bendandsnack

Account Exec

Prospecting into existing customers as an SDR

Hey guys,

Any tips on prospecting into existing customers as an SDR?

My boss told me that since our AM team is swamped they want me to prospect into existing customers next year.

I want to be an AE, not an AM which I have made very clear, but I plan on giving my boss an ultimatum in a few months & if I smash this it'll help.

How does one gracefully ask for a referral when they're not really involved after the first meeting? Seems more nuanced than normal prospecting because it matters if you piss the prospect off by blowing up their inbox.

Should I ask the project management team if I can sit in on meetings with the client and build a relationship that way?

Thoughts on reaching out to other people at the company and say "hey I'm xxxx from xxx one of your vendors. Would love to get some time to hear about your experience with xxxx to see if there's a way to leverage our existing relationship and help." ????

🔎 Prospecting

👑 Sales Strategy

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12 comments

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poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

4

☕️

"but I plan on giving my boss an ultimatum in a few months" you're already started down the wrong path here. Don't ever give leaders ultimatums or anyone for that matter. It shows your hand and often ends up with you losing, or at best you get a reluctant "yes" with a target on your back.

When I was an AM I had some folks that called on accounts for us. I gave them all the notes we had in SFDC and would tell them exactly what we are doing today and how I want to grow the relationships. They never sold, but they called to offer helpful advice or resources around the items I wanted them to start getting warmed up on before I tried to sell them.

Partner with your AMs and understand their growth strategy for each account. Create account plans that highlight the key players and who you should and shouldn't be talking to. From there, execute on a plan to warm up the accounts and get them ready for an upsell/big ticket renewal.

Rallier

Politicker

2

SDR Manager and Consultant

100% agree with this here. Giving an ultimatum is sort of a lose-lose. It just makes everybody unhappy.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

0

☕️

Do you think this will improve your treatment if you make demands with threats attached to them?

bendandsnack

Politicker

0

Account Exec

Normally I'd agree on the ultimatum, but I've been treated like a pinata this year. The only reason I'm still here is so that I can get that AE promotion on my resume and then hightail it elsewhere.

Very helpful, thank you!!

braintank

Politicker

1

Enterprise Account Executive

Can you tell us a bit more, please

What is the new business opportunity you're pursuing? Selling more licenses? Selling to a new division? Selling a different SKU?

bendandsnack

Politicker

0

Account Exec

I work for a consultant for one of the major cloud providers.

I sell our account management/cloud optimization services + cloud products on behalf of the cloud provider.

Half of the business is a common email app from that provider and half the business is cloud. So I'm expected to sell email to those using cloud and cloud to those using email, or just increase cloud use(additional application/infrastructure modernization or data & AI) for existing spenders.

buckets1

Politicker

1

AE

Letting them know you’re a current vendor is a great start. Onboarding new vendors can be a pain depending on the client’s internal policies so a lot of prospective new contacts/departments will love this. When me and my SDR prospect new departments of our current clients, we’ll often lead with “Xxx is a current vendor of YYY, primarily being used in ZZZ department. After that the messaging is more or less the same as prospecting new logos. Largest difference is people are WAYY nicer to you.

Beans

Big Shot

1

Enterprise Account Executive

Need a little more context.

What do you sell, what are you expected to uplift/expand?

Also what is this ultimatum? Sounds like you might get yourself shitcanned.

bendandsnack

Politicker

1

Account Exec

I work for a consultant for one of the major cloud providers.

I sell our account management/cloud optimization services + cloud products on behalf of the cloud provider. I'm expected to expand their footprint within the provider we work with, which usually means IT infrastructure/application modernization or data & AI projects.

Ultimatum is Account Exec or I'm out. We were bought out by a PE firm + went through a merger last year. I'm one of two SDRs standing after 3 rounds of performance-based head-chopping. Currently supporting 6 AEs while they bring in outside talent instead of promoting from within.

I'm at the end of my rope lol, if I wasn't waiting on that promotion I would've been gone a while ago

Sunbunny31

Politicker

1

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

In this case, I'd be also looking externally. It's possible there are better opportunities out there. Waiting for an expected but delayed promotion doesn't always pay off.

SgtAE

WR Officer

1

AE

I had a sick time doing this for like 3 months. Legit all I did was get a salesforce report dump of all leads and contacts on existing account lists that I was given and just fired them into a 3 call sequence, then just hit the phones and dialled all day. Such a breeze as I didn't need to personalise, email or prospect. I just told them I was from customer success asking for feedback and once the conversation flowed I just upsold it to a meeting.

Legit just when prospect picked up the phone I just said to them "Hey X this is Rep from Company customer success, I'm calling as you're a customer of ours and I've got a note on the account that you're the right person to speak with on this, is that right?

From there just transition to oh great well i'm just here doing a periodic check in to see how your usage is going and get feedback on the product, can you tell me how your team is utilising the product these days?

The key is just to get them speaking, honesty anyone who's still on the phone with you after 3 minutes is a probably a great person to intro to your AM just for an upsell/educational piece/health check.

I loved doing this campaign as I never got yelled at by prospects because they we're existing customers, big fan.

Upper_Class_SaaS

Politicker

0

Account Executive

depends on the motion, if its the enterprise I think there is value, if the org is too small and the product is company wide, it doesn't make sense

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