How to Support SDRS in Sales

I've never seen a great SDR leader who accepts high attrition rates. "It's part of the grind running an SDR org." These same leaders have 40-50% attrition rates, mostly voluntary. Their reps are choosing to leave the org. From our work with dozens of SDR teams, attrition happens for a few reasons: ⛔️ Toxic culture You know...the smile and dial stuff everyone's always talking about. Fear-based leadership. Unrelenting focus on hitting dial activity. Strict adherence to scripts and cadences. This is the obvious one. ⛔️ Lack of role-specific enablement I see this all too often. Enablement is strapped on bandwidth, so SDRs never get role-specific training. The "last mile" training/coaching around what to do when a prospect picks up a cold call and says "hello." How to write great emails, subject lines, etc. SDRs attend enablement sessions meant for AEs, then have to translate that into their outbound approach. ⛔️ No career track (a big one) SDRs are no longer getting promoted to AE in 10-12 months. Orgs are struggling to hold onto SDRs for 1-2+ years because there isn't a place for them to go. Ideas: - Create a "belt system" where reps can earn promotions: SDR 1, SDR 2, etc - Give them extra responsibility (like owning the playbook) - Make them a team lead - Build an AE development program to start AE training when they're still SDRs ⛔️ Inexperienced front-line managers 99% of sales orgs spend 6-7 figures on rep training every year, but ZERO on manager training. You have managers that don't know how to run proper 1on1s, weekly team meetings, coach around skills, etc ⛔️ Poor AE/SDR alignment Still seeing this one a lot. Alignment is basically three AEs bossing around one SDR on what accounts they should reach out to. There has to be specific guidance that allows SDRs to work autonomously. What helps an SDR hit quota vs. pleasing their AEs is often in conflict. Fix that immediately. ~~~ What would you add to the list?

Most teams think their SDRs are struggling because they’re not trying hard enough Nah. Its not effort its execution I worked with an SDR team stuck at 50% of quota. Good reps, good product, plenty of leads but pipeline was flat Heres what actually moved the needle 👇 1️⃣ Talk to the right people. Say the right thing These reps weren’t lazy. They were pitching the wrong people with the wrong message. We tightened up their target list and made sure their outreach actually spoke to what prospects care about More quality convos = more booked meetings 2️⃣ Train like you mean it Most teams train SDRs once and expect them to figure it out (spoiler: they don’t). We ran weekly live call reviews and real time coaching so reps could tweak, test and improve fast. Reps got better every single week 3️⃣ Fix the SDR to AE handoff Bad handoffs = wasted pipeline. SDRs booked meetings but AEs weren’t converting them. We got super clear on what a qualified meeting actually looked like. SDRs set better meetings. AEs closed more deals Better meetings = more revenue The result? ✅ 20-30% more meetings per SDR ✅ Quota jumped from 50% → 81% → 100% quarter over quarter ✅ Big pipeline boost without hiring a single new rep If your SDR team ain’t booking enough meetings hiring more reps won’t fix it Fix the process and the results take care of themselves Are you doing these three things?

I interview a lot of SDRs [shocking I know], and the most common reason people are looking to jump ship is because they don't feel like theres a clear path in front of them for promotion to AE [mostly AE]. 💌 They don't say they expect a promise or guarantee, and I rarely hear them pass any blame around senior sales leadership or the company not believing in internal promotions. 🙏 It's that THEY just don't SEE or understand the path. They aren't looking for a promise, or a guarantee, they just want to know they are up levelling their skills and making small moves to be closer to that next role when it becomes available. Here's the top 3 things we've put in place to support SDR growth towards the AE role. 🤝 SDRs are encouraged to sit on every demo they book - the more reps they see, the more talk tracks they're exposed too, and its way more fun than watching Gong recordings later 🤝 At ~5 months in seat, SDRs get involved in deal cycles and trials as mini sales engineers - they get to learn exactly how to run a trial set up to succeed 🤝 At ~11 months in seat, we run bi-weekly mock disco calls - I'm "disco certified" from our VP Sales to ensure we're practicing what they believe is needed + our AE mgmt are always keen to run/support 🙏 As an SDR leader you have more control over this than you think - it's not about a promise, it's about visibility into a path and opportunities to build new skills.