9 Reasons Why Prospects Click a DEMO Button - Instead of Talking with an SDR

As a former SDR myself, I don’t like these answers.

As a prospect, I can’t deny the truth in them.


These quotes are from comments to LI Post by the brilliant Russ Somers. He asked, "why do marketers click a DEMO button instead of taking an SDR call."


1 “Most BDRs who call me haven't done the basic research to understand my pain point”


2 “Product-led-models…make it much easier for people to evaluate if what they're looking at is what they need”


3 “[SDRs] are woefully unprepared”


4 “If I answer the phone, and I'm not the contact, they pepper me with who to contact, and then pretend it's a referral”


5 “They beat around the bush about why they're calling (hint - it's not networking)”


6 “If I ask about price - it's hemming and hawing”


7 “If I want to buy their product, I'm often turned down because… I [don’t] fit the tier of the salesperson calling”


8 “In my experience, the bigger the company, the less a SDR can actually answer your questions and has business rules to follow on how and where to route you to schedule the demo”

 

In summary:

 

9 “I've found the demo button puts me past all that and got me connected to sales rep”



Lots of gripes. Clearly, not everyone making cold calls is ill-prepared to speak with their prospects, so these comments don't generalize to everyone.


What do you think?



🔎 Prospecting
📞 Cold Calling
📣 Demos
3
PhlipOut
Politicker
1
Account Executive
ouch. Sadly often true. Also sometimes people want to "get to the point" and not want to go through a sales cycle with multiple people and touch points if they think it's just a transactional purchase
6

For all you mail mergers out there, do you see more success emailing one DM or all DMs on a custom thread? I've noticed that putting all relevant DMs on one campaign that is 100% customized to their business has a much higher response rate (28% meeting sucess)

Discussion
5
Do you see more success emailing one DM or all DMs on a custom thread
74% One Decision Maker per Email
26% Multiple Decision Makers per Email
58 people voted
9

POV: you’re an SDR getting an email... First 5 words that let you know the meeting is not booked

Discussion
13
12

How many times will you call a prospect after they don't answer the first time? At what frequency? I typically don't make a lot of repeat calls, just call with volume consistently and try to catch folks at the right time...

Question
13