A day in the life of an SDR. A list of Tools for productive SDRs.

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If you have started reading this blog then either you are an SDR who is curious to know the life of another SDR or someone who is ready to become one. Either way, Hi5! From a person who knew nothing about a being an SDR to what I am right now, I have a lot to share about my experience as a Sales Development Representative at Hippo Video.

A day in an SDR’s life revolves around lead qualification and outbound prospecting. As an SDR I am constantly finding creative ways to prospecting new leads and trust me it isn’t easy. Probably to the outside world, the job of a sales representative is to just reach out to people. It might look easy, but it clearly isn’t.

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Before we look at how I spend my day as an SDR, let us dive into the most common problems faced by them.

Source 

Problems faced by Sales Development Reps (With Solutions)

1. Monotonous

Most of you know that being an SDR is a tedious job. Well, it sure is! But, when you find creative ways to approach people as a salesperson, then you can completely transform your monotonous work to a really fun one!

Solution:

So, as a rep we have the freedom to experiment and take our creativity to the next level. I also keep coming up with new ideas to reach out to people and keep myself motivated. Sometimes, I just check out the prospect’s social media to understand his interests and write to him about his favorite sport or restaurant. During this process, I learn new things and also get to know the person better. This way, when we get on a call, we have interesting things to talk about.

Some days, I just grab a pen and a paper and write down their name and company name and greet them with a picture of me holding the board. This makes my email stand out from the others, and the procedure is also quite fun. And it doesn’t stop there. I have recently started sending out personalized videos to prospects. Yes, videos it is!

Using Videos To Engage Prospects Better

Did you know that videos are the best way to engage your prospects?

Creating videos for prospects is so much fun. Especially, when you know that there are so many advantages that come with videos. Sending out video emails increases the open rates and click-through rates.

2. Dealing with rejection

Rejection is just a tough factor for salespeople to deal with. Out of all the emails that we send, there is a 90% chance that we will face rejection. Come on, how many sales guys have we rejected? A lot right! So, let’s face it. Denial comes with being in this industry and it is part of our job.

Solution:

The best way to deal with rejection would be not to take it personally. Instead of focusing on negative responses, we should be happy about all the positive replies we have received. Learning to hear a NO and bounce back quickly is considered an ART and is essential today for any salesperson.

One of the articles in The Marketing Doughnut points out:  

Only 1 out of 50 deals close upon a first meeting, but 44% of salespeople give up at the first rejection. 92% have given up on the prospect by the 4th refusal, and that’s how 8% of salespeople make 80% of the commissions because 80% of nonstandard salespersons take 5 follow-ups to close.

Lack of appropriate tools

With the world evolving, the use of technology is just everywhere. And as mentioned earlier being a Sales Development Representative is monotonous, we just need to make it interesting by starting to use various tools in the process.

Solution:

The use of technology is purely to make the SDR’s work more efficient and less time-consuming. Also, as a salesrep I spend more time communicating with prospects and scheduling meetings/demos.
Here are a few tools that I use on a daily basis. And trust me, with these tools, my work is a lot easier and enjoyable now.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the best tool in the market for sales professionals. It focuses majorly on prospecting. This lets sales teams engage with contacts and accounts within the LinkedIn platform.

It focuses on helping you find the right prospects to reach out to. You can get the right kind of prospects by making use of the search and filter features. Also, you can easily narrow down your criteria and apply the advanced filters. You can narrow down your prospect’s profile based on various factors like geography, industry, company size, and designation.

One of the pros of the Sales Navigator would be that these preferences will show up whenever you visit a profile, and LinkedIn will show you profile recommendations based on the criteria set. There are over 20 filters that you can apply to your search. With the keywords, designation, company size, and company fields allowing you to perform a Boolean search.

Zoom

Zoom is a video conferencing solution for everyone. You can quickly join meetings, toggle between different participants to share screens, and make notations that all participants can see in real time.

With Zoom, the days of powerpoint slides are long gone. It allows full HD broadcasting so that users can see and feel the presenter, not just hear them or see the slides. Also, it is an excellent tool for webinars and live events. It brings videos for the presenter and for the attendees as well. When you are presenting a meeting through Zoom, you’re actually presenting it to a real live audience.

One of the other pros of Zoom is that it also records all of the videos, the whole event including questions asked by attendees via chat. So attendees who couldn’t make it to the event can experience the event through the recorded videos. Especially, not everyone who has to attend the Zoom meeting needs to have Zoom downloaded. Only one person has to download Zoom, and everyone else can simply click on the meeting link and jump right in.

Calendly

Calendly is a simple, easy-to-use, demo/meeting scheduling software. Scheduling demos through Calendly saves a lot of time and helps in accelerating sales. It is super easy to get started. All you need to do is set your convenient time and share the link with your clients, colleagues, etc. Let them pick a time suitable for the event, which is automatically added to your calendar. Also, with Calendly your team’s availability is shown on a single page for better convenience.

It can be integrated with Google, Office 365 and Outlook, and other available calendars just to avoid double-booking. With Calendly you can also send out custom reminders and confirmations to invitees/attendees.
Also, it can be used through desktops, phones, and tablets and is hands down the easiest way to manage the schedule of appointments and more.

Hippo Video For ‘Personalized‘ Sales

Hippo Video is a video creation tool dedicated to salespeople. you can send personalized videos to your prospects and leads. By sending personalized videos you can move your prospects through the sales pipeline more quickly and efficiently.

With Hippo Video for Gmail, you can easily record and send video emails. You can also send previously recorded videos to your recipients. The best part about creating videos is that you can keep track of your emails without leaving your Gmail account.

A good video doesn’t end with just video creation. Editing plays a significant role in ramping up your video. You can also edit your videos to perfection. 

Personalized Video Follow Ups and Check Ins

You can also send Video follow-ups to let your prospects know your interest in getting them associated with your brand. 

Track Sales Leads

By sending video follow-ups, you can track leads more effectively as they progress through the funnel.

Data Analysis

You can gain analytics for the video. Also, you can analyze the prospect’s interest by looking at the open rate, watch rate, etc.

Subsequent Follow Up Emails

Based on the video analytics you can create the next set of follow-ups.

Now that you have learned all the tips and tricks on how you can make your job not-so-monotonous; get started with implementing these simple tools into your daily tasks!