How to Turn SDRs Into Top Performers

A high-performing SDR team will have a great impact on your company’s growth. With this in mind it’s important to ensure that your SDRs are aware of their role and what’s expected of them.

So what are SDRs typically responsible for?

Here’s the list we came up with:

• Qualifying leads from marketing campaigns as sales opportunities
• Contacting potential prospects through cold calls and emails
• Presenting the company to potential prospects
• Identifying prospect’s needs and suggesting appropriate products/services
• Building long-term trusting relationships with prospects
• Proactively seek new business opportunities in the market
• Setting up meetings or calls between (prospective) customers and Sales Executives

Today, the majority of prospecting and selling time is wasted on repetitive and non revenue-generating activities like responding to follow-ups, out-of-office responses, dealing with the wrong point of contact, or a contact that left the company or even updating the CRM with lead data.

So how can you optimize your SDR’s time and enable them to fulfill their role in its entirety, without having them get held up with mundane and time-wasting, (but still important) tasks?

Some organizations are looking to alleviate these pain points with the adoption of new AI technology.
But what type of AI sales automation tools will handle these repetitive and monotonous tasks like following up? And with so many “AI-assisted sales” solutions out there, which type of technology or service should you choose to ensure your leads and prospects are getting touched in a personalized human-like way, and nothing falls between the cracks?

3 Ways To Enhance Your SDR Team

Technology has undoubtedly played an impactful role in the evolution of how an SDR executes their follow up, lead qualification, and conversion process. It’s important to note that these tools, when used in conjunction with the proper methodology, are what drives an SDR to succeed. This is why they must focus on:

Not all leads are created equal

Sales is a numbers game and quality beats quantity when it comes to prospecting. With this in mind, it’s important that sales reps are focusing their time and energy on those leads that have indicated buyer intent, and are interested in continuing their buyer journey. This process of course can be expedited with the help of Marketing and scoring leads prior to handing them over to sales.

Quick response time

Time is money, especially in the world of sales. Your leads may have an exceedingly small window of interest in your product, and if you don’t respond within minutes, you can bet that your competition will, and your chances of closing drop ten-fold. In fact, if you take 10 minutes to reply to a lead, your chances of closing drop by 80%, compared with responses within 5 minutes.

Follow up on your follow up

With 44% of salespeople claiming they give up after the first outreach attempt, and only 8% going as far as a fifth lead follow up attempt, it’s no wonder most SDRs aren’t reaching their full potential. On average it takes between eight and twelve touch points to receive a response from a lead, so be sure your SDRs are ready to go the distance.

Boosting Sales & Marketing Output Using AI

As your organization continues to grow, so will the number of leads that enter your funnel; and truth be told, it’s a never-ending cycle of qualification, handover, and conversion that needs to be handled delicately to ensure a steady workflow and stress-free sales-marketing environment.

Fortunately, with AI encompassing tools such as an Automated AI Assistant, you rest easy knowing that this is being properly executed. An Automated AI Assistant will ensure that all of your leads are followed up in a timely manner, and with a personal touch, thanks to NLP.

With an Automated AI Assistant you can empower your SDRs by allowing them to focus solely on the tasks that drive revenue and not on those that are more time intensive, and repetitive.

In fact it’s been shown that the impact of AI on sales can be quite transformative, especially when utilized through a tool like an Automated AI Assistant. Making use of these technologies has been shown to have a positive and direct effect on a sales rep’s goals and has the potential to turn even the most novice of SDRs into a top sales performer.

The Inevitable Future Of The Augmented Workforce

With 9 out of 10 leading businesses having ongoing investments in artificial intelligence, as well as the adoption and proliferation of AI technology in businesses expanding, it’s evident that the future structure of sales and marketing teams, for most organizations, will grow to be a hybrid model, encompassing both human and AI elements.

However, what’s crucial is that sales and marketing leaders recognize this trend as an opportunity as opposed to a threat, and harness these technologies to empower their teams. Not just to prioritize workflow, but as a way to scale their output, and ensure that every lead receives the proper nurturing, follow up, and personalization needed to progress along their buyer journey.