Inbound/Outbound SDR Incentives

Looking to put together some spiffs around the Inbound and Outbound SDR functions that support business objectives important to the Sales team.


For the Outbound SDRs, I'm going to provide additional compensation when they deliver an opportunity to each AE they support. Some territories struggle more than others and this gives them additional incentive to spend time in territories with lower conversion on their activities.


Not sure what to do on the Inbound SDR side. Maybe something around hitting a certain % of our SLA on follow up to Marketing leads. Our goal is to respond to all leads within 2 business days.


Curious if people have seen spiff programs in their time that were really effective or if they have perspective on things they wish their SDR managers would incentivize more.

🔎 Prospecting
💰 Compensation
4
AlecBaldwinsHairline
Valued Contributor
4
Head of Sales Development
Everything has to function on % to Quota - some reps may be ramping, others may not, some territories may be tougher, others may not.

Also - if there is a territory typically tougher than another - it would make sense to adjust the quotas based on historical performance?

You have to look at how you get comped, and where you need the most improvement and make the contest make sense.

A great Inbound is SQO's that get to Demo.

Outbound we set an SLA for hold rate % and incentivize based on their attainment of that goal.
bigpicturemaverickstuff
Good Citizen
1
Senior Manager, Sales Development
This spiff program is above and beyond their planned compensation, looking at it as promotion of best practices.  We pay 75% at appointment held and 25% at entry to pipeline so can't tie it to stage advancement as HR doesn't like compensating twice for one outcome.
Ace
Arsonist
0
CEO
This is great!
GlenRoss
Politicker
3
Account Executive
For outbound I also really like when teams incentivize closed won deals
ARRisLife
Politicker
3
Account Executive
I like the idea of that but I think it depends on the org/ deal lifecycle. My company deals could be 6-12 months and the BDR that may have sourced it would be so far removed. Could be cool for a little extra % to come your way if a deal you sourced does close but I feel like that shouldn't be a large component as the BDR shouldn't be penalized in comp for everything that happens after a meeting.

Personally, I'd prefer my BDR get comped big on pure outbound meetings created into target accounts- that's the most valuable thing they could do for me. Taking care of leads- honestly this takes so much less skill and any one individual could be switched out and the lead still taken care of. Comp them on qualified meetings set but not quota relief. Quota = low, but true outbound sourced meetings that the company wouldn't have otherwise gotten.


^just my perfect world scenario~
bigpicturemaverickstuff
Good Citizen
0
Senior Manager, Sales Development
Our deals are on average 12 months, so we run into the scenario where pay tied to deals being closed doesn't often work as you mentioned.

Our Outbound team has a safety net function for Inbound leads that didn't convert but its ~10% of what they create.  Everything they do outside of that bucket its pure outbound generated.

Decreasing dependency on marketing for pipeline creation was the primary driver here and is super important as you called out.
icecoldcaller
Good Citizen
0
Business Development Representative
I love this! I'm an SDR where I do get commission earned based on closed business, but my ability to level up in the org is partially based on appointments held and partly on business closed - sounds great in theory, but just as you said, almost everything after the appointment is out of my hands. 

Feeling a tad stuck in this spot
brotato
WR Lieutenant
2
Head of Sales
Two business days for inbound is really rough. The stats are pretty overwhelming about reaching people in the first hour.  I'd change the SLA to be more way more aggressive and spiffs around maintaining lightning fast response.

As for outbound, there's so much more to reward than just the meeting. Think about competitive intel, finding out current vendor contract end dates, whooping an objection, etc. There's all these micro actions smart SDRs take that help them outproduce their peers. Make spiffs on that.

Having a calling competition where the goal isn't necessarily meetings (output), but meaningful interactions (input) where either the incumbent is identified (call that 5 points) or the current vendor contract end date is identified (call that 10 points) or a common objection is handled smoothly (call that 12 points). Now the SDRs are focused on the right actions that will produce meetings short and long term.
ARRisLife
Politicker
1
Account Executive
@bigpicturemaverickstuff I like the idea of the outbound incentive- trying to drive some new business in under-performing patches.

The inbound side... I'm curious what your lead flow looks like, having worked on bdr teams 2 days seems like a very long time, but I don't know the ins and outs in of your business.
bigpicturemaverickstuff
Good Citizen
0
Senior Manager, Sales Development
I agree its long, contact forms, demo forms, and other sources of active engagement are pretty much a 2 hour SLA.  There are some marketing automation limitations that are being worked out to bring this down.  I think we need a good Lead Routing program.
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How do you compensate your SDRs who do both inbound and outbound prospecting?

Question
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Where have you seen most success?
41% Having Inbound and Outbound as two separate teams with different comp plan.
36% Have the SDR do both but pay more for the SQL generated from outbound.
23% None of the above.
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