multi-Channel Prospecting
Combat burnout by empowering SDRs to experiment with creative prospecting approaches beyond traditional phone and email. Whether scheduling demos via LinkedIn, Twitter, or other platforms, creative experimentation keeps the role engaging and develops adaptable skills. The best SDRs find innovative ways to reach prospects and build authentic relationships across multiple channels.

Transcript

Jeanne Marie Hood (00:01):
Hi everyone. I'm Jeanne Marie. I work at AdRoll. Excited to be here.

Max Altschuler (00:06):
Awesome.

Ralph Barsi (00:08):
Hey everybody. Ralph Barsi. I am at Achievers now part of Blackhawk Network. I'm based in San Francisco. And real quick, my sales development team today is a team of 10 people, not a huge team. They handle inbound and outbound. They're in a hybrid situation and I'm really happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Max.

Max Altschuler (00:31):
Definitely.

Jon Birdsong (00:33):
Hey everyone. Jon Birdsong here with Rivalry, CEO, and not only do I SDR as well, I close and have a small team of one SDR, but we see it all. We see SDR managers come in and confide in us as they scale the team. So I'm really excited and honored to be here to share what we see, what works, what doesn't work, and also on such an amazing panel.

Max Altschuler (01:04):
There you go. Cool. So we'll jump right into the first kind of sub topic here, which is expectation management and a separate part of that, which is kind of promotion pathing. So obviously you get an SDR that comes in and what do you tell this SDR from the onset as far as, obviously these guys want a great opportunity, not just a great job, so how do you make sure that they're going to get the most out of this role in their career path, and what kind of expectations do you usually set for them? And we can go, so my screen right now, I see JM, Jonny, and then Ralph, so if you want to just go in order, we can go through like that and we'll have questions flowing through and I'll point you, but JM, if you want to kick us off expectation setting and promotion pathing, what are your thoughts on that?

Jeanne Marie Hood (02:05):
Yeah, I think it's definitely a tough one, especially when you're getting young people new in their careers, are really anxious to get to that next step and as fast as possible, especially if you're in these fast growing companies like we are here in the Bay area. So some of the things that have worked for me, I mean we've had 25, 30 people go through the ranks. Some move quicker than others, slower. And so it's obviously based on business need and other factors. But for me, what's really been working is setting and resetting expectations all the time. So something that can change all the time for somebody, and you don't want to say it in the exact same way all the time, but talking on an individual level, a team level, laying out the specific guidelines with the HR team so that the whole team, sales team as a whole is aware and everyone can kind of be bought in on the same paths, has really helped to solidify people not feeling like they're getting held back for any particular reason, but also being able to move people when there's a need and they're ready for that next step.

Jon Birdsong (03:14):
Absolutely. SDRs, you've got to know your metrics. If it's seven demos a week, if it's five demos a week, and you have to stand very firm with that and stern with that, right? It's a job that requires a lot of art, but at the end of the day, it's so metric driven and if you slack on those metrics and you aren't the manager that holds the reps accountable, then it's all going to fall in the waterfall. So first step in terms of expectations, when someone comes in, they've got 90 days, 30 days, 60 days to get their feet set. And then from there there is a very clear line of metrics that they need to achieve or you get in get out, and I know that sounds crazy, but the ability to set the metrics and give the sales reps a very clear objective of this is what it takes to be successful is something that an SDR will respect and will also be able to follow.

Ralph Barsi (04:24):
Here at Achievers and on the sales development organizations that I've built, the expectations that I've set are first and foremost set in the recruiting phase. I know we're not going to talk about recruiting and hiring, but that's such a critical part of the process where the leader has to be very, very clear on what the expectations are of the role. I take an unconventional approach in setting the expectations, especially here in the Bay Area as JM mentioned. I mean, it's such a hot market here in the Bay Area. It's so competitive that within a stone's throw a candidate you're trying to hire could easily walk down the block and meet with some of the top companies in the world for the same role. So I go out on a limb and I set expectations that this is really a two year gig in the sales development role and people's jaws drop and when they do, I explain precisely why it is.

(05:23):
I have seen too many times in my career, people jump on board with an organization and they get burnt out six to eight months into a sales development role, and they see their peers and colleagues in other companies getting promoted to an account executive role and they take off, they bail from the company, they go get an account executive job at another company for a little bump and pay, and within 18 months they've not really sold much and they're put on a performance plan. They then bail from that company and the whole cycle starts over again. So I try to prevent that and mitigate it very early in the process when I'm recruiting sales development reps. And I share with them that over this two year timeframe, which gets into the second part of your question Max about promotion path, I'm very clear with them that within this two year timeframe, you're going to be learning fundamental skills that will carry you throughout your career.

(06:22):
You will be a very successful account executive, vice president, CEO someday, and you will still be referencing and using the prospecting skills and networking skills, the follow-up skills that you're going to learn as a sales development rep. And I paint a very clear, vivid path of what the career looks like within that two year timeframe. I break it into four chunks for six month periods so they could see precisely what's expected of them along the path and what's going to happen as a result of their success in the role. So to John's comment earlier about setting very clear metrics, it's absolutely imperative to set those metrics and to adhere to them along that career path. So they expect something from us and we expect something from them, and in turn you get a win-win situation.

Max Altschuler (07:14):
And to your point about learning those skills to be later on their career, I mean Jonny, you're a CEO, you go out and raise money, a lot of that stuff is same stuff you do as an SDR, right?

Jon Birdsong (07:30):
It's so much easier to set appointments with prospects than investors. I mean, it's so funny, but it's same tactics, same everything. And it's something where you've got to have that authenticity and you've got to have that degree of wit, charm, whatever to just get the meeting, whether it's referral or whatever. But yes, you'll take these skills that you have as an SDR and apply it not just to fundraising and not just to taking the company to the next level, but really in life, right? I mean, whether it's getting your kids into a good school or trying to find that, whatever the heck, I mean, being a great SDR, you can take those skills over to really anything. To Ralph's point, real quick, and this kind of goes back to the hiring. I know we don't want to dive there too deep, but also set the expectation of the culture. What are the core values? If week one you bring that person on and they're not aligning with the core values, you've got to make sure that they understand what the core values are and these are the behaviors that are required to work at this organization. And setting the expectations of the culture and core values with that SDR is huge because they are going to be an AE one day. They are going to be out there representing the company, not just within the inside sales organization. So really good points all around.

Max Altschuler (08:54):
JM, you have one of the faster growing sales teams probably in the bay at least over the last year or two at AdRoll. So you probably see a lot of poaching from your AE team, SDRs, and so they're moving up a lot quicker than they would to making another organization.

Jeanne Marie Hood (09:15):
Never.

Max Altschuler (09:17):
Yeah. But does that help you? I mean, when you set expectations with your SDRs and at an organization like yours, they might move up a lot quicker. Does that help you in avoiding that SDR burnout? I mean, or is that hurting you because you're losing some of your best reps very quickly and you have to quickly hire?

Jeanne Marie Hood (09:35):
Yeah, I think it's kind of a combination of both. I think the good thing is is you're not having, and to Ralph's point where it's a two year program, and so by naturally that's going to avoid burnout faster because if people are moving potentially at six months due to a business need, then it's a lot easier to say, oh, well six months you're in the role, they got it nailed and they can move. But then what happens when there isn't that business need anymore and somebody needs to move in a year's time? And so it can kind of make it more difficult at times as well when you are in these faster growing organizations. So for me, what's really worked is just constantly talking and talking to Ralph's point about what are the skills needed that how can you get there faster, knowing that by nature of our business and where we're at as a team, that those skills are going to be needed a lot sooner. And so trying to figure out how can we even scrape the surface at some of these skills to make sure that they're ready if it's five months down the line, six months down the line, or a year down the line.

Max Altschuler (10:41):
Yeah. And Ralph, I mean to your point on the two year time, I mean, do you split it up SMB SDR, mid-market SDR, enterprise SDR or junior and senior? How do you give people that almost kind of sense of promotion along the way over those two years?

Ralph Barsi (11:01):
Yeah, great question. In my current organization we have two sales development teams, an inbound sales development team, and an outbound sales development team. And my outbound sales development reps focus on the upper mid-market and the enterprise account executives exclusively. The inbound sales development team supports all of the account executives across commercial and enterprise. So a rep joins inbound sales development team, and within that six month time frame, they learn our internal processes and systems. They learn all about the industry, all about our technology, our products, our product road map, and they learn how to prospect. They're given one to one attention and coaching. After they have success and they're promoting to the outbound sales development role, it gets more intense on the metrics. And that's where some of that burnout can start to creep up simply because they're going through a lot of rejection. And so as leaders we have to support and coach them through that rejection and empower them and help them understand that the rejection is actually a really good place to be because as you know, with really all of sales, the more nose you get, the more yeses you're likely to get.

(12:23):
And so setting that expectation very, very early on is important as well as you enter that outbound sales development role. And with both roles, we set competition. We have contests, we have very healthy competition, but it also gets into collaboration, so they know that as SDRs they're cross-collaborating with not just their team, with account executives and the whole entire organization. So you get a nice mix of isolation, competition, collaboration, and all of it gets factored in as they're graduating up from, as you said, from junior SDR to senior SDR and then ultimately into the account executive role.

Max Altschuler (13:11):
Cool. Are you guys doing anything funny with like, so you've kind of given them a ladder that they can climb, right? But is there other ways besides giving them that kind of ladder to climb on to avoid burnout? Are you doing any skill building to help them get there or help them out in other ways? Like career development or non-sales related things you're doing?

Ralph Barsi (13:35):
So non-sales related, I'll give you an example. Let's say a sales development rep is aspiring to be a vice president of sales one day at an organization. Well, we are a people analytics company and our vice president of people operations here at Achievers is really quite talented and leads an awesome team. So I'll go to that person and I'll say, hey, Jane, one of my reps want to understand people operations. Do you have 30 minutes? And they usually are very gracious and are happy to spend time with that sales development rep. And so it's almost like an internal shadowing or meet and greet or coffee chat with various leaders across the organization to learn more about those leaders jobs and roles. They do the same thing with sales engineers and solutions consultants. So they're not limited to just learning sales development or the account executive world. They're really able to access the entire organization and even network into our customers. That's another skill they need to learn and practice as sales development reps. We set it up so that our sales development reps call customers on behalf of the account executives and ask the customer, hey, I'm so and so from Achievers. You're a customer of ours. I wanted to call and introduce myself. Can I ask you a couple of questions about your experience so far? And so they're building relationships internally, externally, and really just being able to spread their wings and network cross functionally.

Max Altschuler (15:14):
That's really cool. And Jonny, so you have one SDR right now. So how are you, what are you doing with your one person to help them sort of avoid burnout and give them opportunities to advance at your company?

Jon Birdsong (15:30):
So where we are really in a growing stage and we haven't brought on too many AEs yet and we haven't been too many sellers yet. But we work with hundreds of companies every month. They sign up for a trial. So we give a lot of opportunities for that one person to get their hands dirty across different types of companies and different types of scenarios and at the same time empowering them in terms of the messaging that they're putting out there. What I mean by that is just, hey, test this messaging on this type of company for the day or for the week. And if it doesn't work, why didn't it work? Let's have a feedback loop and let's regroup so that the SDR has a level of creative control over what they're putting out there in the same sense. I mean, I still SDR, I still send out emails, I still make calls and I try to lead by example.

(16:25):
And so every call, every demo that I do, I do it in front of that SDR and they get to hear and see how I pitch, how I prospect, how I introduce the product. And they in turn give me feedback and we just keep having this very collaborative, open relationship. And at the same time, I mean, to Ralph's point as well, if there's something outside the company that they really want to hear, if there's an investor we're working with or board member, you have access to these people. It's in a company's best interest to also not have that one SDR just silo and just doing the same stuff. You want them to be intrigued by other aspects of the business as well. And I think that plays to the longevity of them being at the company.

Max Altschuler (17:13):
Yeah, I think even in the bigger organizations, I see reps that are just sitting there, they're on the phone all day and that's all they have to do. And obviously in a smaller setup with Jonny, it's a little bit easier because your guy has to wear a lot of different hats just due to the nature of the organization right now. But even at a larger place, if you can be like, Hey, how about you run a webinar or how about you go to this event or do something besides just have it be every day? The same thing is super valuable and helps avoid burnout for sure. And now let's have a conversation about the compensation and rewards and how you're compensating your people because that has a lot to do with how they feel about their job and how they're being treated. So can you guys talk about what you're doing as far as compensation structures goes and then what kind of other rewards are you doing? And Jonny, can you kick us off on that one?

Jon Birdsong (18:07):
Yeah, absolutely. So compensation, there's a lot of ways to look at it. Base plus commission, I think is one of the best ways, especially from a startup perspective. If you're not paying, if you're paying so high on base and there's no carrot to earn your way beyond that number, it's not sexy for startup. It's not sexy for the sales rep. But I also think that when that sales rep is hitting their number, you've got to bump their base up. You can't keep them at the same base and just keep giving them commission because at some point, number one, they're going to find opportunities in their network that are like, hey, you deserve a $10,000 bump on base. And they're going to be like, oh crap, I haven't been making this here. I've been doing the same thing over and over again and the company hasn't recognized my value by actually applying that to my base salary.

(18:55):
So our comp plan is very specific to let's do a six month span. If you're achieving your metrics constantly for six months, we're going to have a compensation review. We are going to see and consider what are we doing with your base. And then they also get a performance bonus. So at the end of the year, based on obviously number of demos that are set, number of demos that they run, what their conversion rate is from demo to customer, there's a performance bonus. And then also from a startup perspective, they get a little bit of equity as well. And they understand how many shares there are, et cetera, et cetera. That's something that a lot of them aren't thinking about right now, but in the long run is something they'll be thankful for. From a reward standpoint, I mean, listen, there's so many different ways you can reward your reps and it definitely in my opinion, depends on the demographic.

(19:48):
So depending on the demographic you have, and this is from work with startups to some bigger companies, if you have a team of five to 10 people and a lot of them are 22, 23 years old, single, they're thinking about going to happy hour and having a good time. Give them some drinks on you. Buy them some beers, set up a happy hour and buy some appetizers and they'll be happy as ever. If you have people that are married, that have kids, guess what? Send them the Uber Black home, get them a spa certificate. So really think about the demographic and also make it very clear. Hey guys, when you do this, here's what's going to happen. It's not about dangling the carrot. It's actually throwing that carrot at them and saying, look, I'm going to give you this either way, but when you do amazing stuff, I'm going to reward you even more. So we set very specific milestones each month. At the end of each month, we have a team happy hour, team dinner, whatever is relevant to the team, and we treat everyone and recognize everyone and bring up the high achievers. But once again, it's very demographic specific, so you've got to understand who's on your team and what they're looking for.

Max Altschuler (20:59):
Cool. JM, what are your thoughts on compensation and rewards?

Jeanne Marie Hood (21:03):
Yeah, I think it's definitely hard, especially if you have a team. I'm at 24 people right now. So obviously different ranges in terms of age and what they're looking for and how you want to reward them. But for us, one thing that we have is a base plus commission, but then for your top SDRs that are really hitting it out of the park, giving them that extra incentive too, having a new structure for them so that they can even make more money. And if you're a really high achiever that's ready to go to the next level and maybe move into an AE role, we have some different incentives in place as well to work on different opportunities, get some different exposure, things like that. In terms of perks or whatever you want to call it, I think definitely food is always something that drives everyone in my entire company to show up to meetings.

(21:54):
So have good snacks around the office, have good drinks around the office. We have a quarterly team outings. I think it's really important to spend time with them off site too. So whether it be going to a sporting event or obviously like Jonny said, dinners and happy hours. And then one of the really fun things that we do is that as a company, we sell digital coupons. So we're able to leverage that as well for our team to be like, hey guys, we're going to have a contest this month and the person who wins for X will be able to win a couple hundred bucks to go wherever they want for dinner or ice cream or pick your flavor. And I think seeing people take that as seriously as they do and really get competitive and try to push even farther beyond what they're doing is awesome. I mean, a lot of those people are people that you would never expect to be able to come up to the top because they're usually very, very steady in how they perform, but having that extra push and that extra motivation will get them there.

Max Altschuler (22:52):
Yeah, definitely. I mean Ralph, I know you wrote on your blog some pretty funny stuff about how not to set up compensation structure and you also gave some ideas on it. So I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Ralph Barsi (23:06):
Yeah. So one of the things that John touched on that's so important, I call it the guaranteed draw. The guaranteed draw is that base salary and you definitely want to structure it so that it's a fair wage. You don't want to be too cheap or too aggressive on the base salary with the new hires that are coming in because usually what'll happen is one, if the base is too low, they're already worried that they're going to make enough money to pay their bills, pay for rent, transportation, food, all that kind of stuff. So you definitely want to provide a fair, guaranteed wage. And that'll just set a nice level baseline foundation for them so that they can really go out and succeed and focus. What I've seen over the years is that you can get too cute with the commission plans. There's various commission plans that sales leaders put together and some of them are just so convoluted.

(24:07):
They have so many bells and whistles and bonuses that it's really hard for sales development reps to keep track of what they're actually making. And so I keep it really simple. So for instance, I say commission per qualified meeting scheduled. And the more quality meetings you scheduled, the more money you make. There's no cap on the earnings. But there are specific criteria around what constitutes a qualified meeting and there's specific criteria around what is considered an attended meeting. So we're not paying them for a scheduled meeting that the account executive didn't attend for one reason or another. A lot of times you'll notice when you pay an SDR for just scheduling a meeting, they might get loose with the qualification. And so they might schedule a lot of meetings that are of low quality or not really qualified and the AEs are showing up to these meetings and they're kind of wasting their time.

(25:06):
So we do our best to really define what is qualified and that also gets worked out in coaching. And then we have specific payout criteria. So we usually have a very low quota. Some people call it a ramp quota that's very attainable. And they make a set rate on the meetings that they scheduled. And then as they start to eclipse the quota, there are accelerators built in. So for instance, if they scheduled 10 qualified meetings, they might make a hundred dollars per qualified meeting. If they scheduled 15 qualified meetings, the next tier of qualified meetings that are scheduled in the month, they'll start to make $150 per qualified meeting. But we incentivize the team meeting quota. So let's just say I have 10 sales development reps and they have a quota as a team of scheduling 125 meetings a month. If they eclipse 125 meetings a month and they hit 150 meetings as a team, then the whole team gets to participate in this accelerated commission rate.

(26:20):
And I found that that's just a really good way to keep them focused on helping one another or at least staying aware of where the team stands. So if I've got a couple of reps who've already hit their individual quotas and they had a great month, they're still asking one another, hey, how you doing? Are you going to hit your quota? Because let's get to that magic team number so we all benefit from it. So I really try to keep it very simple and pay them basically for what they're supposed to do, which is get prospects on the calendar to meet with the account executive.

Max Altschuler (26:57):
Awesome. All right. And Jonny, now what about the flip side? And I'm going to stay with you. So you talked about what you're doing for the person that's doing well. What about the person that's not crushing it and their KPIs aren't good or their behavior is not what you want out of a sales rep at your company? How do you kind of tackle the whole discipline side?

Jon Birdsong (27:20):
Yeah. So it's two things. One, you've got to be transparent with the team. Your team has to know who's performing and who's not because that number one shows transparency, which is super healthy to the team. The number two, every single rep is going to understand they know where they stand. So if they're underperforming and everyone sees that they're underperforming, it's going to help them in terms of putting some fire under their butt. The second point is you've got to really understand why the underperformance is happening. You've got to have a one-on-one with that sales rep and understand what are the issues that are happening on a day to day? Are you making all the calls and sends? All the data shows that you're making all the sends and calls, but what about the message? What are you saying? Let me listen in. Let me be there with you.

(28:06):
What type of prospects are you reaching out to? What's your qualification? Because you can have all the data to show that you're doing the right things, but what does that demo look like? What does that call sound like? What does that email sound like? Because once you get into the art of it, a lot of times you find that, wow, they're doing everything. They're making all the calls, all the sends, but the art isn't there. So first step, transparency. Number two, get in there with them, right? Go into the data, listen to their calls, look at their emails, and see where the issues lie. And once you identify the issues, you put them on a 30-day sprint. It's like, okay, I saw everything. Here's what you need to change. And that's where some of the great managers we've seen is they come out and they do these sprints.

(28:53):
And the sprint, the data shows that this is what the top performers are doing and this is where you're falling short. And they're very specific around what that is. And they say, all right, you've got 30 days to get back on board. And it's not about being aggressive and being mean about it, it's about, hey, I don't want to have to work with you and do this again in 30 days. So I want you to understand here's where you stand, here's where we need you to be in 30 days. Everyone knows the metrics you need to achieve the way we communicate, the hours you have to be here, and there's no in between. And it all starts with that first day when they come in to the company and they see what's required of them and what level of professionalism and excellence is required. So it's not really a, well, what do I do when these moments happen? It's really educating and setting the stage on day one so that these things are already expected.

Max Altschuler (29:51):
And to that, I mean, so you're saying you're calling this out in front of everyone or you're just making the numbers transparent to everyone and you're dealing with it one on one with that rep?

Jon Birdsong (30:01):
So numbers transparent to everyone. One on one, you're dealing with that rep. But it's also okay to call out the underperformers as long as it's done in a very creative and positive manner. So what I mean by that is top performer this week, this month was Bill. He scheduled seven demos. Let's all give Bill a round of applause. Let's see what he did, Bill, what'd you do? And so Bill's sitting there and everyone's kind of seeing Bill doing all this awesome stuff, but you're also recognizing the other people that maybe aren't at the top, but made strides to improve. So it's a mixture. If you just keep talking about the high performers and you're kind of just like sticking it to the low performers, it kind of breeds bad culture and that doesn't really work. So you've got to be super aware. I mean, I'll say, all right, good news, bad news, which one you want to hear first? All right, let's go with the bad news. All right, guys, we scheduled 29 demos this week. We usually schedule 35. That's not where we wanted to be. Obviously we got to get there next week. Here's what I saw, here's what I didn't see. The good news, we ran 32 of the 29 we scheduled, which was amazing. We closed five deals this week. So always find a way to, there's good in the bad.

Max Altschuler (31:18):
That's great.

Jon Birdsong (31:18):
Find it and bring it to light.

Max Altschuler (31:20):
JM, how do you tackle the whole discipline process or how do you discipline your reps?

Jeanne Marie Hood (31:27):
Yeah, I think to Jonny's point, metrics and numbers are transparent so people always know where they stand. And I think it's really important that they can see that too because even if you are calling somebody out in like a one-on-one situation, hey, so and so, your numbers are slipping. This is what we expect. They can see it themselves. So they know that it's not you just coming up with something or making it up. For me, in terms of calling people out in front of each other and stuff like that, I try to celebrate the big wins with everyone, but also give accolades along the way. So whether that be, wow, you're doing really well, but maybe not as well as someone else, but still doing well, making sure that you're recognizing people throughout the month, throughout the week for good behavior, good emails, good calls, things like that.

(32:15):
And then for the folks that are underperforming, I try not to do that in public. I mean, at the end of the day, we're all adults here and so I try to treat people like that. And so I'll meet with them one on one. We'll talk through what's working, what's not. And I think it's really important to, to your point, look through the metrics and understand how can I help you? Because I think if somebody's not hitting their numbers, a lot of times there could be things as a manager that you're not even thinking about that maybe they need some extra support on. So whether it be building a list or messaging or whatever that might be, not necessarily just throwing them into a situation and saying that, well, tough. And I'm going to show the whole team that you're doing poorly is not a fun time for that person.

(32:59):
And so I think the more one-on-one, the more I can actually dive through their metrics, emails, calls with them, the more helpful that is. And also on the flip side, I do the same exact thing with my high performers too. I dive in with them and talk through their best practices and best calls and emails. And a lot of times I bring those two together and say, all right, well this person's doing really well. Why don't we sit down and talk through? And then everybody can learn from each other. And I think that that's a lot more productive than just throwing out there in a very aggressive way, look at the standings, this is how you look. And if you're at the bottom, you know you're at the bottom. But what are you going to do about it? I want to sit with you and figure it out rather than just throw you to the wolves.

Max Altschuler (33:42):
Definitely. And Ralph, I know you guys have some very creative ways of recognizing your good behavior and calling out bad behavior or helping people through not so good months or whatnot.

Ralph Barsi (33:56):
Yeah. I mean, I think the two most important pieces are transparency and honesty around behaviors. And what I mean by transparency is any behavior or metric or number that we're tracking, the team can see it. So I mean, this actually ties back to the opening question Max around avoiding burnout, but everybody can see everything in real time, whether it's a dashboard or a whiteboard or a leader board, whatever you want to call it, everybody can see everything in real time. And so there is not a lot of surprise around where they stand. They know they can see their activity down to a call and they can compare and they can measure against top performers and low performers. The honesty that I'm talking about is the manager and the leader needs to be very honest and direct about what I'd consider to be remedial or get well plans where the performance isn't where it needs to be.

(34:51):
And for those people, I typically will hold three meetings a week with them versus the typical cadence of once a month or once a week meetings. So you as the leader have to pay closer attention to those underperformers if you want to avoid burnout because burnout usually happens when people just continue to get their butt handed to them week after week, month after month, quarter after quarter. And they're not sure why and they're not sure what to do. So they kind of just either quit and you lose a potentially great person, or they just hang in there, they're miserable and the cycle starts over again. So I really hold their feet to the fire and I spend a lot more time with the underperformers early than I do the high performers, simply because everybody wants to be a high performer. And so getting that close to the action and actually being live with them as they make dials and as they write emails and look at their email open rates and click through rates and response rates, it really helps enlighten them and the manager as to what's working and what's not working.

(35:57):
So getting really close to the behaviors and measuring those behaviors and celebrating those behaviors. And on the flip side, calling out and remediating the behaviors that aren't up to snuff is really important.

Max Altschuler (36:12):
And so if someone is on a remedial plan or a get well plan for, is it a month? And then what happens if they're not doing well?

Ralph Barsi (36:21):
Yeah, so I always put somebody on a remedial plan for 30 days and I usually map out what the next 30 days looks like for them. So I'll actually create a day by day calendar that shows the specific behaviors that we're tracking and looking for. And I'll include the first week and say, look, the first week I'm going to shadow you. I'm going to sit next to you. I'm going to be on calls with you. I'm going to be reading your emails with you. I'm going to give you very direct input and advice on what I'm hearing and what I'm reading. Week two, I'm going to back off a little bit. I'm going to let you do your thing, but I'm going to be checking in on you multiple times a day. Week three, I'm going to back off even more and I'm just going to check in on you once a day or a couple times a week.

(37:09):
And by week four, I'm expecting you to be at full speed, managing on your own, and your numbers being back up to snuff. And if in 30 days I haven't seen any sort of progression or improvement, and it's really up to me as the leader to ensure that those first three weeks went off without a hitch so that I can hold that person accountable in week four and moving forward. But if there's no improvement or traction or they're not open to coaching, they're not coachable, I usually will consult with other leaders, consult with HR, and I'll move them on from the team.

Max Altschuler (37:49):
Yeah. It's really important to have an open mind and be willing to change and grow. And I think definitely good point there. And maybe a better way to say it is you're helping them find a more fitting role for them elsewhere if the role is not for them.

Ralph Barsi (38:03):
That's right.

Max Altschuler (38:04):
Cool. So I want to give everyone a chance to throw out a few questions here. So the first question I've got from is from Kyle. Kyle said, how does the team think about team collaboration versus individual competitiveness? Where do you strike the right balance? And Jonny, would you want to kick us off on that?

Jon Birdsong (38:25):
Yeah. And to give it real quick, I'd say team goals, sub five. Sub five, you've got to have team goals because you just start really breeding and cultivating a type of team selling culture. I think sub five if you start going every single person for themselves, if there's any type of egos on that team, it's going to show and it can get really detrimental. You don't want the sales manager coming in every day and kind of playing the mediator and also being the manager. But anything above five, I think healthy competition is great. But the collaboration aspect, I mean, you have to have collaboration. You can't have all competition and no collaboration and vice versa. But when you're setting the bar and the bar is very clear on what the metrics are required to be successful, you're going to see the people that help each other and you're also going to see the people that are just in it for themselves.

(39:21):
And so at that point, as a manager, as a leader, is the leader that you want on your team, the one that's not willing to help someone that's very close to getting the promotion? Are they not willing to help their other teammate make their calls, help with the qualification, teach them this and that. It all is just kind of transparent. It ends up revealing itself. And so when we've seen these great teams work together, competition is definitely there. But I tell you, the teams that I've seen dominate and really win the market and take the market share in the long run have always been the ones that are hyper-collaborative, that share best practices and that there's almost this brotherhood and sisterhood that they have around the team. And once you get that culture brewing, it becomes infectious and everybody wants to be a part of it. And that's what you want to get to.

Max Altschuler (40:19):
Great. Ralph, what's your take on individual versus team competitiveness?

Ralph Barsi (40:24):
Right. So Jonny's absolutely right. I would add to that to say that it depends on the team size. So if you have a very small, tight knit team, let's say seven people or less, you really want to focus on cultivating a collaborative environment and really celebrating the team and the wins that are coming from the team. And you absolutely can sprinkle in healthy competition throughout, but I'd stay away from leader boards that show that this rep is number one and this rep is number two and this rep is number three. I'd really just focus on, hey, the team is crushing it. The team is not crushing it. And then your individual one-on-one conversations could get more into the nitty gritty of performance. Now when the team starts to expand and you get into eight plus reps or multiple teams, then I think the healthy competition really has to happen because at that point there are a lot of people and there's multiple teams and as Jonny mentioned, it all becomes very transparent.

(41:26):
You could see the healthy behaviors that the team collaboration, that the supporting behaviors and it just becomes a very natural flow. I will say one more thing, the top sales development reps that I've ever worked with in my career, the number one reps, their main goal is to get to number two in line promoted to an account executive role. And I know that sounds crazy when you think about it, but ultimately the top sales development rep is one who is looking out for his or her peers so that they're constantly trying to help and support the number two person and get that person promoted to the next role. If a sales development rep is consistently a top performer and they are not looking out for anybody else but themselves, that's a red flag to me because they might be too inward focused and it just doesn't fly. I want a very collaborative win-win team.

Max Altschuler (42:33):
Yeah, I like that a lot actually. They're not too greedy. They just want to go with the best person. Cool. One more question and then we'll have one more little fun thing at the end. This one's kind of a mixed question from multiple people, but they all kind of boiled down to this whole thing. So they said that many people use leaderboards or public displays and screens showing your metrics. And then is that the best way to create competition and balance that with the team stuff? Do you find it works well? What's the alternative? And I'm going to start off with you, JM.

Jeanne Marie Hood (43:07):
Yeah. So I like being able to see numbers and where you stand, I think it's really important. And obviously like Jonny said, that transparency on where you are compared to others helps you and helps the manager. I think that can go two ways for the good and the bad in terms of leaderboards. I think everybody interprets them a little bit differently. I've definitely been in scenarios where publicly it's very clear like, well, this person's at the bottom, everyone can see that. And it kind of makes people feel a little bit shameful and they kind of go in a little bit of a rut or downward spiral because now everybody's like, look at so and so not doing well. And then I think in other scenarios, I think it is. It helps fire people up and be like, okay, you know what, I'm at the bottom.

(43:57):
I'm not going to take this. Let's do this. And they get fired up. So I think you have to know your team pretty well and know how they operate and also know what kind of environment you're building. I think that as a manager in this role, you kind of become a psychologist too and understanding what fires people up. And if you start to notice that some people are getting really stressed out by the fact that everyone can see their numbers and they're not doing well and maybe they're working really hard, I think that's a conversation you should have one-on-one. But overall I do think transparency is really important and should be consistent across the team. I don't think it should be one-on-one and people not knowing where they stand in comparison to others. I mean, everyone's going to talk amongst themselves anyways and find out how well everyone's doing. So I think being transparent is the way to go for sure.

Max Altschuler (44:48):
Jonny, what's your take?

Jon Birdsong (44:51):
I would say from a leaderboard standpoint, I've seen people just crush on leaderboards and then I've seen people just get embarrassed and defeated by it. So if you're going to do it, I mean, leaderboards are great, but you have to make sure that every single person on that team understands what that leaderboard means and why it's there. And it's not to say, hey, you're at the bottom. It's more so to say to that person at the bottom, hey, this is where you are. Look what the top person's doing. You have that data. You see exactly what their activity looks like, what their ratios look like. You now know the path to get there. They're not hiding anything from you. Everything is right there. Leaderboard can give you those insights. So I would say use the leaderboard. You can even find ways to gamify the leaderboard. There's a lot of these companies that do gamification.

(45:22):
It's kind of the cherry on top of the whipped cream on top of the icing. But really make sure that the competition aspect is all about the transparency piece for each individual rep, because then the conversation of what are you doing is no more. Everyone knows exactly what everyone's doing. You know exactly where you stand. You don't need to beat up on the underperformers. They actually know, I will say this, Mark Roberts, he had a great point. Anything less than five to eight people should be team goals starting out because it just, you start really breeding a culture of competition and sometimes it's too much. But then again, we're all in sales. We know it's metric focused, no different than our favorite athlete. So it's a tough one. Always a tough one.

Ralph Barsi (46:24):
Hey Jonny, real quick, speaking of athletes, could you step away from the webcam so we could see that poster behind you?

(46:33):
So that's Michael Jordan. For any SDRs who have logged into this webinar today, do you know how many times Michael Jordan was by himself making free throws one after the other, day after day after day, he was on his way to becoming Michael Jordan. And it was those fundamentals and the repeated process that he did day in and day out that got him to where he is. So the whole concept of burnout, I don't think it makes sense for sales development reps to say that they're burnt out, that they feel burnt. I mean, on the one hand, I guess I get it because it's a repetitive day and you're saying a lot of the same things to the same people, but that's just because you have to improve yourself and you have to take those free throws when no one's looking and tweak them just a little bit at a time and you'll become tremendous at what you're doing and you'll go on to have a fabulous career. So embrace the grind.

Jon Birdsong (47:30):
Grind. And Ralph, to your point, the moment that you start feeling burnt out, get creative with it, right? I alone last month I set 36 demos and ran 41, and I scheduled a demo every which way possible. I scheduled via LinkedIn, via Twitter. I think I might even gotten someone off of YouTube. And so start bringing that level of creativity then just banging the phones. We know calls work, we know emails work, but how do I mean I'm ready to close the demo off Snapchat. You know what I mean? So it's just one of those things where everyone that we're trying to reach is out here in small tentacles of the web. Go out and find them and build valuable relationships with them and you'll never get burned out.

Max Altschuler (48:22):
Yep. Cool. Alright. Last question here, a quirky one. What's the weirdest thing you ever saw an SDR do that worked? I'll let you JM start with that.

Jeanne Marie Hood (48:33):
Yikes. So we're in San Francisco, we're a bit quirky here. And to John's point over there, we were trying to get a little creative. We're in the retargeting. Retargeting is part of what we do, which places a cookie on a website, our user. And so what we did, and I went with one of the SDRs and we dressed up like cookies and delivered specialty cookies to people saying you've just been cookied to set appointments with top prospects in the area. And it worked.

Max Altschuler (49:08):
That's awesome.

Jeanne Marie Hood (49:10):
It was awesome. There are pictures to go along with it.

Max Altschuler (49:14):
I dunno if I can top that. That's good, Jonny.

Jon Birdsong (49:20):
The weirdest thing I've seen an SDR do, it's been a lot. We've had the cops called. Being in Atlanta, we've got one of the busiest airports. So I've driven people to and from the airport just so I can get 30 minutes of their time. We've done a lot. So the weirdest one, oh man, I have to think on that one. But those are two examples that are at least a little bit unique.

Ralph Barsi (49:52):
Yeah, one of the weirdest things I've seen, and I don't know if it was effective, so it doesn't matter how weird it was, I showed up one morning and one of the SDRs was in a full suit, tie, everything all polished up, which was just not the typical look of this particular SDR. And what happened was they ended up, they booked a conference room and set up a webcam and they filmed a 22 second video of themselves that they ended up uploading onto YouTube that basically said, hey, I'm Ralph Barsi. You likely opened my email today or got a voicemail from me, this is why I'm calling. And it was super effective and they got a really good response rate from it, but I thought that was kind of weird coming in and seeing them all dressed up and booking a conference room.

Max Altschuler (50:39):
I like it, I like it, I like creativity. You got to play around. Sometimes that can be all the difference in a bad month or something like that, or just a bad mindset or a slump or something. It's just getting a little creative and doing something a little quirky.

Ralph Barsi (50:57):
That's right.

Max Altschuler (50:57):
Really cool. So what we'll do is we have a lot of questions here, but we're coming to the end of our time. We all got to go back to work, but we'll put the questions together in a doc and we'll see if we can get you guys to answer some of the questions. And then we'll turn it into an article and put it up on saleshacker.com and send it to everyone. This webinar will be recorded and posted. Thanks a lot for coming. Thanks a lot to our presenters over here who are spectacular at their jobs and at this and really appreciate it guys, for joining us.

Ralph Barsi (51:34):
Thanks Max. Thanks JM. Great community. Awesome.

Jon Birdsong (51:40):
Bye guys.

Ralph Barsi (51:41):
See you guys.