js2458

Enterprise SDR

Valued Contributor

Lost/Flailing - Where to go from here?

Hi all. Have not been that active recently as I've been trying to put in time to doing well at my job. However, I wanted your opinions as it feels like I've been slamming my head against a brick wall to no avail.

I'm about ready to be done with the current job I have. While the pros are there - Saas product, great salary, nice office, management is (for the most part) laidback - I suck at my job. I've booked only 1 outbound meeting in 1.5 months here/2k dials. All day long, people say "not interested" to me. I'm fine with getting these objections, but seriously, 9/10 pickups I get I am immediately hit with this; not even giving me the time of day to fail. It's gotten to a point where I no longer want to pick up the phone because the law of averages isn't working in my favor.

I'm especially disheartened because what we are selling is actually quite a good product. In my previous role, I sold a bag of lies to people and they ate that shit up. But, when it comes to selling a legitimate product, no one wants to hear it.

I'd love to believe that I'm the problem here as it would make my sanity increase but anytime I try to improve my outreach/call script etc. nothing works. In my previous role as a SDR, I made over 10k dials and set up 112 meetings in 3 months. Going from 112 in 3 months to 1 meeting in 1.5 months is horrific.

For some more context, I am the first Enterprise SDR in our US office and the company is in the fintech space selling fraud prevention software to Treasurers/Procurement leaders. I came to this job from a closing position (AE) selling fully outbound to SMB tech companies.

I don't mean to sound like a whiny bitch, but I'm losing my confidence here. What the fuck do I do here guys?

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Pachacuti

Politicker

4

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

I put myself through high school and college telemarketing and overall did very well, expect in 1 job. That one job was selling country music tickets as a fundraiser for fire fighters. I hate country music and just could not believe in it and consequently did not do well. I sold like 1 or 2 tickets in a couple weeks.

So I got ahead of them firing me and quit. They’d call that “failing fast” now.

You may be in a similar boat, I don’t know. But I do know that it’s important to knew when you are failing and how to get out of it quickly.

HVACexpert

Politicker

4

sales engineer

Country music does suck

oldcloser

Arsonist

4

💀

Yes. Yes, it does.

jefe

Arsonist

3

🍁

But, but, BEYONCE!!!

HVACexpert

Politicker

2

sales engineer

Hmmm, maybe I should give country music a second try…

oldcloser

Arsonist

1

💀

I'd rather be sentenced to a lifetime of peeing sitting down. Sorry girls.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

4

🦊

She's fabulous but she ain't country.

0PercentCloseRate

Politicker

4

Oh boy

I sell to procurement leaders. It's hard as fuck to even get in the door.
Your ratios are about right for cold calling procurement. It's just a slog and they start negotiating before you even open your mouth.
Don't give up! A new product takes time to learn. Eventually the right words will spill out of your mouth and you'll be making beaucoup bucks

js2458

Politicker

0

Enterprise SDR

Are you finding that it’s easier to get them over email or linkedIN?

0PercentCloseRate

Politicker

1

Oh boy

Email. They definitely see linkedin activity, but email is best.
Keep them short, valuable, and direct. CPOs ain't got no time for bs
And by 'short, valuable, and direct' I mean keep your email to three sentences max and talk directly to the business problem you solve. No 'sales' language

Justatitle

Big Shot

3

Account Executive

Ok, quick analysis here, the problem is the departments and contacts you are going after, procurement/treasurers love saying no all day long its their favorite thing to do. without knowing the company you work for I'd love to know if you target operations, finance, IT because those people might have the problem you help to solve and can tell procurement to work with you.

js2458

Politicker

2

Enterprise SDR

We target certain personas in finance/IT but their role must be related to treasury/procurement. So, like a VP of FP&A wouldn't be a target for us. But, an Finance IT that deals with fraud prevention would be.
Currently, I am told to target the highest titles in these companies. So, we are talking CFOs/Treasurers/CPOs/VPs and very occasionally high accounting/finance/IT titles. But all are at least Director + with a focus on VP or higher.

0PercentCloseRate

Politicker

4

Oh boy

Procurement's job is to literally say 'no' to spending money. You're almost better off calling the people that procurement reports to. They are not a change agent inside the organization. Your leadership is setting you up to run into the buzzsaw, which sucks.
Ask your AE -- is there a different way inside the company besides starting with procurement? If they're willing to go outside the comfort zone it's worth trying something new. All you're going to do is hit a brick wall

braintank

Politicker

4

Enterprise Account Executive

Definitely sounds like you're calling the wrong people

waterjugsales

Politicker

2

Account Executive @ Funemployed

All I can say is I’ve been there the last year. I came out of the gate firing at my previous org and then everything went to shit it seems (some my fault, some the fault of the segment/economy) and job searching I keep getting to late stages and getting selected against vs 3-5 people.

All you can do is try to to keep your head up, find ways to get better, and keep going forward.

If you give up, you fail. You will not fail if you keep going and work to improve bit by bit.

Phillip_J_Fry

Opinionated

2

Director of Revenue

It sounds like your approach could use some reworking. What is the value you are offering them in your opening statements? What are your most common objections and what are you doing to overcome them?
Are you doing information gathering calls with lower level people before you get in front of these higher ups?

js2458

Politicker

2

Enterprise SDR

This was my thought - the part of going low to get high. Leadership, however, doesn’t want me doing that and instead just wants me to target the highest people.

Pretty sure my script sucks too. It’s basically just an angle and then asking the prospect “how does that resonate?” I’ve tried to alter this to a no/yes based question so I know off the bat if they’re into it or not, but again - leadership wants me asking a lot of open questions.

Most common objections are literally just not interested within the first 5 seconds. That, or “we already have a good process in place”. I’m dealing with both by basically calling them out on their shit but everyone just hangs up on me :)

Phillip_J_Fry

Opinionated

2

Director of Revenue

Sounds like leadership might be hanging onto an outdated mindset. Having the right info and knowing some of the company's internal struggles before getting in front of the executives is crucial. WIth that insider info, you're now an asset, looking to help solve their problems, instead of just another sales idiot with access to their direct line.

Lean into the objection and don't give up at the first no. We are programmed to have preset responses to get rid of sales people. You have to get past that first line of defense to get the meeting.

"We already have a good process in place"

"That's part of the reason I'm calling. Almost everyone I talk to has a process in place already. What I have found in my time doing this is that there is always room for improvement in these processes. In fact most of my clients have been able to improve these processes by 30%. Would a 30% improvement in your organization be worth a 15 minute chat? How's next week look for you?"

"I'm not interested"

"I appreciate the honesty. That's fair and I figured you wouldn't be buying anything today, otherwise I'd be making the big bucks. I'm more interested in learning if there might be the opportunity for a potential partnership between our organizations in the future. Would you have 30 minutes next month to learn a bit more about what we do and see if it would be beneficial to have further conversations"

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

2

Sales Rep

Really sorry to hear this, whats been the feedback given by your leadership?
Cold calling is not easy especially for truly cold accounts, are there any ways to identify warmer leaders that you havent done. Looking at reports on who is attending webinars, downloading pdfs, etc

js2458

Politicker

0

Enterprise SDR

We have some inbound stuff from webinars which is truly lifesaving. These conversations go great and it's nice to be on the phone with someone for longer than 2 mins.
I've asked leadership about their expectations but they've been kind of cryptic, partially because they haven't really built out the US ICP yet and I'm the first SDR hire in the US. I don't know if it's normal to suck given the ICP - but 1 outbound meeting in 1.5 months can't be good, right?

HVACexpert

Politicker

2

sales engineer

What expectation has been given to you? What does management say regarding meetings set? Any feedback from AEs? As others have suggested perhaps a discussion around how you’re attacking the market is needed

js2458

Politicker

1

Enterprise SDR

I’m supposed to set up 12 meetings a month via cold and warm outreach. The inbound stuff has been pretty easy, but outbound is just insanely tough. 1st month I booked 1 meeting, 2nd month 5. 12 seems unattainable without consistent flow of inbound.

What also irks me is that NO ONE else is doing cold outreach. AE is getting all inbound stuff, US manager and CEO are all dealing with inbound or partnerships. US manager has never been in a cold calling role, AE is a good dude but hasn’t made a cold call in “2 years”. So, I’m being told how to cold call by people who either don’t have experience cold calling or are not doing it currently.
We are a European based company so there are a few SDRs in our european office, but they are not targeting procurement folks just treasury. And, it seems like cold calling in Europe is very different from the US...

NoToBANT

Catalyst

1

Senior Account Executive

You’re clearly putting in the work - just jump orgs.

Anyone who does 2,000 over any period is clearly a hard worker

Good luck bud!

braintank

Politicker

1

Enterprise Account Executive

Engineering and IT are your buyers, not procurement.

js2458

Politicker

0

Enterprise SDR

It’s vendor payment fraud prevention (personas involved in the procure to pay cycle will be end users). As such - while IT will be involved, engineering might be a stretch.

lajefa

Good Citizen

0

Enterprise Account Executive

tbh if it's a new product/industry for you, then it will take time for you to learn the nuances and how to make the call conversions. I'd ask what are other people, in your position with the same length of time doing? What is their success rate? That will tell you if it is YOU or if it is the company.
The product can be great, have great PMF, etc but if your company isn't dedicated to helping you learn the industry and call the proper personas with the correct messaging then you are not going to succeed.
Definitely if you have made that many calls with no conversions that says to me your messaging may be off, or you're selling another 'tool' or 'technical issue' that doesn't help the bottom line of the business. Also in this environment, your product/solution should be a Must Have vs. a Nice to Have. If it's the latter then it's even more important to have the messaging dialed in

zwrightsyft

Good Citizen

0

CRO

This sounds counterintuitive, but instead of pumping out an insane volume of output, i would be more strategic with the accounts you are targeting and do research on their business. -What problems are they facing?
-What are they hiring for? Do they mention a project? -How could you help solve those problems?
-Who are existing customers that look like this prospect?

Run little experiments and track your results on meetings creating, quality of pipeline, % progressed past Stage 1, etc.

Start small and try this activity ^ on 5 accounts per week and 5 contacts at each company (5x5) and see if this yields better results.

js2458

Politicker

0

Enterprise SDR

Yea, I’ve kind of been doing this but here’s the problem with that approach:

1. I’m operating off of target accounts that have already been assigned to me
2. My leadership wants me reaching out to the top 4-5 people in finance at enterprise companies. These people never respond to me whether it be over cold call/email
3. Leadership has shot down my approach for going bottom up (researching/discovery with lower level prospects and then hitting the decision maker after I gather info)
4. No one is interested in our solution/getting cold called. Like, it’s insane - 5 seconds onto a cold call, and I’m hit with not interested. It’s a bullshit objection ofc but at this point I’m starting to question my own abilities…

So, while I appreciate your answer, already tried most of what you’ve said and it’s simply being shot down :/

YoureMuted

Executive

0

Regional Sales Director

Have someone you trust evaluate your process. Poke holes in it, tweak it.

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