UNSUBSCRIBE: The demandDrive Podcast

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Snag a recap of our onDemand webinar with Nishit in 8.5 minutes! At this point, call recording software has moved from the “nice to have” into the “need to have” bucket.   But not for the reasons you think.   Yes, recording conversations and listening back to them as an SDR or AE have tremendous benefits.   You can identify self-coachi...

5 Questions with Scott Bonish Project Lead @ demandDrive -- We all have goals in life. Some SDRs want to make that jump to an AE role. Some want to save enough money to buy a house. Some want to make at least 50 dials per day. Whatever your goal is, big or small, there’s usually a framework or system you use to help yourself achieve it. Our guest, Scott Bonish, has seen it all. From his experience...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn all about the importance of Golden Hours in 6 minutes. If you take away one thing from this episode of Opt In, let it be this: Use evidence to create an efficient agenda. And if you take away two things, include this: Protect your golden hours at all costs. What are golden hours? In short, “golden hours” is a phrase used to define the time in w...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Explore the world of integrating job descriptions into your outreach in 7 minutes! SDRs have access to a horde of data, information, and research material to help them personalize their outreach.   From social profiles to company news to earnings reports, there’s no shortage of quotes and metrics you can use to help make your message more releva...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Get into the minds of your prospects and learn how to disrupt their to-do list in 9 minutes. Most prospects treat their inboxes like a to-do list. They assign a tag or general bucket for each email depending on its importance.   Those buckets can range from “do in the next 5 minutes” to “I can worry about this next week” to “interesting, but I d...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn their take on break up emails and what alternatives to consider in 6 minutes. You’ve sent 4 or 5 emails, called a handful of times, and shot over a LinkedIn connection request…but the prospect isn’t responding to anything.   They must have been eaten by an alligator, right?!   😒   The “breakup email” is a touchy subject. Sometim...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn why being present and engaging online is key to an SDRs success in 5.5 minutes. What’s the goal of sales development?   Book meetings? Qualify prospects? Clean data?   To borrow a quote from Chris Beall , we think the goal is to pave the market with trust.   That means exchanging value and insight to pique a prospect’s curiosity,...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn how to avoid the dreaded ignore/delete/block track by adding relevance to your emails in 6.5 minutes! Sales emails have a continuity problem. And a huge reason behind that is a heavy focus on personalization and a lack of focus on relevance. They’re trying too hard to be novel when they should be aiming for relevance. Reps will start their emai...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn about different SDR motivation styles in 8 minutes! One of the biggest pitfalls for SDR managers & sales leaders?   Assuming that all reps are motivated by the same thing: cold hard cash.   Let’s not beat around the bush - money talks. After all, SDRs need to make a living. Nobody does this job for free.   But contrary to pop...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn about a unique system to keep your SDRs focused in ~8 minutes! There’s a lot of discourse around the value of research in the sales development world. 💰 Is it worth the opportunity cost? 📊 Should I minimize research to maximize activity? 🤔 Can prospects tell? Do they even care if my rep has done their research? Valid questions - after all, m...

5 Questions with Karlie Morien Director of Sales @ Logixboard -- Sales development isn’t “one size fits all.” Companies can deploy their SDRs in a number of different ways, each with specific goals in mind. Some companies use SDRs to generate pipeline revenue via outbound prospecting. Others use them strictly to qualify inbound leads. Some have them aligned with marketing to work events. Some crea...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn about the importance of personal goal setting in 6.5 minutes. SDRs are really good at spinning plates. One plate is making sure you get your activity in for the week. Another plate is attending meetings and engaging with your colleagues. And yet another plate is building up long-term skills that will help you later in your career. But just beca...

5 Questions with Ethan Beute  Chief Evangelist @ BombBomb -- Grabbing and holding the attention of your prospects is harder now than it ever has been. Email send rates are at an all-time high, and engagement is at an all-time low. Social discourse around pitch slaps and untargeted messaging is reaching boiling points. The sea of prospecting emails, phone calls, and LinkedIn messages continues...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn about some common cold call opener pitfalls in 6.5 minutes. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: “Can I have 27 seconds of your time to tell you why I called?” “This is a cold call. Wanna roll the dice?” “I know I called you out of the blue…” Knowing what to say when a prospect picks up your call is crucial. You have a very limited amount o...

5 Questions with Becky Orr  Director of Sales Operations @ Rightway -- Fact: High-performing sales development teams don’t get by on skill alone.  There’s a LOT that goes on behind the scenes that contributes to that team’s success.   Managing the CRM, dashboards, reports, cadences, SEP, etc. is a monumentally important task.   Poor data, reports, and cadences can sink a team b...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn about the impact data quality has on sales - and how to do something about it - in 6 minutes. In sales, your bottom-of-the-funnel metrics are directly influenced by top-of-the-funnel quality. To keep your bottom-funnel metrics high, you need to fill the top of your funnel with high-quality leads. Easier said than done. Data quality is the bane...

5 Questions with Andy Culligan  Fractional CMO @ AndyCulligan.com -- Yo podcast listener - the world of B2B SaaS Sales & Marketing is daunting. There are so many moving pieces. SDRs, AEs, Marketing Leaders, VCs, CEOs…they all have common goals, but work toward them in different ways. Aligning those stakeholders and accurately forecasting outputs can be a nightmare. But it doesn’t have to...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn about the how and why of cadence customization in 6.5 minutes. Ron Popeil would be terrible at writing sales cadences 🍗 The last thing you want to do is “set it and forget it.” Cadences are at their best when you view them as dynamic. Why? What works this month might not work next month. Preferences change. Trends come and go. Industries shift...

5 Questions with Davidson Hang Enterprise AE @ Udemy -- Managing and Coaching SDRs are two distinct, equally important, roles. We all know what managing looks like - reinforcing core skills, ensuring reps update their CRM, reviewing pipeline…the things that make the sales development engine hum. Coaching, however, looks a bit different. And while managers are often tasked with coaching, the respon...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn about the differences between coaching your reps and managing your reps in 6.5 minutes. SDR Managers (broadly) have 2 responsibilities: To manage the day-to-day operations of their SDRs To coach and upskill their SDRs Unfortunately, a lot of managers end up shirking their second responsibility. Which is too bad. Coaching is usually the fun part...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn about combatting the Q2 Blues and what the heck Growth Month is in 7 minutes. This is a tough time of year for SDRs. It’s the last month of Q2, which means you can get pulled in a lot of different directions by your marketing and sales teams. Your main focus is on making sure you can hit your quarterly or half-yearly goals by the end of the mon...

5 Questions with Quinn Underwood CEO and Co-Founder at Autumn -- It’s no secret - the SDR job is a grind. You can optimize it all you want and tout the wins, but behind the curtain, it’s full of rejection.  And eventually, that catches up to even the best reps. That’s right folks, we’re talking burnout.  There are TONS of articles online that tell you how to combat burnout, but most of t...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn about AJ's account tiering system and how to use that for message personalization in 6.5 minutes. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: “Personalization is key! If you want to cut through the noise, your message has to be personalized…Also, I need you to get in at least 150 activities/day. Ok, go get ‘em!” You might be thinking to yourself…...

5 Questions with Gautam Rishi  CEO & Co-Founder @ OneShot.ai -- We’re living in the golden age of personalization for sales teams.   And we’re not talking, “saw you went to {school.name}” or “noticed you were the {title} at {company}.”   That’s NOT personalization. It’s customization. And there’s a huge difference.   Truly personalized messages combine that customization wi...

Join AJ and Alex for another episode of Opt In! Learn about burnout prevention in 7.5 minutes. Burnout is almost inevitable in the SDR role. And it can creep up on you really quickly. One day you feel energized and fulfilled with your work. The next, your cynicism is rampant and you feel fatigued. That’s why it’s so crucial for you and your manager to keep tabs on your wellbeing. You can help your...