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If you think outbound is dead, you’re either lying or you’re bad at it.
Quotas keep rising, your people are grinding, and the pipeline isn’t growing. It’s an equation that drives you mad. While everyone wants more opportunities, only a few know how to build an outbound culture that delivers.
I’m Todd Busler, former VP of Sales, now co-founder of Champify, and I’ve spent my career sharpening how to build a company pipeline that’s self-sufficient.
On this show, I’m talking to sales leaders who have cracked the outbound code. They’ve built an outbound culture beyond their SDRs and scaled repeatable systems that drive real pipeline without relying on hacks.
We’ll break down the winning plays, processes, and frameworks behind growing that outbound muscle to help you get results faster.
No fluff. No hacks. Real strategies from real people who have done it so you can stop guessing and start opening.
Bridget Conneely (00:00):
We're really changing the world when it comes to threat intelligence and we really do offer something that other security companies don't. That is really our bread and butter and where we focus. I think a lot of other security companies say they do it, but it's a piece of what they offer.
Todd Busler (00:17):
Everyone wants to build stronger pipeline, but only a few know how to make it happen. If you're listening to this show, you know outbound is not dead, you just need a little help building a system that actually works. Well, you're in the right place. I'm Todd Busler and on this show we're breaking down the plays, processes and frameworks behind repeatable pipeline growth straight from the people who've built it. Let's get into it. Really excited for this episode today. I have Bridget Conneely. She leads the SDR BDR function at Recorded Future and has spent times building the SDR function at companies like Mimecast and Riverbed Technologies. During this episode, she's mentioned that she's hired over 400 BDRs and she'll cover everything from hiring, interviewing techniques, how they approach experimentation, cross-functional relationship building with marketing and ops, and how they've made transition from a wider sell to any account to a way more narrow ABM-focused approach. Enjoy. Bridget. Pumped to have you. How are you doing?
Bridget Conneely (01:23):
Good, how are you? Thanks for having me.
Todd Busler (01:25):
Yeah, I'm doing great. Excited to chat with you. I know we chatted a little bit beforehand, but there's a lot that I think you have to share with the world and there's a lot of moving pieces and kind of this role in particular. So I'm excited to chat how you've approached it at a really sizable scale and have seen a couple different companies. So let's get into it. You've built and led sales dev business development teams at companies like Riverbed, now Recorded Future. What's excited you about moving into this space? Threat intelligence overall?
Bridget Conneely (01:55):
Yeah, I definitely think whenever I hire a new person and we always talk about our journey at Recorded Future and threat intelligence as a whole, I think it's really meaningful what we do and our mission. Trying to make the world safer and have threat intelligence top of mind within these IT worlds is something that's meaningful and when you have passion and meaning behind what you're selling, I think it's that much easier. So that's what really drew me to Recorded Future, and I think being able to have an authentic viewpoint of, Hey, we're selling something that is doing the world in a better direction, if you will, is always something that I get excited and motivated by. So that's really what's led me to want to venture in my role at Recorded Future and build a BDR team here.
Todd Busler (02:38):
Before we get into all the details, maybe for people that haven't heard of Recorded Future, what's the quick kind of 32nd elevator pitch?
Bridget Conneely (02:45):
Sure. So we've really been on a mission to help organically orchestrate a threat intelligence world and ecosystem that is safe for these dark web and malicious attackers. And obviously as technology is becoming more advanced and multi-threaded, a stat that the average number of technologies that an IT stack has is 300 plus technologies. So at Recorded Future, we're really trying to find a way to have visibility and also peace of mind for a lot of these professionals that have these huge ecosystems that they manage.
Todd Busler (03:17):
Makes sense. Yeah, I've a lot of questions there, but Bridget, talk to me about what was the function like when you started coming up on two years now I know the organization has matured a bit. What did it look like when you joined versus today?
Bridget Conneely (03:29):
Sure. When I started, we had a few different leaders in the business development umbrella everywhere from North America to our EMEA group and APJ when I've really focused and dedicated my time to North America. What we really saw was we were focusing our time 50% on the commercial segmentation, 50% on the enterprise segment, and we knew that we had to do better in terms of understanding who our ideal customer profile was. So what's really evolved is the focus. So we are a hundred percent dedicated to those named account entities, those top companies if you will, that we really strategize and focus around. So we no longer focus on those smaller segments. So that's really been an evolution. We do of course want to support any type of customers or prospects that come inbound, but in terms of the outbound effort and where I live and breathe it is all named accounts within the perfect profile that we define as a company. So I think that's really been a shift that we've seen and it's definitely adjusted how we have our prospecting methods. It's really focusing on the quality, if you will, and that's why we handpicked some of these major accounts to make sure our BDRs and our sellers focus in the right areas.
Todd Busler (04:38):
What led to that change? Was it seeing something about the cost to acquire customers or the churn or the expansion potential? Can you explain the work to actually land at the decision of reallocating your effort or reallocating your energy? Because I talked to a lot of companies that come in and it's normal company maturation of like, Hey, we kind of sold to a wider audience now we figured out X. But how people do that is actually a little challenging, right? So how did you go about it?
Bridget Conneely (05:07):
Sure. It's super challenging and I don't think we have the complete understanding of the perfection and the ideal ecosystem that we want quite yet, but we're going in the right direction. A couple different algorithms that we used, and we have an amazing sales strategy team that focused and dedicated their time and their behaviors. But we did look at of course, our customer base understanding what makes a customer sticky, what's keeping them within the Recorded Future world and a champion for our product. We also looked at what the sales leaders, the sellers were saying, who they had champions with, if it's a certain persona or a certain vertical. So we definitely were able to take the voice of the people as well, which was really meaningful to understand, Hey, this is where I've had really good collaboration and conversations. This is where there's pain and how we can help alleviate it within these ecosystems and what's been, it's not perfect, but it's a work in progress and we're finding that a lot of the success has been within that ICP profiles that we have handpicked. So I do think that it's been really unique for me as a leader because I've always managed an SMB commercial and an enterprise space. So now to solely dedicate my time and my team's focus within that world, it's definitely been a change. It's a change in how we do our job and how we do it well, but also how we do it for the future and how we're predictable on what we're going to have for pipeline success. So I think that's been a big shift.
Todd Busler (06:28):
I just had an interview with someone who's been leading sales development at Highspot for 10 years, and you saw every different journey and maturation of the company and you talked about this shift from like, Hey, get all pipeline, get quantity of opportunities to way more narrow, and you usually have to bring people with you on that. Like, Hey, how am I going to do this on a much smaller list of accounts or, Hey, my number's now impossible. Did you run into friction there and maybe what advice would you have for other people about to go through this journey?
Bridget Conneely (06:55):
That's a great one. Yeah, I think there's always that friction and there should be a little bit of that healthy friction. We want these goals to be something that's a reach. We want to understand how we can motivate and dedicate our time to coach and develop these young sales professionals because we want them to hit goals. I think that we really have an amazing ecosystem here, which has really been supportive, an amazing sales operations team, a great partnership with marketing. I think all of that is definitely a recipe for that success. I think it was a huge change agent for BDRs that were still in seat. We have all these new objectives, all these new goals. We're focusing only on the top tier accounts in the world. How do we change our mindset? So luckily our leadership team was really willing to work with us on a ramp in terms of, Hey, we know we're not going to get there overnight.
(07:41):
We know we have to start somewhere. I think that support is so meaningful, especially to these young professionals that know the number can be challenging. So that was really meaningful for them out of the gates and allowed them to start to ramp to get to the goal. But also I think how we actually look at BDR success is important, right? Is it pipeline? Is it sales qualified meetings? Is it opportunities that progress? So for us here, we really like to believe in these sales qualified meaningful discussions, and that's where BDRs are tied to success for their behaviors. So we did adjust how we did things last year and moved solely to that. It's been a bigger change, but we're starting to see some normalcy commence, which is exciting, but this time.
Todd Busler (08:24):
Two parts of that that are really interesting to me. You said that you're used to having an SB commercial enterprise segment where the prospecting motion looks a lot different across those segments, and I think sometimes people try to blanket that together and run into some problems, as I'm sure you're aware of. Two questions. First is what training or skill enablement development had to go in? Like, Hey, you're talking to this flavor of customer, this senior of type of profile. There's a different level of executive presence of precision that goes into that. So what did you have to do in the training and skill development part to get the team there?
Bridget Conneely (08:59):
Sure, it's a good one. I think for me, right, we are harnessing how we can execute and be effective and build pipeline and support our sellers. We know the BDR role is one of the hardest, right? So I think for me, some of the training and some of the aspects that are really meaningful are focusing on what do we know works and how can we really succumb to that and understand how to build our playbook around that. So rather than focusing on cold calls, 120 cold calls a day or 50 plus targeted emails, we've really lived in a social selling world in these past few months and we know a very effective way of connecting and understanding prospect's needs and what's meaningful to them is through LinkedIn and engagement there. It's not just an overnight success. So I have found that the evolution of LinkedIn and showing these prospects that we do know them and that we understand what is meaningful to them and where the pain exists within their organizations has been one of the biggest adjustments. I would say probably 80% of our success has been within the LinkedIn world over these past six months, which is just such a different behavior than what I've seen historically. So we are finding that partnering with our sellers, researching, understanding what is needed within these ecosystems and these organization and how we can help provide that need has been where we've spent a lot of our time. So I would say social is such a big piece of what we do now and it's just so different than what I've seen as success previously.
Todd Busler (10:25):
It's so interesting. Ours is pretty similar, like LinkedIn is huge part of the motion. What do you think about when some leaders are starting to get concerned, like, okay, email has gotten less effective, calling, likely less effective, if not probably heading in that direction. LinkedIn still seems to have some gains or arbitrage. Do you see that starting to get too noisy and less effective soon? Do you think we're really early on that front, there's a lot of room to run.
Bridget Conneely (10:52):
What do you think? Yeah, I think we're probably in the middle ground. I think it's definitely what's existing today as just the commonplace best practice LinkedIn and that engagement. We still find that, oh, we have a lot of success with dials, which is awesome, but it's not calling someone out of the blue and booking that meeting that we used to be able to do. Rather, it's three LinkedIn messages, it's three months of a drip campaign within your email structure and good messaging. It's targeting them at the right time. So I find that rhythm and that outline of BDR performance and behavior within their prospecting algorithm is just that much more important. But if you do stick to it and you follow through and you don't allow yourself to get caught off guard in terms of other things that may pop up, I do believe that it's effective, but I agree it's been very interesting to see that evolution. I do think we're going to continue to see LinkedIn for now really be the main area of success within the prospecting world.
Todd Busler (11:48):
It's for us too. It's LinkedIn and very call heavy. LinkedIn. Can you talk a little bit about Bridget, your leadership style, right? Sure. Because what you just walked me through is, hey, a big shift from this one size fits all to a way more narrow approach, probably likely a lot of changes from a channel standpoint, a lot of education or earn the right and be able to put yourself in this buyer's shoes for younger talent. That's not easy. So I'm sure you did a lot of things that maybe you don't even recognize are that hard, but walk me through where do you think you shine as a leader? How have you gone about that?
Bridget Conneely (12:23):
Sure. I definitely like to think of myself as a coach and a mentor for the team. I think for me, understanding out of the gates what's meaningful to them and what are their goals, and I don't just mean they want to be an AE, but what are their personal goals? Is there something that's driving them and how am I going to help them get there? I think that it's really hard to go into a sales mind and collaborate with them and say, Hey, we are completely data oriented. We are going to focus on these KPIs and that's what we're going to drive for success. It's just not going to be the trigger that gets them motivated or excited. So I want to understand what's meaningful to them, what their goals are in terms of how that cadence is structured. I do still like the one-on-ones weekly.
(13:02):
I use those as their time. That is not for me to come in with questions, understanding lead particulars or their prospecting rhythms. If I have my own agenda and my own goals in mind, I will either find other time or once they elaborate on where their focuses are and where their challenges or successes are, I can then go in at the end of the meeting. But I find that's a really important discussion point within one-on-ones. Also, I will never ask them to do something that I'm not willing to do. I like to make dials on the floor. I like to be able to show that I've been in your shoes and I've done it and I've grown from there. And then we do a lot of role plays. I think it's really meaningful and there's a lot of cool technology out there that are allowing some automation and some self-directed coaching with role plays. So that's something we've been piloting. I think that really trying that on being able to envision yourself pulling the trigger and finding yourself talking the talk is allowing you to put that energy out there before you hit the phones and start prospecting. So I always find that as a good outlet as well.
Todd Busler (14:01):
Can we dig in a little bit more tactically on the goals part? The motivation part? Because I personally think that SDR leadership's one of the hardest jobs because you have really typical early in their career, more junior talent. There's a lot of pressure to hit numbers. It's really hard for someone at a younger age to have the executive presence to be taken seriously. You have AEs with personas and egos that are difficult, and you're kind of trying to balance all of this. I agree with you on the personal goals, the motivation, but how do you actually do that? Because in theory it's like, yeah, I need to know what makes them tick. But not everyone opens up. A lot of people don't actually know. How do you go about that? What does great look like when it comes to that skillset?
Bridget Conneely (14:42):
And there's so many different personalities, and I think that's exactly what is the hardest part of being an SDR leader in any organization. Understanding how you can be audible already and adjust your mentorship with these different personalities. For me, I think it is everyone having the same true north, if you will, and our leader here always talks about the true north, and if it's customer obsession, which it should be in the BDR world, it's really understanding what your metrics are and how you're going to get there. For me, I think that I always like to emphasize the partnership and the alignment with your ad. That's our sales reps here, because that is going to be so critical. It's going to help you get to your number. They're going to be your biggest champion and they're really going to be your biggest voice. So I do have a scorecard that I like them to really start to utilize within their chats with their AEs, with their chats internally within the ecosystems here.
(15:35):
And they all have the same metrics that they can actually understand how they're doing well, because I think that to your point, we need to still have KPIs, but how do we really outline them in a positive effort? But also for these young sales professionals, we want them to be able to own their charter, their method. So I do like them to pull their own data. I like them to understand not just how many meetings were sales qualified and completed, but how long it took you to get to a certain conversion within pipeline and seeing those deals closed. So I think it's important to actually track that. And then I do really like to emphasize and do check-ins with AEs with sales leaders to understand how these BDRs are integrating within their team culture, their team calls, are they chatting with their AEs every day and collaborating. I think that meaningful aspect is so important. So myself and my sales leader on my team, that is something that we really focus on and strategize around.
Todd Busler (16:32):
That makes sense. You've spent a lot of time in this general category slash space security threat, et cetera. How do you handle things from a competitive standpoint, guys? I would imagine there's so much education that the sales team needs to know and competitive differentiators exactly where we fit. How do you approach that and what learnings do you have for people in other really competitive categories?
Bridget Conneely (16:56):
Yeah, I think that it's really important to understand what is your main differentiator, understand where you really do things differently. What are you actually seeing that you're gaining as soundbites from customers in terms of feedback and why are we that chosen premium service that people are going with? I think in the Recorded Future realm, what's been really unique is we're really changing the world when it comes to threat intelligence and we really do offer something that other security companies don't. That is really our bread and butter and where we focus. I think a lot of other security companies say they do it, but it's a piece of what they offer. I think for us and the fact that we've dedicated resources and our entire umbrella around that ecosystem is the unique differentiator for us. But when I've worked within the tech umbrella, I've always liked to understand what the customers are saying because it means a few things, right?
(17:47):
Allows me to understand and think as a user, and it also allows me to know, oh, this is actually something that's meaningful for them. Or I've sold technology that maybe wasn't that meaningful, and then I knew, oh, this is something we're going to keep hearing and we're going to have to train the BDRs on how to overcome that because it's not going away. So I think that's always been something that I've always looked at those customer testimonials. And then in terms of how we really integrate that within the BDR realm and training, we have an amazing tool, obviously using Highspot that really allows them to know who our main competitors are, have those battle cards know enough and be audible ready in regards to adjusting their pitch when they're caught off guard in regards to a competitive standpoint or objection. So I think as long as you're in that realm, then that's always something that's going to really change the game. And knowing a few of those stories are always going to be an indicator of success for our customers. I always like to train the BDRs out of the gates that psychologically when you tell a story, it connects with a different part of your brain so you remember it and it's going to be meaningful. So them memorizing and understanding stories around customers that really believe in who we are and what we offer is always something I find that can really allow them to be a differentiator in regards to the market and their prospecting outline.
Todd Busler (19:04):
Couldn't agree more in terms of voice of the customer. I think people dramatically overweight the importance of product like knowledge and way under value. Just, hey, if you have three or four really good stories, you can tell at a good time. It's more valuable than anything you can do. Now. I know it's not as easy as, Hey, we get these stories into Highspot and things magically happen. How do you approach enablement? You mentioned some role plays, but what is your cadence? How has that matured throughout your different leadership roles? What does great enablement look like? I think this is a very under-discussed topic, and I'd love to hear how you approach it.
Bridget Conneely (19:42):
Yeah, I think it's severely under discussed. It's really interesting because enablement means so many different things to different organizations. For me here, we have a great enablement team that really helps us with anything we need in terms of our enablement journey and playbook. I am a believer that it needs to be owned and led by the leader. I think that our enablement team here supports us, but in terms of the outline and the expectation, they do have that as a go-to market standard. But I believe the enablement journey is owned by the leader. I think for us, it's really something that is critical because enablement is not just product or competitive like we discussed for us, we have young sales professionals that really want to move up the ladder and they want to be promoted. So I would say 90% of my one-on-ones, that's the topic.
(20:30):
When can I move on? When can I have the opportunity to interview or what does that look like, what's needed for me? So my enablement conversation has really evolved and a lot of my structure has been emphasized around what that looks like for their next step. So that's them actually utilizing Gong. We'll actually have them watch a gong recording and talk about what went wrong within a discovery call that an AE had, and we'll actually have them play out the call and how they would've done things differently every time that they hit a certain metric consistently for a couple quarters. Once they're a high performer, they're able to unlock that training and that ability to be enabled for that next step. But I think that it's really the definition of the leader and what they think is of importance. For me, it's really emphasized around the arena of progression because that's where my BDRs want to go. So I think that's where I've spent a lot of time in the enablement world.
Todd Busler (21:26):
Love that. Yeah. There's so much you're saying that's subtle that I think a lot of people don't do. Like you mentioned the role play, you mentioned the breakdown, the call and actually say, what would this person have said? Tying the enablement to the promotion path. There's just a lot there. And I think a big learning I've had is just the way you sell is extremely important, which means enablement is just getting more important and little subtle things that the best people do have huge impacts, and I'm constantly underwhelmed by a lot of the enablement at companies. One other topic I want to get into here is the old playbook of like, Hey, make this number of calls. Put this many people in a cadence that's changing really quickly. You mentioned from a channel perspective, 80% coming from LinkedIn, way more narrow account list. How do you organize your team or structure to be able to experiment on new things while, hey, I have a goal to hit every single month. I'd love to hear how you approach it. You have SWAT teams. Do you spin off little test areas? How do you go about that?
Bridget Conneely (22:26):
Yeah, I think it's really hard, especially as things are progressing and changing so quickly. We've done a little bit of both. So I do think a SWAT team and having a little pilot group is really meaningful. We have a lot of support from our marketing group, but of course they're creating goodness from events and that's meaningful. But that's another thing for BDRs to follow up around. So they have events, they have inbound leads, they have outbound, they have all this goodness. How do we channel it and harness it and do it in the right direction? For me, I think that getting to our number and building pipeline is number one. So where I see that to be successful can be a combo of marketing and outbound in our world usually. So focus there first. What I really like about the pilot groups is it really allows you to see, hey, we're going to test this, see if it's successful, see if we can reproduce it in other areas and how we can make it meaningful and then add it to our BDR playbook.
(23:17):
So for example, my public sector group, we know that they do very well in the channel and public sector. They'll actually do callout days with channel partners, either in the channel partner office or in the office, a Recorded Future just to create that collaboration and that enthusiasm with our channel ecosystem. We haven't done that as a private sector group for North America. So I find that as something that I would like to pilot. So I'd probably do it with New England, see how we do there, and then really try to understand what the conversion looks like and if it actually is meaningful before I would outline it to the whole group. They're hard to track and hard to do, but I think those are the examples and the success triggers that then can lead to an expansion of a great opportunity for prospecting. So I've done that a bunch.
(24:04):
I think that's really awesome. And then you have to go with what works for you and where you're seeing success. And sometimes I may have someone who hits their number every month and they're doing it by driving a lot of activity through the phone. They're doing cold calls. It's effective. I have someone else that is getting all of their meetings via LinkedIn and it works for them. I always like to outline to new hires that what may work for me may not work for you, but you need to have an algorithm and an outline, and we give you that outline. We prescribe it and maybe adjusted a bit. But it's important to understand that these are main areas and themes that are successful for one may not be for the other, but we do need that guiding light, if you will.
Todd Busler (24:41):
I find there's this, yes, you need to have the team focused on hitting the number, and there's a bunch of tactics and strategies, and that's table stakes. That has to happen. But a common theme I see with the best leaders is they have some methodology of experimentation, and they're always trying to find like, okay, where is that five x breakthrough? Is it on this channel thing that maybe hasn't gotten enough attention? Right? Is it a specific way we handle events? I'm always interested in how people go about that. You mentioned a lot of support from the marketing group. What is a great partnership look like with the marketing counterparts, right? Because I think in the past it was like, Hey, marketing's doing their thing. Most salespeople kind of complain about what's happening with marketing, but now the best org are working really tight with an ABM perspective. From an ABM perspective, events, perspective, messaging, what advice do you have on working cross-functionally with those teams?
Bridget Conneely (25:34):
Yeah, we talk about this a lot. I've been so many companies and led BDR orgs under the sales umbrella, under the marketing umbrella, it shouldn't matter, right? We are under sales. We are a go-to market team here. We've been under marketing too. I think that we would drown ourselves in the details of attribution. So sometimes we have that unhealthy Salesforce marketing. I think here what's been very refreshing is that we are all unifying together to try to build pipeline and build pipeline in the right direction. So that's been really meaningful. I know that the ABM model has been really hard for a lot of go to market entities to adjust to. We've done a very good job focusing on the right accounts. I think what's been very challenging is that means that we're not going to see as many leads. That's going to be what happens.
(26:19):
That's the result. But the leads that we are seeing are going to be more meaningful. They're going to be of more worth. And I think the partnership needs to be critical, right? That needs to be one of the number one aspects of any go-to market engine. For me, I believe that from a leader's perspective, sales ops, marketing ops, like you as a leader need to have a good relationship with each. And then for the BDRs, they are super close with their field marketing folks that they help support because it's important, the goodness that they're contributing towards the fields. And then how BDRs are following up and seeing the success, giving feedback, understanding how to adjust some of the key targets or what we're doing and what we're doing well. I think the other thing that shifted is that we don't do any of those large trade shows or things of that nature like we will in some cases, but the smaller batch events that are more customized and more targeted within the ABM model has allowed us to see a bigger uptick of lead conversion. BDR is collaborate with the field marketing group to make sure that they're focusing in the right areas and helping collaborate as a team. So I found that to be really helpful.
Todd Busler (27:24):
How'd you land on the smaller, usually I'd imagine more owned events model versus the big trade shows?
Bridget Conneely (27:31):
Yeah, I think that marketing had a great perspective for how they wanted to go to market for this year because of the ABM model, our ICP changing, we know that these more meaningful events that are targeted and in partnership with sales leadership really allowed us to know that success was going to be top of mind because we're targeting the right people. We know who they are. One thing I always like to tell my team though is brand awareness is important because people leave companies, they switch up where they are, they want to leave a role or talk about a product they used previously, and we want Recorded Future to be that product. So we need to keep brand awareness top of mind, but it's just these smaller batch events, smaller batch, direct mail campaigns, things of that nature have really changed the game, and it's just a very different way of thinking and a strategic way of thinking. So I think that putting BDRs in that realm has been one of the biggest changes, but I think we've been lucky to have marketing sport.
Todd Busler (28:26):
Love it. Bridget, last topic I want to talk about. I can just tell in chatting with you, like you take management and the one-on-one structure, and I'm sure you have very detailed promotion paths and everything someone needs to do. So how do you think about hiring in coming up on the back half of 2025? And specifically, what are you looking for in terms of skillsets, traits, ambitions? Has that changed much, if at all? How do you approach it?
Bridget Conneely (28:54):
Sure. I know I always like to say this statistic. I think I've hired probably 400 plus BDRs in the past three, four years, massive built teams. And what's been really cool at Recorded Future is our growth model is for these BDRs to progress into sellers so many of our enterprise reps or BDRs here. So it's really cool to see. I always look at three main areas When I look at someone who's talented and would be a good fit for the SDR world, I look at someone who's just naturally curious, like ask questions, almost annoyingly so in the interview process, but I know that means that they're super curious, someone who's just super duper competitive, if that's them having a sports background or being able to tell a great story about a competitive scenario within their current role. And then thirdly, I always talk about audible readiness because audible readiness is such a big piece of any sales persona, but especially in the SDR world, because someone needs to be able to pivot.
(29:53):
They need to be able to adjust their talk track. They need to be able to shift their mindset in a way that's comfortable and also smooth in their transition. So that's something we talk a lot about too. And then for me, I really like to understand not just the now, but where do you want to be in five years? If they say maybe a marketing manager or I want to go into product, that's not going to be a fit for my team. I want sales professionals. I want someone that wants to be in AE yesterday. I think that growth model is what I've seen as the most success.
Todd Busler (30:23):
Why is that, Bridget?
Bridget Conneely (30:24):
I think because they're just super dedicated to their craft, getting to their numbers, understanding the algorithm of what good looks like, and they want to move on and they want to be successful. When I see those competitive personalities, they always progress quicker, they do better. There are the one-offs of people that are super successful. They go into marketing, they go into product. I would say that's probably the rarity, not the role. I see that very infrequently. But as I do hire for going into 2026 and beyond, that's really what I look for. I partner with a lot of universities in the Boston area as well as abroad because I think that having young professionals that are excited and motivated out of school is always what I look for. And then I can train them and they have no bad behaviors from before. It's easy. So that's always my biggest thrill that I like to see when I hire.
Todd Busler (31:10):
Last question. Bridget, this has been awesome. Talk to me about how you test for that Audible ready?
Bridget Conneely (31:15):
Yeah.
Todd Busler (31:16):
I think the first two around competitiveness drive where they want to be for sure. The audible ready part's a little more challenging, 400 BDR is higher. It means you probably interviewed thousand plus. How do you test for that?
Bridget Conneely (31:30):
Yeah, it's a tough one. So it depends on the personality. For me, if it's someone that is really nervous and a little bit more rigid, I always like to throw them off with, tell me what you like to do for fun. Tell me a story about something fun you've done in the last week. I like to see how they adjust if I throw them off of what their exact outline was for the interview. And sometimes people take it very well, and sometimes if they don't, I'm like, oh, okay. That's a bit of a trigger of let's dig deeper. I also like to do on the fly role plays, nothing to do with product, but hey, I'm walking into your ice cream shop. I am going to buy chocolate ice cream. Sell me vanilla. Talk me through some of the questions you would ask. I think that it really allows me to see what people's mindsets are if they're comfortable with being uncomfortable and it's trainable, but it's really hard to figure out if that person has that personality that's just going to click and be the good fit. So I think those are some of the skill sets I look for and some of the triggers that I like to use when I interview.
Todd Busler (32:22):
Love it. Bridget, this has been awesome. I appreciate your wealth of knowledge here just from earned experience. I appreciate you sharing with the audience. Anyone wants to follow Bridget, she's on LinkedIn. Bridget, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Bridget Conneely (32:33):
Yeah, thanks for the time. Appreciate it.
Todd Busler (32:37):
Thanks for listening to Cracking Outbound. If this was helpful, let us know by messaging me, Todd Busler, on LinkedIn and share this episode with a friend that you think will be interested. If you want more resources about building and scaling all things outbound, you can sign up for our newsletter at champify.io/blog.