Outbound Sales Lift
Episode #98
How to Manage a Remote Sales Team with Channing Ferrer
Hosted by: Tyler Lindley
===
[00:00:00] Tyler Lindley: Hey y'all. I'm Tyler, and this is Outbound Sales Lift where you can elevate your SDR team and transform your sales development efforts. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy this show, please consider dropping us a rating. Others find us, and you can also subscribe to get each episode delivered to you on Tuesdays, right when they're released.
On today's episode, we're gonna be covering some best practices for remote SDR management, and I've got the pleasure of being joined by Channing Ferrer. Hey, Channing, how you doing? Hey Tyler. Good to see you. Yeah, glad to have you on. Channing is the founder and CEO of Fiddle Leaf Group doing some CRO type consulting.
He's also the former HubSpot VP of Sales op Strategy and Sales Acceleration. And Channing, like I mentioned, we're gonna be talking a little bit about remote SDR management, remote SDR leadership. What is the difference between remote SDR leadership and in person? What are your thoughts on doing that well, remote SDR leadership?
[00:01:05] Channing Ferrer: Definitely.
So obviously with the pandemic kicking in a couple years ago we all moved to this remote world and we needed at the time to figure out how to manage our SDRs in, in a remote world. And is that something we wanted to do on an ongoing basis? Is that sustainable? Ongoing Even so, we learned quickly as we all.
And on a variety of fronts, we learned quickly a bunch of different things. And we also decided at the time back at HubSpot that remote management of SDRs and remote SDRs is a feasible option. Albeit it's different in terms of how you manage that SDR team versus I think managing in person. I kind of go back to some of the earlier days of SDR and BDR leadership that I had and the style that we used to use was much more rah, get everyone together.
You may take the bang capital approach even, which I would argue is like put on the music and, you know, play the music and everyone's, everyone's jamming out and making the hundred phone calls a day. Um, And that style is different when you got your SDRs sitting remotely. And we can get into some of the details, but there's a few nuances just to keep in mind.
SDRs, I've always found SDRs are typically. Entry level positions. Maybe they did one other job prior, or this is their first job coming outta school or their second job. But it's still early in someone's career, in most cases, and early in their career, they're still kind of figuring some things out. And those things are fairly basic.
In many cases. Those things are, how do I. Manage my day, how do I get up at, you know, seven 30 in the morning and show up at work on time? I mean, these really basic things, and I, you and I probably all went through this as well, and you figure it out after a year or two, but when you're remote, it's a lot easier to sleep in.
It's a lot easier to bypass some of those basic things and maybe not do the basics that we all know as sales leaders are so critical to success. I mean, it's just, it's the fundamentals that get you. . So how do you coach someone when you're not sitting next to them effectively and when you don't have that kind of team camaraderie, it's a different style, but again, it's doable.
[00:03:00] Tyler Lindley: Yeah. A lot of things to unpack there. It is interesting. You talk about how do you make sure how that accountability piece, right. When you're in an office setting, it's really easy to see. When Stacy flew into the office and, and got to her. It's a little bit more ambiguous when you're working remotely, do you think like you need to set best practices, parameters?
Like does that need to be specific or do you just trust, you know, you hire the right people and we trust them. Like Yeah, they're gonna start their day on time and hopefully we'll see 'em show up and start making some dials in the dashboards at a certain level, like, What do you think that looks like in a remote world?
Yeah,
[00:03:33] Channing Ferrer: so I think there's a few important things I think to call out from remote management of SDRs. I think one of them is a daily standup. I think you'd need to have a daily standup, and that's first thing in the morning and whenever you want your calls to start or your outbound activity to start. That might be 8:00 AM I like early because I think you can catch execs usually still on the early side.
I still personally find that that's my free time, eight to 9:00 AM I always block, it's free time to get stuff done. So I like to have my SDR team kind of focus on outreach early as. So I would, I would kick that standoff off first thing. Right? Right. When you want everyone kind of beginning their activity and it's a 15 minute standup and doesn't need to be much, but I would get the team together with a standup like that.
[00:04:11] Tyler Lindley: What do you think should be covered in that 15 minutes? What do you think good looks like in that little 15? It's not much time, right? Beginning of the day they're still groggy. What are you trying to get through their heads and like set them up for the.
[00:04:22] Channing Ferrer: Yeah, so I'm, I'm a big fan of time blocking your day, and I think as an sdr it's one of the most basic things you can do.
And, and as you evolve as a sales rep, you can determine how to do that on your own. But I think as an SDR and as an SDR manager, it's important to help the reps at time block their days. Yeah. So I would use that time to review time blocks. What's everyone's time block? When are we doing different things?
Are we gonna run. Contests for the day. You might want to do a, a spur of the moment contest and contests are, you know, small. It's a $50 Amazon gift card for whoever has the first connect of the day or you know, something like that. But I would get those sort of announcements out there as well as just what the time block schedule for the day.
And if there's any important meetings, just reviewing the schedule, I would really just focus on the schedule and say, here's the things we're gonna do today. You know, we're gonna all eat lunch at noon and we're all gonna have research at two and you know, whatever else you might wanna do as a group. But I would just lay that out there every.
[00:05:10] Tyler Lindley: So it sounds like you like batching, even though you've got maybe remote spread out team, you like them batching like tasks together so that they're doing them together as a group, maybe on a Zoom or wherever. Yeah, I
[00:05:21] Channing Ferrer: do. And it doesn't need to be the whole day, um, set up that way. But I think there's pockets throughout the day that you wanna batch together because you still wanna create that camaraderie.
And that's how you can do it, is get people together in groups so you have that kickoff meeting for the day. That's one touch point for the whole group. You might want, again, have a group lunch. You know, you can do that on certain days. You can have a group research, um, thing, and just get everyone on the Zoom call.
And by the way, this leads to just another point to highlight is I think it's really important for, uh, remote management for the SDR leader to be managing a team through the lens of remote. That means ideally the whole team actually is remote. Yeah. It doesn't necessarily mean that way. It doesn't have to be that way because sometimes you might have a team that's hybrid, half remote and half not.
But if it's hybrid, they have to be operating like it's a fully remote team. If you have a hybrid team that's part in person and part remote, and you try to manage the local team and then let the remotes join, they will fail. But if you flip it around and you leave it like it's a remote team and let the local people.
You know, participate as if they're remote. It works a lot better. So whatever your leader is, if they're either hybrid or fully remote, one of the two, uh, but they gotta lead it like it's a fully remote
[00:06:29] Tyler Lindley: team. Would you recommend just avoiding hiring local talent then? And if you say you're gonna have a remote SDR team just.
Have a fully remote team. Nobody's local. So that then there isn't that dynamic of, well, these folks are in the office with the leader who would, maybe not with the leader and these persons are, these folks are not. Could that, I mean, I've seen that lead to some interesting situations.
[00:06:50] Channing Ferrer: Yeah, it, it totally can.
I think that could HubSpot, we have the luxury of having enough people to be able to have groups that were fully remote and have groups that were in person. So the managers I had. Fully remote managers or fully in person managers. And the hybrid hybrid's, tricky. That could built in as I was the CRO there.
We did have a hybrid set up and the remote SDR struggled. Was
[00:07:10] Tyler Lindley: the manager sitting locally in the office?
[00:07:13] Channing Ferrer: Okay. Manager was local. Three quarters of the team was local, one quarter was remote.
[00:07:18] Tyler Lindley: I don't like that split either. That split. It just seems. Taylor made for conflict there.
[00:07:24] Channing Ferrer: Exactly. So we ended up shifting to be fully in person for the sds and we decided like that was a decision we wanted to make because of that 25% grouping.
They were the minority and they felt that way. They were left out in a sense, and it didn't work that well. So I think it's a great call out. I think, I haven't tried it to say they have to be fully remote, but I think you're right. It's that mentality has to be there and it's okay if they're not fully remote, but you've gotta run the team, I think, as though they're fully
[00:07:48] Tyler Lindley: remote.
Yeah, I think that's important. Easier said than done maybe for an sdr. Let's talk a little bit about the leader here. It sounds like, you know, you mentioned at HubSpot having, you had in-person leaders, you had fully remote SDR leaders. Are you hiring for the same type of leader in those cases, or do you think like a, a fully remote SDR leader almost has a different skill set or a different background?
[00:08:10] Channing Ferrer: Yeah. The, the background's similar. The one key differentiator, you can have the skillset on both sides, but it's a must have for the remote. They have to be data driven when you're remote. And so one of the things you're not gonna be able to do as a remote SDR leader is be able to see all the details all the time.
And there's a lot that we can learn when we're sitting next to our SDRs. You can pick up a lot of nuances, so you're gonna have to leverage data a lot more to give you those sorts of insights cuz you, again, you won't be able to just spend as much time with everyone as you would otherwise. So I think the data driven piece is actually really important for the remote.
[00:08:41] Tyler Lindley: I totally agree, and I think it's within the day data as well. Mm-hmm. , I mean, we're not just talking about like, okay, at the end of the day, the end of the week, their monthly numbers, I'm talking about what did they do between nine and noon, you know, and being able to maybe self correct. See those things in real time.
Hey, looks like I'm seeing something, I heard this. Let's maybe dig into that. Versus just waiting until the next opportunity that they get to chat with them. Exactly.
[00:09:04] Channing Ferrer: It's, it's looking throughout the day and it's also touch points. So one of the things that I found, We had the remote, um, leader be remote as well.
So when they were remote, they also realized a lot of the little nuances. They were much more active on Slack, for example, because that was the only way they could communicate and they would communicate upwards that way, you know, into, into me and into the management team. And they would communicate down into their teams as well.
So there was a lot of little components there where they understood how to interact on a remote basis and they understood being remote themselves where their manager wasn't sitting next to. What they wanted as a contributor and how they wanted to interact upwardly so they could also, again, down into their teams, have those similar
[00:09:40] Tyler Lindley: interactions.
A hundred percent. I'm glad you brought up Slack, because I've found this can be difficult. You know, slack is such a always on type tool, and when you have a fully remote team, that can become an easy way to just communicate back and forth in real time throughout the day. However, I do think it can get in the way of some of these time blocks that you're talking about.
Like if we're always on slack, ding, ding, ding, or Yeah, this notification's popping up red, red. You know, that can be very distracting when you're trying to do this dedicated block of time for this dedicated task. How do you balance that slack kind of availability and just kind of communication when you have a fully remote s SCR team?
[00:10:16] Channing Ferrer: Yeah, I mean, and, and it's a great point and it's something that I. Heard a lot of feedback on during Covid and now we're all kind of in this weird hybrid world where some people are full on in person, some aren't, but still, slack I think has really taken off and a lot of people use Slack or other chat tools much more so I would argue than pre Covid.
And the feedback has been, well, I'm just getting pinged with slacks all the time, and my feedback to them is, well, why are you responding? You can change your Slack settings, you know, change your notifications within Slack and you don't need to respond in real time, just like on a text message. You don't have to respond.
That's the, that's the benefit of a text message is you don't need to be. Phone call interacting, you know, uh, having a conversation. You can choose when to, when to respond, so when you block your time, block it and don't answer your slacks during those times. Now you have windows throughout the day where you'll be responsive and real time responsive, but then it's okay to have windows where you aren't.
But tell your manager and vice versa. As a manager, when you work with your sds, tell 'em, Hey, it's okay to block these specific times. It'd be very prescriptive these specific times, and we'll know that you're not gonna be responsive cuz your head's down doing. But then when you come out of that window, let's interact again.
Yep. Now it's okay if they go quiet. As a manager, you have to give some level of trust, but of course if they burn that trust, then we gotta rebuild. And rebuilding trust, we all know is much harder, um, to do.
[00:11:30] Tyler Lindley: Yep. A hundred percent. Yeah. And I'm a big fan too, of, especially when folks are calling, STR are calling.
There's a big red phone icon you can use and put it as your kind of status, you know? Yeah. And when you see that, it's like, oh, I tell everybody in turn, Hey, when that's up, do not bother them unless it's something extremely urgent. You're gonna get 'em off task and then they're gonna make. 30 calls instead of 50 calls, that hour.
There's some notification stuff you can do too. And I think it's just a lot of setting expectations, you know, at the management level that this is okay, and that, and maybe the manager practices it themselves too. Maybe they also are not always responding in real time. Right? Because if so, you're kind of training your team that that's what, well, that's what you do.
Maybe, maybe I should just model that behavior. Right.
[00:12:10] Channing Ferrer: I think one important thing is also to set up your means of communication and establish those, those guardrails early. So you've got, uh, starting at email. Email. I typically say I'll respond in 24 hours on email. Don't expect a real time response outta me.
But I'm 24 hour window. And by the way, if not, I'll turn on a notification telling you I'm falling behind and I might take longer. Then I've got my slack and slack. I'll respond within the day on Slack, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna be an immediate response. There's me Windows is a time where I am responding immediately, and then there's windows where I'll be a little slower, but typically I'll respond faster on Slack.
And if you need something quickly from me, And by the way, don't abuse that, but that is the way to get ahold of me
[00:12:48] Tyler Lindley: quickly. Yeah, and that's good. It's almost like you have different types of communication, different kind of response rates, so you kind of know, and it sounds like you also set the expectation that text is only for.
Extremely urgent not to be used all the time. It sounds like that helps in this kind of remote management type world.
[00:13:06] Channing Ferrer: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, and then I use text in the same way, and I think text is a really important one. You have to be careful not to abuse it there, but if I want something important from someone, I'll jump right into text and I'll send 'em something.
I'm not gonna send a long text message. I'm kind of quick to the point on my text messages and I don't wanna have a lot of interaction on text. If you wanna interact with. Bring it into Slack. Yeah, but if you want something quick, great text. It's the way to
[00:13:28] Tyler Lindley: do it. One thing I didn't hear, there was phone calls.
Like one time I had a SDR double tap me as their manager with a phone call, and I obviously thought something was bad wrong. I was in the middle of something, so I, I wasn't able to answer, but I immediately tried to get back to them as soon as I got off that call. Hey, what's going on? Is everything. Turns out it wasn't as urgent as I thought.
But like, do you have any, especially with a remote team, I mean, I feel like calls is almost that next level. It's almost like even more than text. Like do you set any expectation there or do you think that that's just an inefficient way to communicate as a remote STR team? Talking is
[00:14:03] Channing Ferrer: better than slacking and, and texting, by the way, as a whole.
The problem with, with phone calls is I'm not gonna pick up a phone if I'm on something else. Mm-hmm. , but I'm willing to multitask on text. So if I'm on another call and a text comes through, I can respond with a quick response on it. Yep. But I'm not gonna pick up my cell if a phone call comes through. So that's usually where I'll say, if we, if you wanna talk to me, text me, and if we need to get on a phone call, we can get on a phone call.
But don't default to calling me and phone call will actually be like a follow on to any of these other interactions. But don't start with a
[00:14:32] Tyler Lindley: phone. Great. Awesome. So as we think more about this remote management of SDR teams, you know, we've talked about the daily standup meeting, kind of setting up the day.
We've talked about some communication best practices, setting up those parameters. Is there any other kind of parts or tools or things that SDR remote SDR leaders should be thinking about? Other than what we've already discussed?
[00:14:54] Channing Ferrer: There's probably two other things worth touching on, and one of them is the frequency of in person engagement.
So when you have a remote team, and it may be all around the. It's still important to find windows of time to bring people together and I see that as roughly quarterly. You know, you gotta build that into the budget and the plan, but I think it's very useful to get some FaceTime with everyone and you know, that can be social and it doesn't mean you have to be going out for drinks with them.
It can be a lunch get together or some sort of an activity in the middle of the day. But I think it's really important to get a little bit of that face time. You know, we're all humans and we like that and it's important to understand people as, as a. So I think that's, um, one critical thing and when you do have those in person times, really cherish them and use them for things you can't do, uh, remotely, which again is a little more of that human interaction.
[00:15:41] Tyler Lindley: Right. I would say. Is that for just socialization and just getting to know the team on a personal level, or do you think there's also. You know, kind of core business, like training, coaching, anything in person? I mean, like what, outside of like, let's have lunch and let's hang out, let's talk whatever hobbies or whatever we want to, what can you do in person or what should you be doing in person during those quarterly meetups that you maybe aren't, it's not as easy to do remotely.
You're leaving
[00:16:04] Channing Ferrer: me perfectly Tyler, down the other point, which was enablement, so, okay. Yeah, I think. In person. There's two purposes for it. One is trust. It's building trust. Yep. And you can build trust. Again, much easier in, in person. The other one is, uh, is enablement and in person is done, I think more effectively.
I'm sorry. Enablement done more effectively in person. Yep. And you do need to have kind of ongoing enablement. Enablement is a constant, I think, for the SDR role, and you're helping them really develop and grow. And usually they're growing into a rapid that might. 12 months, it might take 36 months. You know, it varies, you know, role by role, but, um, you do need to be kind of helping coach them down those paths.
And there's certain points that you're gonna wanna lean into different, different kind of turning points, if you will, in that career development for them. So those windows of in-person time can be really, uh, useful to help drive the enablement. Now you're also gonna need to do remote enablement too, though, as you think of onboarding and hiring a new SDR and.
Progress, you know, through their career. Um, you're gonna have to balance the two. And, and again, finding that balance is important and it is very doable. Remote enablement works very well, but there's certain things that I think can be, uh, done better in person. And those things, for example, are gonna be like, I think a demo when they're first doing a demo and they're, you're coaching them how to do a demo, you think about them maybe moving beyond the, an SD role.
I think that's actually done better in person cuz you're gonna give a lot of critical feedback and that critical feedback is sometimes easier done in person than, than over videos. That'd be one.
[00:17:27] Tyler Lindley: Yeah. Yeah. No, I like that example. And when we think about, cuz I, I definitely agree there are things that are gonna be easier to, to train on, enable coach, teach in person.
But when you think about the majority of it's gonna be remote, right? The majority of that enablement's gonna be remote. What are some best practices that you've seen about how to do remote SDR enablement? Because that's gonna be the lion share of what those SDRs are receiving.
[00:17:51] Channing Ferrer: Yeah, so one thing that I think is important in this is, is peer to peer enablement, for example, we're gonna teach 'em how to do that, that initial quick kind of bant style discovery call.
This is their first time doing that, and they're gonna be nervous on the phone, asking budget questions, asking, um, other kind of key questions like, Let them practice with one another in a remote way. And so you'll have your remote team and you can frame up what needs to get done and then pair them up and let them do a little remote practice.
And the nice thing is now most of what we're doing is remote calls still. And you know, there's obviously an in-person element to, to some selling now, but there's still a lot more. Zoom and, and other video kind of calling and, and, uh, discovery calls that occur. So it's great to practice in any capacity in this sort of kind of remote environment, but I think that peer to peer component helps them build a little bit more confidence.
And being that they're remote, what they can, what you can coach them to do is think about some of the basics. Think about what is your background look like, think about what are you wearing. And you don't need to. Fortunately now you don't really need to be all that structured anymore. Cause everyone recognizes we're all working from home, but still there's little nuances as your lighting acceptable.
Yep. And those are the things that I think peer sometimes can help them pick up on. So the peer to peer is really important and they'll give more direct feedback often, or they'll even receive that feedback a little bit better. And then as they practice, you can kind of go back to the manager giving the feedback as well.
So anyway, that would be one thing I've found that works really well as the peer
[00:19:17] Tyler Lindley: to peer. I love peer to peer coaching. You know, we're doing call role plays, whatever we're doing, we're listening to calls together. We're doing calls together. Peer to peer is fantastic, which is one reason I like SDRs starting at the same time.
Right. You batching SDRs together, but do you think you need to give, as the leader, give a little bit of guidance in terms of. This is what good peer to peer looks like, or do you think we can just trust the SDRs to figure that out on
[00:19:43] Channing Ferrer: their own? Yeah, that's a leading question. You, you know it , of
[00:19:46] Tyler Lindley: course they need guidance.
Okay. I agree. They need guidance, but what kind of guidance, you know? Yeah. I mean, should we be overly prescriptive in saying, This is what? This is steps. A, B, C, D, E. And then make sure you update me on, you know, what you did or should it be, here's some good ideas. And then yeah, y'all kind of figure the rest out on your own.
Yeah, I
[00:20:04] Channing Ferrer: think it's okay to give them the framework, say, here are the six things, let's call it, to look for whatever it might be. And I want you to look for visual. I want you to look for tone. I want you to look for. Talk track. I wanna lead you to look for ums, you know, all that sort of stuff that we want people to be aware of.
And then, and then from there, let them go and say, it's okay to think a little bit beyond this, but here's some good examples of things to think for. I think that's okay. You want to give them that level of detail so they have some structure there, but also let them be a little creative on, on their feedback and, and that's what makes a good sales rep.
We all know it is you have to kind of think on your feet and go beyond the structure that's being given by leadership. I
[00:20:40] Tyler Lindley: also think it's easier to take feedback from your peers. Sometimes that it is than your manager Almost. I mean, I think when you have that manager to SDR thing, especially if it's happening in a group setting, the stakes are heightened, right?
It's almost like doing peer to peer first and then kind of giving each other some feedback, good and bad. Hey, I love this. This probably needs some work that I think is almost easier for them to accept. And then, When you get to a management one-on-one or group sync, when the manager starts giving feedback, I think they're almost more accustomed to getting feedback.
Cause one thing we haven't discussed is a lot of these SDRs haven't been given a ton of feedback in their lives necessarily. Especially not critical feedback. Usually it's been a lot of positive reinforcement of. Great effort, great job, way to participate. You know, like those kind of things. Whereas as we know in sales, that's great that you show up, but also it's a numbers game.
It's a performance game, and so there's some critical feedback that needs to be given. And how do you accept that as the sdr? That's almost a learned skill. Do you agree? Yeah.
[00:21:39] Channing Ferrer: Yeah, it totally is. It totally is. And it's, it's such an important skill cuz throughout their career they're gonna get a lot of that feedback.
So it's a great thing to call out and, and even remind them of that.
[00:21:48] Tyler Lindley: How should SDR remote SDR leaders give feedback? What do you think are some best practices there? Because it's a little bit different when it's remote. And what do you think you should be considering? Yeah,
[00:21:59] Channing Ferrer: so I think the overall process isn't that different.
You just have to be much more aware of the process you're going through. I think one of the most important things when giving feedback is asking, actually saying, Hey, I have some feedback. Do you mind if if I share that with you now, or do you want to talk about it later and make sure they're in the right mind.
Set to receive feedback. And again, that feedback might be ad hoc or that feedback might be planned, but I would still prep them with that question. If they do a, you know, let's say again a practice discovery call. You say, all right, now we're ready. I've got some feedback. And by the way, be careful. Don't create the shit sandwiches it's called where you kind of give good, bad, good.
You know, you don't really want to do that. But at the same time, it's important to mix in the good and the. So I think it's important to say, Hey, here's, I'm gonna share both some of the good feedback and then some of the critical feedback. And I usually like to start with the good. So I usually say, here's a few things I notice that you're doing really well, and then here's some areas to improve.
And we'll kind of talk through those. If that's planned, it's a little easier, but again, I would include the good and the critical. If it's not as planned of feedback, I would just make sure to ask and say, and make sure they're in that right mindset. And sometimes people aren't. Sometimes people, you know, I actually don't really want the feedback right now.
Can we, can we connect tomorrow on it and No problem. Take their lead on that and, and just push it off. But don't let it wait too long. Don't let it wait a week or something. Wait
[00:23:13] Tyler Lindley: a day. That's. That makes sense. Any parting words of advice for remote SDR leaders out there? I think the
[00:23:19] Channing Ferrer: most important thing is it is very doable and it takes a little extra work.
It's definitely more time you have to be committing more time. You actually need a smaller SDR team. I think that's one thing we didn't talk about, but I think your ratios actually do need to go down a little bit. If you're managing a fully remote team, I've typically run SDR teams at about a 10, or even in some cases, 12 to one ratio.
When you're looking remote, I don't think you wanna go above an eight to one ratio, which means one manager to eight reps, uh, maybe even, you know, downwards of six. If they're all very new and all being trained at one time. So that's one other call out I would say is the ratios need to be a little lower.
Yeah. Uh, but it's, it's doable and it just takes a little extra effort and it's a little bit of more just awareness of the details.
[00:24:00] Tyler Lindley: Yep. A hundred percent. Thanks so much chanting for the great conversation today. You can find Channing on LinkedIn as well as at fiddleleafgroup.com. And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Outbound Sales Lift.
If you need help elevating your SDR team, Please visit our website at thesaleslift.com to learn more, and also make sure you hit subscribe wherever you get podcasts. You can check out next week's episode, but with more great ideas on transforming your sales development efforts. Thanks again for listening, and remember, no sales starts until you book that meeting.