chig777

BDR

One man SDR team.. I can ask for one thing to do my job better, what do I ask for?

Currently the only SDR team in North America, looks to remain that way for a bit since it's cheaper to outsource telemarketing SDRs to book meetings. I've been pretty swamped everyday, with never ending list of prospects and follow ups.. to be honest, I am feeling pretty burnt out (Close to 8 months in with the company) at this point. Currently I am given zoominfo, sales nav and salesforce to do my job. It's just pretty hard for me to keep up with the volume and keep track of everything on a day to day basis.. (Also, doesn't help I have pretty bad ADHD)

I have a meeting with the VP of sales tomorrow, he wanted to know if I need any tools to make my job easier.. what would you guys recommend as far as programs or tools that will make my life a bit less difficult as a one man band?

💽 CRM

👨‍🌾 SDR

⏱ Time Management

30 comments

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braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

First -- thanks for the details and background!

Being a 1-person team is rough. Does your company also use outsourced telemarketing to supplement your work?

Before you focus on one tool, think about the areas of your job that you need the most help. From the post it sounds like staying organized and automation are areas to focus on. If I was in your position I'd need help in those areas too. But perhaps if you inspect your process there are other areas that need addressing (e.g. writing better emails).

Do you primarily outbound via calls or email? There are tools to help automate actions and increase efficiency for both of these. My company uses Outreach for both, but there is lots out there (and quite a few threads here if you search "Tools").

I haven't found a silver bullet to stay organized other than be diligent with my CRM tasks and not over-scheduling a particular day.

chig777

Valued Contributor

BDR

those areas are precisely what I need help with.. I don't even know if I can get Outreach for one person though, is that possible? Thank you for your insight

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

Why not?

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

You absolutely can get outreach or salesloft for 1 person and based on everything I am reading thats where I would start if I were you. Makes organizing your life and prioritizing things so much easier.

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

well@chig777 how'd it go?

chig777

Valued Contributor

BDR

@braintank well, his exact words here, "A mark of a true man of craft is shown in how much he can do with the little he has." Not sure exactly where he was going with that.. but for now, he wants me to block out calendars, keep better track on excel and utilize salesforce more for reminders.. He doesn't feel salesloft or other tools are necessarily the answer.. he seemed pretty set so I didn't argue against it.

To answer your other question, they do use another telemarketing team to book meetings for AEs. Not a much of conversion rate but nonetheless, consistent stream of meetings through out the weeks.. honestly, they get more meetings than me..haha

bandabanda

Tycoon

Senior AE Mid Market

Sounds like an ass 🤷‍♂️

But he’s probably got pressure from above him to keep things as lean as possible.

There are some sales savages having to pay for tools themselves b/c their bosses are like this.

I mentioned Salesloft before and saw you mentioned it here. I’ve never used it but Outplay seems like a simpler engagement platform that might help? $75 per month if you can convince him to change his mind.

chig777

Valued Contributor

BDR

Haha! Yeah.. it's my first sales job so maybe I was being naive requesting for things. I will look into Outplay, thank you for the heads up!

bandabanda

Tycoon

Senior AE Mid Market

First sales job and it’s just you is rough. But the hardship here will make you a badass later. Difficulty = growth, even if you fail.

Maybe you were a little but there’s no harm in asking. but I’d approach it this way:

Keep grinding. Continue to prove you’re getting the job done today with the tools you have (like he said). But try to log how much time it’s taking you to do simple tasks if you can - do that for a few weeks and build up the case of HOW much time is wasted doing some of these things. Show him where you could put that time every day/week if you had it back - MAKE SURE those new activities you could be doing are providing impact and value for him and/or the company (for sales, tie to revenue for example).

It’s the age old practice of bringing up a solution you’ve already thought through to a problem.

Good luck young savage!

chig777

Valued Contributor

BDR

This is a brilliant plan. Thank you very much for the advice and encouragement. It definitely has been a lot of trial and error for the last few months but I'm gonna make it!!

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Can't they spend that money on hiring another rep?

thesecretsauce

Politicker

Business Development

I feel you, I am the only one too.

Make sure you time block all your activities! Put your phone in a different room and don’t get up until you’re done with your tasks !!!!

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

solid advice

I use a free chrome plugin called StayFocused that limits my time on distracting websites during the day. Don't want to get sucked into a twitter thread or wikipedia spiral when I should working.

chig777

Valued Contributor

BDR

Great advice, thank you. Recently started doing this and it's been really helping. Standing up helps too.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

as a fellow ADHD'er i feel you on this.

and I have dealt with this in the past.

Take a look at all the different tasks that you do and figure out which ones you are constantly repeating, and see if you can automate them.

For example:
If everytime a lead comes in, you are typing up an email looking to schedule a call, see if you can automate it where when a lead comes in an email with a calendar link gets sent automatically.

There are different tools that do this.

this is a rather basic example but hopefully you get the idea.

if you go to you VP and say here are the 5 things we can automate to make me more efficient, and a think these products will help. he will take you very seriously.

Hubspot, Salesloft, Yesware, are a few examples

chig777

Valued Contributor

BDR

thank you so much, I will do some research on these and be prepared to present it to him.

bandabanda

Tycoon

Senior AE Mid Market

Thanks for the context.

I know you already had the conversation but given that it seems like organization and handling the volume of work, I’d look for something to build repeatable processes with and automate the simple(ish) stuff that drains your time.

In my tech stack, Salesloft does this. But don’t think it’s meant for 1 person unfortunately. Find something like it (with cadences or sequences to help automate follow up).

Chep

WR Officer

Bitcoin Adoption Specialist

I would ask for Kombucha. A happy gut always makes me feel like I can conquer the world.

chig777

Valued Contributor

BDR

LMAO they already provide that at the office.. maybe thats been the issue. happy gut is so underrated

desperado

Politicker

Head of Sales

I don’t know what other salesforce products your instance might already be integrated with, but if you’re having trouble keeping up with volume then you might want to take a demo of outreach or Salesloft to see if one of those could help.

chig777

Valued Contributor

BDR

thank you, will look into these two

Justatitle

Big Shot

Account Executive

Can you even be in sales if you don't have ADHD? Asking for a friend

To answer the tools question, potentially a tool like Outreach or salesloft to help automate some of the steps you have now would be beneficial but it definitely sounds like another hire is needed

chig777

Valued Contributor

BDR

haha right? I hope they will hire someone else but looks like it won't happen this year.. I will look into outreach and salesloft

SADNESSLieutenant

Politicker

Officer of ♥️

Seamless and more money in ur paycheck

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

I dont think seamless is the answer. They are already overwhelmed with the workload they have, seamless isnt going to help reduce/streamline that

SADNESSLieutenant

Politicker

Officer of ♥️

yeah i mean im not sure anything would help with the workload, besides doing things more efficiently, ie why I recommend seamless, not sure any other tools actually help with that.

Oh if you're spending time manually traiging and matching leads or updating them maybe Lean Data

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

LeanData is my favorite tool ever but that wont help here. I think they need something like outreach/salesloft

TheHypnotist

Executive

Sales Manager

Connect And Sell

Corpslovechild

Politicker

Inbound Sales Manager

SDRS!!!!!!!!!!

Corpslovechild

Politicker

Inbound Sales Manager

Wait you are meeting with your VP of sales tomorrow and you are just asking us.....

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