nemix

SDR

What to do when you guys have no sales process?

Hey, cokeheads new SDR here

Joined a startup first week so far and I've come to realize that I will have to pretty much build out our sales process, has anybody been in this spot before and how did you guys make the best of the situation?

🔎 Prospecting

📞 Cold Calling

19 comments

Sort by:

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

@poweredbycaffeine is our start up guru.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Guruing, commence.

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

How old is the start up and what's the current process/success rate of the SDR? What do you think is good, bad, lacking in the process? What are the challenges? What are the implementation you feel can add more value?

I would start by analysing these and doing AB to see what changes are working and what's not.

nemix

Politicker

SDR

2-3 years, we deal with brokers and lenders. Broker side is super successful so we are moving to getting more lenders on the platform, problem is we have a shit load of lenders on the free trial (where they have almost access to everything already) and none of them are on the paid plans lol. My issue which I brought up was about pricing.
Lender basic plan is 4x more expensive than the broker basic plan.
Targeting on the broker side is geared more toward solo producers, on the lender side instead of going after single loan officers we are going after the entire department.

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

Wow that's complex may be because I am not from that background. Any reason why it's 4X expensive - greater returns, complex process etc.? Did you survey your customers if they are finding your offering expensive and if yes, what they think is a justifiable price.

I'm sure free trial is for a few days to a few weeks? Whats the conversion from there? Whats the churn reason - is it just the price. If price, you guys might have to come with a different model or structure.

nemix

Politicker

SDR

Free trial is unlimited. None have converted to paid plan.

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

THAT is a reg flag

nemix

Politicker

SDR

What do people normally do then lol.

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

Not have an unlimited free trial. Nor put all the features in the free trial.

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

That's not a trial then 😂 it's a free plan. Generally some basic functionalities are given in the trial account, some one who are okay with that would use and someone who would need advanced functionality will pay if they see goo return.

Whats the goal of your company, to make money or create database 😬

nemix

Politicker

SDR

😂 yeah I’ve mentioned something already, I thought you were gonna advise me to dip .

braintank

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

I mean, that's coming. Read this thread first: https://bravado.co/war-room/posts/somewhat-comprehensive-guide-to-avoiding-a-toxic-startup

Any other warning signs?

Gottapumpthosenumbers

Opinionated

Biz Dev

Sounds like we're talking about real estate/proptech and startups. This is my jam. What are you selling? Digital marketing? Actual leads?

Questions-
1. Assuming you're selling leads - Is the lender plan 4x more expensive due to lead qualification stage? If the leads you're selling lenders/LO's are highly qualified, i.e. they approved a credit pull, the increase in price makes vs the agent/broker plan make sense. Knowing the qualification stage of each of these funnels will help.
2. What's the cardinal difference between the paid plan and the free plan? Agree with @Diablo that this is likely a red flag in the pricing model. Namely the unlimited part.
3. When you say you're selling to individuals on the agent/broker side and whole departments on the lender side, who are you referencing? Are you selling to mortgage brokers? Bankers? Mortgage companies? Same thing with real estate agents/brokers - are you selling to individual agents? Teams?

Long story short, please explain your product lol

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Hey there, I've built out sales teams and processes at a few startups at this point in my career.

Can you tell me about your sales org? How many reps? Is there a sales leader in place? What technology and "process" is there already in place?

SgtAE

WR Officer

SDR here who built out a ton of the outbound at ours. Do you have the prospecting tools to get it done?

Honestly choosing an ICP and building a sequence in outreach then just getting on the phones and dialling. worked for me, kept running it against the wall over and over until things sticked and I had an outbound campaign running.

Zoominfo'd some leads, wrote up a sequence, fired it up and dialled (multitouch approach, linkedin, email).

A lot harder than what was nessecary though.. get management to do it it's not our job nor are we quota'd for it

NoSuperhero

Politicker

BDR LEAD

I'd say start with the basics, figure out who's the ideal customer profile, best current customers, try to build a pipeline from scratch, have certain sales tools that help you find contact info that will help, so look into that. I used to know a bunch but I can't remember any at the moment.

payton_pritchard

Executive

RSM

I would spend some time looking at past deals won and lost. Working on defining what's an ideal customer look like and what's a good customer look like.

Then start to look at what's worked in the past in progressing deals - where are deals lost and what are key things that happen when they move to a later stage or are won?

Start to map that out on paper then adjust as needed based on new information and what you're seeing in the field.

saashunter2.0

Executive

Mid-Market Account Executive

Hunt into ICP and move deals forward

countingmyinterest

Politicker

Account Executive

I've built up a very small sales org (2-3 cold callers, I was the "AE" who closed business). Not the most successful, but here's my experience/framework.

Couple different parts:
-Lead sourcing (LinkedIn sales nav, Apollo.io)
-Data enrichment/contact data (ZoomInfo, Apollo.io, Clearbit, LeadIQ, Seamless.ai)
-Sales Enablement/sequencing prospects (Apollo.io, ZoomInfo Engage, Mixmax, Salesloft, Outreach, Reply.io, Yesware, Woodpecker, Lemlist, Hypemail - tons of options)
-CRM (Salesforce, Hubspot, Pipedrive)
-Contracting (Zuora, Docusign, Hellosign, freaking Adobe Sign)

Nice to have:

-Call recording (Gong, Chorus, are the big ones)
-Intent data tools (6Sense, ZoomInfo, Bombora, Leadfeeder)

Jobs:
-Data analyst: Find leads and contact information according to your personas and import them into CRM
-SDR or full cycle AE: Sequences contacts from the data analyst and does follow ups

Start finding who's paid the most amount of money for your platform and why they chose you. Ask them to make customer testimonials or ask for referrals to other people who could benefit from your product.

Hope this helps.

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

Press Careers

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.

nemix

What to do when you guys have no sales process?

19 comments

Related posts

Role of Sales Engineers in your sales process

Most Important Part of the Sales Process!

Bad sales process