Building The Perfect Sales Technology Stack For Your Sales Development Team

Congratulations you have hired an SDR/BDR, this is most likely the first step towards their long and successful sales career. No, it is not that exciting, but this role will lay the foundation for their success within your organization and future sales opportunities they may have. An SDR is an important role, they are the front-lines of your companies inbound and outbound sales efforts. The SDR role requires that they fully understand your companies sales process, value proposition and the sales technology available to help them achieve these goals.

Today we are going to dive into the sales technology that supports the success of the SDR/BDR role. What does an SDR/BDR sales stack look like? How do these tools support their ability to engage and convert prospects into active opportunities?

Source of Truth

A single source of truth (SSOT) is a concept that an organization can apply as part of their information architecture to ensure that everyone in the organization uses the same data when making business decisions. CRM, ERP or a companywide database are the most common sources for this information and truth.

Sales leaders who were interviewed for this blog identified CRM or a companywide Database as a very important resource and the foundation of their SDR/BDR sales stack. SDR’s who effectively maintain and update the CRM with accurate information is essential to their managers’ ability to monitor sales processes, staff performance and results. My experience has shown me that SDR’s who take this responsibility to heart are normally more successful.

Additionally, many sales technology solutions require access or are integrated into your CRM through an API. Inaccurate information surrounding the account, or a lack of specific contact details will only slow and reduce your ability to qualify and convert prospects quickly into a sales cycle.

Follow a process

The SDR/BDR role is a numbers game that relies on efficiency. According to Max J. Kouris “you need a cadence and to get rid of all your tasks, sticky notes, etc… for when you follow up on prospects who haven’t taken your call yet. Automate that! Know when they opened your email or clicked a link.” Outbound prospecting, lead engagement, and prospect engagement technologies improve your ability to connect more efficiently and effectively.

Any sales process that requires an SDR/BDR to leave their “source of truth” (CRM) to engage with technology outside of their workflow is not an efficient strategy. Often, you are distracted and drawn into other nonproductive activities. This normally occurs when all your business development resources are not part of your business development workflow. “Any technology that supports an SDRs need to stay in their workflow and reduce friction in their process is important,” said Lisa Hunt.

“Understanding where their Sales processes are solid and proven and where they can be strengthened is very important”, said – Mary Rapaport. Sales tools like these are included in the skills development & reinforcement and conversation intelligence categories of the sales technology landscape and offer an ability to level up your SDR’s skills through proven training methodologies and an understanding of their ability to consume content and communicate that information effectively with their prospect. Good coaching insights combined with extrinsic motivation and analytics surrounding their team’s ability to level-up can add to an SDR manager’s ability to leverage these technologies for awareness and growth.

Show Your Face

As said previously, the SDR role can be a numbers game, but maybe it’s not about more dials or emails sent, but about more personalization. Video selling technology can offer a new way to connect and stand out; especially when your peers may only be leveraging cold calling or email outreach. Top-performing SDR, Lauren Wadsworth said that “it is harder than ever to get the attention of key prospects and the video was a new way to stand out and build more connections”

Get Social

The point is social selling is not LinkedIn and Twitter. It’s the personal and professional connection through the available channels online, said Ollie Whitfield. Try to mix up your social touches. It doesn’t always have to be a message or a social share of their content. It could be an introduction or relationship that you triggered and will be remembered for. Martin MacArthur says that “LinkedIn is better than your website for the first point of contact with your prospect.” Max J. Kouris said that “you need to be active on social media to create a brand.”

Small hack: Ask your peers to like your post, one or two, not more. This will give the post a chance to lift off, let them see you are also sharing their content with your network. If a couple of your comrades have noticed and endorsed the content, their network will see the content and can become aware of the company and prospect’s work.

Have Confidence in Your Data

Data confidence allows you to make good and informed decisions surrounding your prospects. Data can be found easily, and you can almost always be pieced together from contact details available across the web, but how real or accurate is that information now, next week or next month? The addition of prospect intelligence resources helps you uncover like decision-makers, organizational reporting structure, financials, budgets, year-over-year growth, company initiatives, personnel moves, installed technologies (the “tech stack”), and predictive features – all in near real-time. Max J. Kouris says “Use technology so that you can get the information about your contacts sooner”.

Conclusion

Establishing a centralized source of truth, whether that is a CRM or a home-grown database is essential if you plan on utilizing any of the solutions we have outlined. Ideally, there is a process that should be followed to qualify and progress prospects through a sales cycle. Leveraging the technologies that support your SDR’s cadence without adding unneeded resources will inevitably improve efficiency and ROI. Remember that SDR’s that show their face and get social create a brand and identify themselves as an expert in your industry. Finally, by leveraging third-party data that has already been vetted, improves both your SDR’s performance and effectiveness, don’t make them work harder, allow them to work smarter.

There is no one stack of solutions that is ideal for every SDR or organization. Better understand your own organization and SDR’s process, priorities and challenges first then leverage third-party resources like Vendor Neutral’s Certified Vendor Profiles to determine which technologies best match your needs before making any final sales technology selections.