Josiah H.’s Post

Lots of interesting ideas floating around regarding the future of the SDR role. One COO said the role will basically be an analyst, product expert, and AI expert. Why he thinks someone with all that knowledge would settle for being an SDR at the current market value is beyond me. By the way, he works for a company that eliminated all of their SDR positions. Read a post by someone who brought together the Illuminati of 20 experts to discuss why the role is ending and how AEs are too distracted to prospect because they are busy creating courses and writing books. The poster, by the way, is a book author. Folks have been sending me links to these types of posts but honestly I have been too busy building out a new SDR team outside of tech to respond. I spent 13 years as an SDR and six years leading them. One thing I know is that SDRs are resilient. If the SDR role is reduced or even eliminated in a few years, it won’t be the end of the world because… ➡️Many wanted to be AEs from the jump ➡️Some only used the role to get a foot in the door ➡️People learn new skills every day and will adapt, including into non-sales roles or non-tech roles So let’s stop acting like the sky is falling. And jump off the bandwagon of chickenlittleism. I discuss the future of the SDR role and give tons of advice on how to successfully build pipeline in my upcoming book coming to Amazon on May 15. You can pre-order the ebook today.

3 step process to becoming an expert SDR: 1️⃣ Emulate Simply copy and paste what is working for other reps. Suck at emails? Find the rep with the highest reply rate and copy their messaging. Suck at cold calls? Sit with the best cold caller on the team listen to their calls, and steal their talk tracks, verbatim. So on and so forth. 2️⃣ Iterate As you find success copying and pasting from other reps, you'll find your own rhythm and flair, little tweaks that make it fit more for you. Lean in here and make things better - this is where you will eventually find your special sauce. 3️⃣ Automate Not the exact word I'm looking for, but it rhymes. Automate, meaning, cut any manual inefficiencies from your process. By now you should have a pretty repeatable workflow in place that guarantees X minimum results. Now that the assembly line is built: scale, scale, scale. Use templates, hotkeys, Slack workflows, ChatGPT, etc...anything that will improve your velocity and cut dead time. That's it. Keep it simple. 🫡 PS: Evidence that this 3-step process works? Every single thing I do in SDR Leadership started as an emulation from someone else, my own iterations of what I think would be better, then repeated action to refine it and make it more efficient/effective. #sales #sdr #outbound #prospecting #coldcalling #saas

The SDR Role is………..….. Changing! Look the traditional SDR model is no longer feasible in today's landscape. The lead-to-pipeline ratio is < 1% and the math just doesn’t add up anymore. This is the old growth-at-all-costs model that needs to evolve. #gtmdisconnect So, where do we go from here? 🤔 🔄 Option 1: SDRs as Full-Scale Account Executives. Transforming SDRs into full-scale account executives can ensure the math "maths." This way, you avoid long CAC payback periods, crucial for sustainable and efficient growth. 📈 🔗 Option 2: Integrate SDRs with Marketing By integrating the SDR team with marketing efforts—whether it's content generation, events, or other marketing activities—you can maximize efficiency. It's all about doing more with less to ensure your unit economics make sense as you scale and grow. Or integrate them with other departments to improve your unit of economics💡 The SDR role needs to evolve to encompass more activities that lead to a better CAC payback period. Right now, it's a disjointed system that's driving growth at all costs. 💸 This equates to GTM disconnect and GTM bloat. #sdr #b2bsales #gtmdisconnect #gtmbloat #sales

Over the past 3-months, I've been using Trigify's Digital SDR. Since setting it up, I've not lifted a finger to do anything except reply to any incoming messages. Here is what the Digital SDR has done: 💥 Prospected & emailed - 11,949 prospects. 💥 1823 responses - 15% response rate. 💥 256 meetings - 14% response/meeting booked These prospects haven't come from lazy static scrapes from tools like Apollo or ZoomInfo etc. They have all been prospected based on Triggers. Here is what the Digital SDR is looking for: 💥 Anyone hiring an SDR/BDR or full sales cycle role 💥 Revenue leader 6-months in role 💥 Predicting funding rounds 💥 Office Expansion Aside from the meetings, this has saved me over 1/2+ hours per day on manually researching leads based on Triggers. It's written the first email to every single one of these prospects, tailored short emails around the Trigger. 💥 Emails less than 80 words structured around the Trigger, my company, their company and their latest LinkedIn post I'm a small company all my resources go into my Development team and product. Yet, I've booked and run over 200 meetings in 3-months. Is your SDR team doing this? Now imagine giving a Digital SDR to your SDR's, each SDR has one 1 Digital SDR 😱 #sales #ai #automation

The “SDR role is dead” is a popular opinion. Here are a few reasons why I think it’s actually a great time to be an SDR: 1) Less manual effort Account research, contact scraping, list building etc. used to take hours out of each day. Now, that work can be done (nearly) instantly. Less manual effort means more time to get good at selling. 2) Smaller teams SDR development wasn’t great under the model of “build a massive SDR org where no one hits target but we generate lots of pipeline.” Smaller teams = more attention and development. 3) Alignment with financial impact The pressure on SDR orgs to make money for the company is aligning SDR metrics with the skills they’d need as an AE. Less “schedule as many meetings as possible.” More “schedule meetings that will turn into revenue.” No more whiplash when an SDR promotes to AE having to change their approach. If you are an SDR today, worry less about the people predicting your demise, and focus your attention on getting good. You’ll be just fine. And if you want a little extra help, grab my free SDR Acceleration Framework here: https://lnkd.in/g9SZm5wr

Are you embracing the world of the modern SDR? In a recent conversation with Glenn Rothwell, who leads the SDR team at Alchemy, it became clear that today's SDR is quite distinct from what we sought just a few years ago. Here just a few of the strategies that top teams are deploying to stay ahead of the curve: 🎯 Getting in the trenches with prospects: Modern SDRs go beyond making cold calls; they meticulously craft engagement plans to embed themselves in front of their prospects. The goal is to become ingrained within the digital and IRL communities where their prospects live, sharing new industry perspectives that spark a genuine interest. - 📊 Data-Driven Precision: Modern SDRs are armed with lots of data and sales tools, enabling them to precisely pinpoint and qualify potential customers. For example, we're seeing a resurgence of product-led growth models that allow SDRs to target their prospecting at buyers who are already engaged and aware of their brand. Additionally, SDRs are able to leverage AI workflows that automate many of the mundane research tasks that used to take hours, so they can focus more time on personalizing their outreach. - 💡 Subject matter experts: For SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS platforms, the days of non-technical SDRs are over. Modern SDRs not only become well-versed users of the product they're selling, but they also experiment with other solutions in their industry, so that they can speak to broader trends. This allows SDRs to be taken more seriously by buyers, add more value upfront, and improve their conversion rates since we can no longer rely on a "spray and pray" strategy. Time will tell, but SDR teams may evolve to become smaller, more highly skilled, and also incorporate more elements of traditional BD/Partnerships than in the past. - As tools we use to connect with prospects evolve, so must the teams, and the teams that are open to innovating from the status quo will be the teams that don't get left behind. Would you add anything else? #sdr #hiring

I believe two things at once: 1) The SDR role is going away; 2) Outbound is here to stay. Aside from being a convenient rhyme, here’s why I believe this. 1) The SDR role is going away. AI is changing the game. A lot of work that previously required a ton of time for SDRs to do is now replicable with AI. Company research, lead research, hunting contact info, creating effective messaging. It doesn't take hundreds of hours of human time to execute these things anymore. But is this everything an SDR does? Heck no! Which is why… 2) Outbound is here to stay. It’s still the best way to get in front of the right people at the right account at the right time. To do it well, though, it needs to be a hyper-coordinated effort across the entire go-to-market team. It can’t be just one function’s responsibility. There will still be people executing outbound, it just won’t be their sole focus. Outbound is not optional for ambitious companies to execute. ——— I see an evolution for entry level sales. Focused SDRs will still make sense for companies where “the math works” – high ACVs and/or efficient CACs. But I think more companies will move back to a full cycle model for new sellers. This is a good thing!! As long as companies remember how to provide the right skills and training for new sellers. #gtmai #sales #sdr

SDR's your role doesn't have to go away but you better get your butt in gear Here is the 7 step system SDR's need to follow to become un-FIRE-able at your company in the next 12 months And increase your leads on LinkedIn by 300% in the next 30 days (sorry Kyle!) 1. Build an owned audience on LinkedIn of active decision makers in your ICP Use sales nav to max out connection requests -- 800/ month to ACTIVE decision makers in my ICP Connection requests don't carry over to the following month, meaning you lose it if you don't use it AKA if you haven't been maxing out connection requests every month since you joined LinkedIn you're already behind the 8 ball The biggest mistake that people make is that they send connections to people that aren't active Make sure you select people who have posted content in the past 30 days or people that have changed jobs in the past 90 days These 2 filters will ensure that every shot you take has the highest likelihood of being accepted 2. Don't freaking sell in the connection request All of the value on LinkedIn happens after someone accepts a connection request It seems counterintuitive but leave the note blank This single thing doubled my teams connection request acceptance rate 3. Send every single person that accepts your connection request a problem oriented message with a pattern interrupt and clear CTA Set up lead filters in sales nav to pull in all 1st degree connections Fire off a message 1st thing in the morning every day 4. Send 4-5 follow ups over 30 days to every 1st degree connection that hasn't booked a call and hasn't told you to F off Shameless follow up is the name of the game Our SDR team sends 12 follow ups over 90 days 5. Become a content creator / thought leader in your space This is the one thing that AI is not going to replace any time soon is humans with real influencer At the very least repurpose your founder's or brand teams content 6. Cold call every single person that replies positively on LinkedIn and Cold email but doesn't book a call 7. Tell your marketing team to start hosting LinkedIn Live's monthly You personally can invite 1000 people per week to each event If they host one a month that means you can invite 4000 people to the live and then message them after with a CTA to book a call If you're concerned about the future state of outbound, AI stealing your job, or lack of leads you generated last month --> commit to this process every month You become valuable to any company in your industry by having an owned audience of active decision makers in your ICP that are 1st degree connections Why? --> 1st degree connections enable you to send UNLIMITED messages FOREVER --> They will see your thought leadership content --> and you can invite them to LinkedIn lives for free. Outbound is not dead, but the old way of outbound is dead. SDR's - win on LinkedIn = never go away #SDRsLIVEFOREVER

Yesterday I spoke for the second time with an experienced Global SDR Manager from a brand we all know. She genuinely asked... "Where was Amplemarket in my SDR days?" She was impressed by our all in one GTM solutions, but the main aspects of our product that impressed her the most were: 1. Personalization at scale - Being able to have AI generated copies that would save her team 28 minutes per personalized email drafted was truly legit. I've always been hesitant to apply AI in my email outreach. I've found the emails to be generic, robotic and out of touch. However, in 20 seconds, our AI will do all the research you need to draft an email that takes into account company news, recent job activity and personal interests. The best part, each rep can control the tonality of their messaging to ensure its conversational, friendly and ensure the personalized opener is naturally linked to the value proposition. 2. Being able to extract leads from competitors ads, posts and events. To me this is a game changer! Being able to sequence contacts when they have interacted with your competitors is signaling to a whole other level. 3. Automate LinkedIn steps while recording those activities in their CRM with insights such as connection requests accepted. LinkedIn steps are usually a blind spot for business development teams. All they know is if they finished the task, but the results of it are a mystery. Most tools will assign a task that your reps will manually execute creating bottlenecks in your sequences. 4. Sending video messages and voice notes on LinkedIn directly from your desktop. Humanizing the prospecting process is a must to stand out from the noise. With all of this, this talented SDR Manager was 🤯 at how we make teams more efficient and their outreach more personalized. Ps. We were notified our kids don't have school today, so they are in the background as I write this post. I love my kids, but when they unexpectedly have no school it flips our house upside down. #remotework #sales #gtmstrategy

What nobody tells you about the SDR of 2026 In SDR land, M&A and consolidation of tools are going to happen. There's no reason why a Sales engagement platform can't add an AI email generator, which pulls 10-k annual reports and your company's use cases. And also, whilst also having the ability to write the text of the phone calls you are having into your forecast engine to help create a more objective view of what is still needed to close the deal. It means that SDRs are going to be able to be more efficient with their time, actually spending more time prospecting and creating pipelines for their sales teams. As an SDR, imagine: having one screen that you have to access, not open multiple tabs and get lost down rabbit holes, the value would be immense. Of course, there will be technology or concepts that we have even considered that will brake through, but for 90% of technology, it will be a consolation game. What do you think? Do you see SDRs benefiting from the M&A that is certain to happen? Let us know in the comments below! #salesdevelopment #growth #sdr #GTM #sales #coldcalling 🇬🇧 living in 🇳🇱 | Get more content like this ➡️ Follow David Wilkins 🔥 hit the 🔔 for updates on new posts | Check out Mastering Sales Development: https://buff.ly/3SRowoO