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#95: Outbound Sales Lift host Tyler Lindley outlines his 5 pillars of SDR management — hiring, onboarding and training, coaching, data and reporting, and leadership.
Explore the human side of sales and business with host Tyler Lindley. Leaders in their field share a dose of inspiration through stories about life and business. Sales professionals provide tactical tips you can put into practice today. It all comes together to help you chart your path forward.
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Outbound Sales Lift
Episode #95
5 Pillars of SDR Management
Hosted by: Tyler Lindley
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[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. If you enjoy this show, please consider dropping us a rating to help others find us. And you can also subscribe to get each episode delivered straight to you on Tuesdays, right when they're released.
Thanks so much for listening. On today's episode, we'll be covering the five pillars of SDR management. It's gonna be a solo episode with just me. So let's go ahead and dig in and starting with the fact that the, the five pillars, I believe the five pillars of SDR management are number one, hiring, number two, onboarding and training.
Number three, coaching. Number four, data and reporting. And number five, leadership. Okay, And we're gonna dig into each of those five pillars, starting with hiring. Which might be one of the most important things that you do as an SDR leader. As an SDR manager. It's kind of the number one determining factor to your success as an SDR manager, right?
It's the clay that you're working with. You know, if you don't get good clay, it's really hard to be a good SDR manager. You can do lots of things right? You can do be a great leader, B, great coach, great management on top of the data, but if you don't have the right people, It is very difficult. So I think hiring is the number one pillar of great SDR management.
And really, when I think of hiring, I think you have to be vetting for a lot of things, okay? On the front end, you need to be vetting for culture fit. You need to be vetting their sales skills, okay? You need to be vetting for their instincts, kinda their sales instincts. Those soft skills like tonality, punctuality, communication.
You need to be vetting for their professionalism. Cuz this role, you know, it might be, it's a lot of folks first time in a professional role, in a first time in a sales role. You need to make sure they can be professional both internally and externally, uh, with your clients. And then finally, responsiveness.
I think you need to be vetting for responsiveness, and there's so many opportunities to do that in the interview process, which we'll dig into here in a second. So make sure that you're vetting for those things. Culture fits, sales skills. They're instincts that professionalism, their responsiveness, all of those things are key determining factors to success in the SDR role, and they're gonna make your life easier as an SDR manager.
So in my opinion, your hiring should include multiple steps. Let, let me repeat that. Multiple steps with internal stakeholders involved, multiple internal stakeholders. So you as the SDR leader are definitely gonna play a big part in the hiring process and be that, hopefully that in decision maker. But you need to have others involved in your company, whether they be colleagues in marketing, account executives, other SDRs executive leaders.
Pull in other people to get some other opinions and make sure that there's not only multiple stakeholders. But there are multiple steps in the hiring process. One big mistake I see companies make is have like a 1, 2, 3 round process. It's very quick. It's really just you, the SDR leader there. There's just a couple of interviews you're bringing executive in at the end, everything sounds good.
Let's hire this person. That's not right. Okay. You need to make sure you're including multiple, what I like to call tests in the interview process. So for example, a test could. A research exercise you could give your SDR, potential SDRs a research project. Hey, go and research, you know this, this icp. Go and research this buyer persona and answer these five questions about what you find, because SDRs might be doing that in the role.
Another test, you could do a cold email example, right? Here's a prospect. I want you to write a personalized first cold email to this person, and I want you to send it my. Could be something that they're doing in the role. You wanna see what that looks like? Okay. Cold call role plays. This is so crucial because you have the opportunity to not only see how do they engage in a live setting, but also how do they take feedback, right?
And all these things. Give them feedback and then see what they do. Do they want to try again? Do they want to go a second time on that role play? They wanna write a second email, give 'em some feedback, and then put the ball in their court, see what they do. Send me a list of references. Complete this assignment, reach out to a member of our team to learn more about the role.
That's something they should just be doing on their own. But all of these are tests that you can give SDRs, incoming SDRs during the interview process to do that vetting. You're looking for those skills and these tests are the way to get there. So hiring is my number one pillar for sdr, leadership and management number.
Onboarding and training. Okay, great. You've made some hires, you've got people in the door. Now those first 30, 60, 90 days can really make or break your entire SDR program and really are gonna make or break your success as an SDR manager. So the first 90 days, you know, the first few months, they can really determine how long reps are going to hang around.
Okay. Reps, I think immediate. Are either, you know, have buyers remorse and they're thinking, Oh man, this is a disaster of an onboarding process. What did I, what have I. This is not very good. I'm not getting the onboarding and the training I need, or they can be inundated with lots of information, with direction, with schedules, with I, with just direction in where they're going in this role and you setting them up for success.
So you are either making a huge positive or a huge negative impression on your new SCR with your onboarding and. You know, it's also really important that you get those reps up to speed so you start seeing an ROI from them as early as possible. You know, it seems like ramps are, are getting, you know, less and less, fewer and fewer in terms of amount of time, but we need to make sure that we're doing our part and really doing that training Well, onboarding to me is really important where there's gonna be a lot of hands on training by you and other, other folks in the team, but you wanna make sure that you're doing that ongoing training as well.
And I wanna make sure I make. Distinction between training and coaching. Okay. Training to me is teaching those, those new reps, those new SDRs, those foundational elements, things they've got to understand in order to be a successful sd, such as the ICP that you're going after, such as the tech stack that you're using and how to use it well.
The messaging that goes well, right? How to personalize anyone. Those are. Trainings, foundational things that you should be teaching both initially during onboarding and then you should have regular trainings ongoing to make sure you're leveling up your team. Coaching is a little bit different in my regard.
It's it's more about reinforcing those right behaviors over time, right? It's doing those live exercise, given that live feedback, it's giving that slack coaching little tidbits that you can give, you need to be doing. You need to be doing both, which we'll touch on coaching more in a second. But at the end of the day, the second key pillar for good SDR management is onboarding and then ongoing training.
Make sure you nail the first 90 days, and then make sure you're doing regular training with your team outside the one on ones outside of just, you know, coaching sessions. Like do regular group trainings and keep leveling your team up even after. That brings me to my third pillar for great SDR management.
And it's coaching, right? Coaching to me, deserves its own section. You've got your onboarding right? You've hired the right person, you've got 'em onboarded, you've got 'em trained with the basic foundational knowledge. Now coaching is probably the mo one of the most important things you're gonna do from here.
Because you have to do it ongoing. You're always coaching your reps. You're live coaching 'em. You're asynchronously coaching 'em. You're giving them advice. You have to be that coach, that mentor, that guide for them. I highly recommend time blocking your coaching, right. Make sure it is a dedicated part of your day.
Put 30 minutes at the beginning of your day, 30 minutes you're in, and make sure you're going to your team asking where they need help and how you can help them. Daily coaching is a requirement of a great SDR manager. Now to me, there's some different types of coaching we might do. It might do some cold call coaching.
Okay. That could be a big thing that we do live coaching. If we're listening in on the Zoom or using a live tool, live, listen in, right? That you could be giving coaching in real time recordings. Let's go back and review the tape, give 'em some feedback on what they did well, areas of opportunity, role plays, right?
Let's role play this conversation. Ring. Ring. Hello, it's Tyler. And then role play that conversation with a prospect. And don't just go easy on 'em. Kind of simulate a prospect. Give 'em the objections, give 'em things they're actually gonna hear. My big piece of advice when you're doing some cold call roleplays is only focus on one thing at.
One thing at a time, and that really applies to all coaching that you're gonna do with your team. Don't throw 5, 10, 15 different things at them to improve, because guess what? They're not gonna know what to do, . So make sure you're focusing on one thing at a time with your coaching. Once they've got that, that skill down that you're teaching towards, then you're coaching towards, then you can move on to the next skill.
Uh, email and LinkedIn. Make sure that you are doing regular audits of what they're sending. Right. Send me an example of a LinkedIn profile and then the personalized email you sent to that person, and let's take a look. Okay. Audit, You've gotta be in there. Audit teaching, doing that, skill development, working on copywriting, all of that is ongoing.
And a big piece too of coaching is mindset coaching. The SDR role is hard as an SDR manager, you have to be coaching that stick with itness. I like to call it that. Ability to overcome adversity, to hang in there. This is a tough role as most of you know, and uh, your team's mindset and attitude is so important to the success of them hitting their goals and them just sticking around in this role.
And at the end of the day, it's how you're gonna be judged too. You need to make sure your team has a really strong. Now I wanna draw a distinction between therapy and coaching cuz sometimes you're gonna be a coach and just you're working on skill development. Other times you just have to be a therapist in this role, right?
You've gotta be that shoulder to cry on. At bad days, you've gotta be the one picking them up. When we think about mindset, it's like what are you doing to help them move forward? When they get knocked down, how are you helping them become more self-sustainable? You know? And I agree there should be some boundaries.
You should draw the line, right? Try not to get into too personal, but at the end of the day, this is an intimate relationship that you have with your reps and you wanna make sure that they can trust you, right? Trust is huge here, and as a manager, you know you can, you can help them. You can't do everything.
But if you don't, if you don't trust them and they don't trust you, there's not gonna be that next level of coaching that can happen, which is sometimes just asking 'em, Hey, how you doing? How's it going? What's going on in your personal life? Right? How'd you sleep last night? Right. The basics. The basics.
Sometimes we skip the basics, but those are things are really, really important. Uh, and a lot of times when I think about coaching too, I'm thinking about skill and will, right? The skill and the will of the sdr cuz they need to come in with the will. Need to come in with it consistently. That goes back to hiring.
We wanna try to bring people in with the will. It's really hard to teach people how to get out of bed and get jazzed up to do this. They need to just do it right. If they have the will, you can teach them the skills that go those. That goes back to the onboarding, the training, and the coaching, right? But the skill is really what you can impact with your coaching, and that's what separates the.
The, you know, from the B, from the A, the A from the B players, the A from the C players, C from the B players. You have to level them up, but they've gotta have the will. So make sure you hire the right people with the right will, the right attitudes, the right get up and go stick with itness looking for those soft skills.
And then your coaching is going to be what's gonna keep them going and level up that skillset on a daily basis. All right. That was number three coaching. Uh, fourth pillar for great SDR management is data and. This job is a lot about the numbers. You know, sales is a numbers game, and you've gotta make sure you're doing the right thing so that your team is consistently hitting quota.
You've gotta make sure that the right activities are happening and you're tracking those KPIs in an organized fashion. And I'm not just saying spray and pray more, more, more. I don't, I don't think that's the right way necessarily. I think there's time for volume, but I think it's more about let's track the right activities and let's track that quality versus quantity and everything that we're doing.
But you've gotta stay close to the data. If you lose sight of the data, if you don't have the right reports to be reviewing on a regular basis, you will not be successful as, as an S STR manager. The data should indicate those necessary changes that should be. It should indicate what your team needs work on.
What should they be doing more of? What should they be doing less of? It's also how you report up to senior leadership in the organization. It's how you hold your reps accountable, right? But that data is what flows through you so that you can report up and you can communicate to your reps what they need to work on.
Make sure that daily activity is really important in this role. Do not lose sight of the daily activity. One thing that my friend, uh, Joey Gilkey, uh, does, is he does a daily shutdown scorecard. I'm a huge fan of this for SDRs. If you're not doing this SDR leader out there, do this starting today. Do a daily shutdown scorecard.
And what you're gonna do in that scorecard, you're gonna basically have them put down their numbers for the day. How many calls I made, emails I sent LinkedIn touches. How many books did I have? How many holds? And then ask 'em some qualitative questions. You know, Did you do right by the business today?
Did you control your calendar? Did you have a good morning routine? Right? Are you are? How did you feel about today? One to 10. Make 'em, put it down. What are your blockers? Right? Put that in a daily scorecard and make 'em fill it out every day before they close. And then you as the manager, need to be reviewing that cuz there's tons of valuable data in there.
There's tons of valuable intel that can go back and inform the coaching that you should be doing, the training that you need to be working on. Which rep needs an extra one-on-one today? Okay, Which rep is already in the red or the yellow even though they just started. You wanna make sure you're tracking that a daily shutdown.
Scorecard's a great way. All right, awesome. So data and reporting. The number four thing for great s, the number four pillar for great S SCR management. Number five is leadership. You know, leadership management. But basically this is kind of, to me, this can be the toughest part because a lot of SDR managers might be first time managers.
This might be the first time that you're leading someone else in a professional setting. And as a leader, all eyes are on you. All eyes are on. You have to be ready, right? You set the tone as the leader. You set the agenda for the one-on-ones for the team syncs for the trainings. You lead those trainings, right?
You do that coaching, the, you have all of the accountability, right? When your team is not being successful, it's on you and you've gotta figure out why. You gotta figure out how to get more out of your reps, and at the end of the day, it, it's gonna, it's gonna fall on your hands. This can be very, This can be very difficult, uh, especially for those leaders who are used to being the top individual contributor.
The top rep. It's not about you anymore. Mm-hmm. . It's not about you, it's about your team. It's about each of those individuals on your team and what are you doing to get the most out of them? How are you coaching and developing them? How are you making them feel heard? How are you making sure they're set up for success?
Cause being a great leader often means, you know, learning. You've gotta also learn how to take care of yourself as. As the manager, a lot of time it's like, Oh, we should focus on everybody else, But you have to have a good routine yourself, good sleep, good routine, good boundaries. You know, you focus on your personal development, take care of yourself, leaders.
If you're not taking care of yourself, you certainly can't take care of your team. So with that balance of taking care of your team, take care of yourself. And then also just a big part is also learning how to just be fulfilled with others' success rather than. Being a great SDR manager is about being fulfilled with others' success rather than your own.
Cuz that can be hard for those top former top reps like I just mentioned. And you can't just do the job for 'em. I'm not a big fan of managers. Just go out and just say, Well, let me just do it. Let me just do it for you. Let me just take the call. Let me just do this for you. Let me just, let me show you how.
Okay. It's, there's a difference between doing and enable. You want to enable them to do it themselves, to be self sustainable, and you have to do that by showing them the right way. And then you have to hold them accountable. And to me, a big part of showing that leadership too is asking the right questions.
What questions do you ask your rep? Because those questions will determine your relationship with that rep and how self-sustainable they are. Whether they're B or A players, it will determine whether they trust you or not. All of these things, you know, all of these questions that you ask and how you treat your reps, these are very impactful to having a successful SDR team.
So how do you coach them? How do you train them? How do you show up? How do you lead them? How do you manage them? Are you leading from the. Are you hopping in there, in the trenches with them, showing them good best practices, and then you. Praise in public. And then, and then behind closed doors, let's talk about what we need to work on, right?
And that, that comes down to having good one-on-one cadence. You need to have good meeting cadences, one-on-ones team syncs trainings, group coachings, right? Pulling in other stakeholders in the other organization. But you have to have a great leadership cadence in terms of your meetings. And then that is what's gonna make your team successful.
So just, just to review the top five. Pillars of STR management, Number one, hiring. Gotta hire the right people. Number two, onboarding and training. Gotta get 'em up and running as quickly as possible with a great onboarding program. Number three, coaching daily. Consistent. Lots of different types of coaching, always there to help.
Number four, data and reporting. Always understanding where your team stands, as it as it relates to the numbers, the inputs, and the outcomes that you're looking for. Number five, leadership. You lead from the front, you set the tone, you set the example. If you do these five things, these five pillars, hiring, onboarding and training, coaching, data and reporting and leadership.
You will be a fantastic SDR manager. So I hope you enjoyed this episode of Outbound Sales Lift. So excited to be coming to you, uh, here today. And if you need help elevating your SDR team, please visit our website@thesaleslift.com. That's the t h e sales s A ls lyft l a f t.com to learn more and also make sure to hit subscribe wherever you get podcasts.
To check out next week's episode. Filled with more great. On transforming your sales development efforts. We're gonna be having some solo episodes and a lot of interviews with some great leaders in the sales development space, and you're gonna learn a ton from this show, and I'm really, really excited to be relaunching this show, The Outbound Sales Lift.
Thank you so much for tuning in today and for listening. And remember, no sales starts until you book that meeting.