duckduckgos

Business Development

How to approach lack of activity from BDR's?

Hello fellow Sales Savages,

New sales manager here with a simple question. Any tips on how I can approach a BDR who is inconsistent in their activity output? One day they will be doing fine on calls and the next they are making next to none and are trending behind comparatively to the team.

How can I encourage activity and get them to understand the cause and effect between activity and their success in the role? Appreciate any guidance the War Room can send my way.

Thank you.

-DuckDuckGos

📞 Cold Calling

🧢 Sales Management

38 comments

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funcoupons

WR Officer

👑

Have you considered threats of homicide?

duckduckgos

Opinionated

Business Development

O @funcoupons how i've missed you.

funcoupons

WR Officer

👑

*curtsies*

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

A lot of very tactical advice here but in my experience this stuff stems from something deeper.

Do you know what they are working towards? The easiest way to motivate someone is to take them up to the balcony from the dance floor.

Show them how doing x now will result in them getting to their longer term goals more efficiently.

Know your people, what makes them tick, what motivates them etc and you will never have an issue pushing them to their goals.

MCP

Valued Contributor

Sales Director

I like this, and always try to get to know what makes people tick, however, motivation is actually a personal thing. You can incentivize, but you can’t really motivate, that’s on the person themselves and if you find that motivation is a problem, it’s time to move on. Step up, or step out. The choice is yours, like Mobius said.

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

Sure, at the end of the day the IC has to decide if they want to "motivate" themselves or not, but as a manager/leader its my job to paint the picture of why they should be motivated based on their goals, give them the "how" to get there and then its on them to act on it. But I would argue strong leaders can absolutely motivate their direct reports.

InQ5WeTrust

Arsonist

No marketing, mayo isn't an MQL

See @funcoupons advice was good but was lacking in execution.

Now you throw a little Kali ma into the equation and those little BDR billy's will keep dialling till their fingers bleed.

MCP

Valued Contributor

Sales Director

Actually, I think her suggestion literally was execution.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Do you know why they're trending behind? Are they researching their accounts, or are they (horrors) not doing work-related activities?

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

Did do you talk to them to understand what's demotivating them? That's the first thing I would take.

duckduckgos

Opinionated

Business Development

Thats going to be my next step, dive deeper and see where their heads at.

MCP

Valued Contributor

Sales Director

When you do, don’t forget to document your concerns. A little post chat email wrap up will do the trick, along with a specific follow up date regarding progress.

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

Right, its very important to do a root cause analysis that helps in effective actioning. All the best!

CharmingSalesGal

Politicker

Account Executive

Would be curious what the KPIs look like for your team- are you measuring based off a daily, weekly or monthly standpoint?

Would also be curious if they're using automated sequences/cadences at all- I ask because I've seen BDRs set up 100+ people in an automation on a Monday then don't have a call "scheduled" until Wednesday so then Wednesday they make 100 calls and if they didn't add anyone else on Tuesday, they won't have any calls to make on Thursday. Hope that makes sense. 😂

Third curiosity would be the tenor of this rep as a BDR. Are they brand new and potentially younger so you have to almost hold their hand from a corporate company standpoint?

duckduckgos

Opinionated

Business Development

We do use auto sequences/cadences which have a manual sequencing aspect to them so that may be something to consider. Also a relatively new BDR as well so that may have something to do with it.

Incognito

WR Officer

Master of Disaster

Do they like money? No one gets rich by being average.

unless you’re born from a rich vagina

MCP

Valued Contributor

Sales Director

Not born from one, but definitely trying to get into one.

SalesKulture

Good Citizen

BDR

😅

goose

Politicker

Sales Executive

Extrinsic motivation does not work. Daniel Pink showed us that. Especially when it comes to creative, non-physical activity. You can only work with what's inside already. Find their internal motivation and tap into that. Or help them find something they can do without a need to be pushed.

In many cases, people are motivated by the ability to self-direct. Perhaps you can spend some time to understand what they want to achieve in a given day, week, month, etc and then find out how they want to measure it and achieve it. If it sounds good let them get after it. Then, review their results.

I find people are less motivated by your measurements than they are by their own measurements.

Good luck with this.

FinanceEngineer

Politicker

Sr Director, sales and partnerships

you have to shame them. Unfortunately, that's the only way I've ever been able to get them moving.

FinanceEngineer

Politicker

Sr Director, sales and partnerships

If you have data on calls that you can use to compare teams, that's extremely effective.

Blackwargreymon

Politicker

MDR

A lot of very tactical advice here but in my experience this stuff stems from something deeper.

Mobi85

Politicker

Regional Sales Manager

Some really great advice here. I am curious has this trend been consistent since they first started employment with the company or has this only started to occur within the last few weeks/months? Also I am wondering if they are being judged solely on outbound calls or if emails/texts are pulled into the mix.

Is this person working remotely or in an office setting? Don't want to be assumptive and fear the worse but who's to say that those "off days" aren't a result of surfing for a new position/interviewing.

Last thing, have you actually talked to this person and brought up what you are seeing and how you can be an asset for them to help them make their job easier?

duckduckgos

Opinionated

Business Development

We are working remotely and are all new to the team so I think their may be a settling in period that we may have to work through. I agree that the advice has been top notch so far from the war room. They are judged on both outbound call activity and emails. Emails are great, it's just the calls that need some work. I need to do some digging to find out what motivates them. Thanks for your insight @Mobi85

MCP

Valued Contributor

Sales Director

I’m concerned about counting dials, that’s not the goal. Always work from the top down starting with lagging KPIs, whatever those are for your org, then move to leading KPIs from there. Don’t treat everyone the same, not everyone is a phone jockey, and many can’t write for shit. Let them use their strengths to get to the endgame goals.

Mobi85

Politicker

Regional Sales Manager

@duckduckgos following up to hearing they are all new, is it typically the same day each week that they feel the phone weighs 1000lbs or sporadic each week when their call numbers drop. If it is the same day each week, they could be so new in their role they don’t know/understand how to schedule out their week each and every day.

buckets1

Politicker

So I’m generally pretty on top of my activity KPIs. However — on the rare occasion I would lag behind an old manager just simply used to say “This doesn’t seem like you.” This was after establishing a good working relationship and her showing she actually gave a shit about me. So that’s the pre-req but it definitely lit a fire under my butt to pick it up.

Beans

Big Shot

Enterprise Account Executive

Set daily activity metrics, PIP those that fall behind consistently.

It's entry level and a grind, if you can't make it through you should be replaced, and if you can you have opportunities to grow.

Justatitle

Big Shot

Account Executive

In the most non accusatory manner possible “why do you feel that you don’t need to be consistent with your outreach?” Depending on their answer, maybe it’s a lack of motivation, maybe they don’t know what they want but coming into it and being genuine. Also mentioning you want to help them to be successful and not giving them the feeling that they’re going to get fired and it’s not a warning meeting.

Woody

Politicker

Business Development Executive

I would pour lighter fluid over their desk and set it on fire.

Woody

Politicker

Business Development Executive

Actually, better idea. Screen shot this post. Sit them down and say look, I'm concerned because you're not putting in the activity to be successful and valuable to us as an employee. I asked a group of sales people what they thought I should do about this and their suggestions were pretty violent. So what should we do about this?

LocoSales

Politicker

Jr. Sales Manager

I had two little fuckers that did exactly the same.

Sometimes, they would work their asses off all day long just to do nothing the next day.

I sat down with both of them and asked them about their situation and behaviour.

They told me that they simply want to make X amount of money and then don't do shit anymore.

Your situation seems similar; sit down with those guys and figure out what is happening in their monkey brains.... If they don't have the hunger, fire them and find someone who is willing to work his butt off.

This shit is costing you a lot of money....

SalesKulture

Good Citizen

BDR

Are they making their quotas?

SalesStash

Opinionated

Strategic Account Executive

Money speaks louder than words. Starting a sales competition for $25 or $50 on who gets the most activity has always got me goin. I mean who doesnt like a free lunch at the met!

dialmonkey

Member

AE (Account Executive)

Whats their connect rate? If it’s low it could be a sourcing problem that causes them to not see success in dialing the phone more.

i would also track it weekly instead of daily or based on an average. There are ebbs and flows to effort and energy.

MR.StretchISR

Politicker

ISR

Have excruciatingly long team meetings weekly where you only review KPIs, really bonds the team

Clashingsoulsspell

Politicker

ISR

Have excruciatingly long team meetings weekly where you only review KPIs, really bonds the team

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duckduckgos

How to approach lack of activity from BDR's?

38 comments

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