{"id":4943,"date":"2023-08-07T13:02:13","date_gmt":"2023-08-07T13:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.klenty.com\/blog\/?p=4943"},"modified":"2024-04-10T12:20:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-10T12:20:50","slug":"sdr-manager-ashley-dees-sales-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.klenty.com\/blog\/sdr-manager-ashley-dees-sales-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashley Dees, Metadata\u2019s SDR Manager: Pro Tips From a Decade in Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The SDR X Factor is a series of long-form stories that aims to reveal what sets top-performing sales reps apart. How do they go about their day? What do their cold calling and cold emailing strategies look like? How are they crushing quota every time? We extract their key strategies, tips and tricks so you can sell better. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first installment of this series, we\u2019re joined by Ashley Dees<\/a>, a Sales Development Representative (SDR) Manager at Metadata<\/a>, a demand generation platform for B2B marketers. With nearly 8 years of experience in sales, she has worked in several roles in her career so far\u2014 she\u2019s been an SDR, Account Executive, and now, an SDR Manager. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We trace her journey from being a beginner SDR who hated cold calling to becoming a quota-exceeding SDR Manager. How did she learn to love cold calling? How has fears of a recession impacted her sales outreach? Ashley answers these questions, and explains how she breaks a few rules as a top-performing SDR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. From an SDR to a Top-Performing Manager<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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A top-performing salesperson, like Rome, is not built in a day. It took Ashley courage to face her initial failures and keep trying to improve daily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her first job as an SDR at a startup, even though she enjoyed the process, things didn\u2019t come easily to her. \u201cI was terrible on the phone, absolutely horrible. Very awkward, couldn’t hold a conversation,\u201d she remembers. Immediately, she follows with a smile, \u201cBut I loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing her SDR colleague being good at cold calling, Ashley\u2019s competitive spirit got the best of her, and she decided to be better than him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI would listen to this person and try to learn from him as best I could and mirror and copy the things that he would do. That’s when I fell in love with sales and it evolved from there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

From there, she moved to an Account Executive role at a San Francisco-based company before joining Metadata in an SDR role. Within 2 years, Ashley became an SDR Manager and now manages a team of SDRs, in addition to booking meetings and carrying out outbound prospecting herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She and her team managed to exceed their quota for October 2022, booking around 105% of the meetings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid fears of an upcoming recession<\/a>, she explains that outbound prospecting has often turned rough for SDRs as prospects bring up budget constraints in response to sales pitches. \u201cRight now, we’re just super focused on getting these inbound meetings that we get converted because, luckily at our company, we get a high volume of inbound demo requests.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Sets Her Apart?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

a) Emphasizes Kindness Toward Prospects in All Situations<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In the hustle and bustle of selling, Ashley doesn\u2019t forget that kindness helps a salesperson<\/a> build trust with prospects. With tech companies big and small slashing jobs<\/a>, if a prospect she contacts tells her that they have been laid off recently, she\u2019d volunteer to share her company\u2019s job board with the person and even put their name on the board to help them find a new job quickly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it\u2019s during objection handling, reaching the wrong person on a call, or even dealing with gatekeepers, she tries to be nice to the person she\u2019s interacting with in any situation. Apart from building trust, such acts of kindness will get the person to help her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cPeople are always happy to help when you’re nice, in my opinion. If you’re sweet to people and just genuine to say, \u2018Hey, can you help me?\u2019 people are always happy to help,\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

b) Being Genuinely Excited About the Product She\u2019s Selling<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will never work at a company where I’m not very excited about what they’re doing,\u201d Ashley asserts. Being genuinely excited about her company and the product is what helps her sell better to her prospects and book more meetings. This occurs due to the \u201ctransfer of enthusiasm,\u201d as she likes to put it. \u201cI get very excited about the product that I’m selling, so I enjoy getting other people excited about it too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

c) Creates Time Blocks and Avoids Task Switching<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Ashley creates time blocks as part of her daily work routine to segment her tasks. There will be separate time blocks for tasks such as prospecting, cold calling, checking her email inbox, and going through LinkedIn. Each block will be an hour or two as per her requirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within these time blocks, she takes care not to switch between tasks \u2014 like sending emails within the cold calling time block. \u201cI find that it’s inefficient, and you wasted a lot of time going back and forth in between SDR tasks,\u201d she elaborates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

d) Plans the Month With Specific Number of Meetings Booked as Target<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Being the SDR Manager, Ashley starts her work by checking her dashboard that displays the number of meetings booked by her and her team of SDRs. She fixes the monthly target at the start of every month, and every day, she distributes the pending number of meetings between her and her team members to ensure that the quota is met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. How Ashley Aces the Cold Calling Game<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Cold calling<\/a> is a number’s game, but that shouldn’t be at the cost of pre-call research. At the start of her career, Ashley used to target making 100 cold calls every day. \u201cI wasn’t preparing as much before each call, which I think is really important,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, she cold calls only 30 prospects in a day. This gives her ample time to research each prospect before calling. \u201cI know exactly who they are, what their company does, and things they might be interested in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, how does Ashley run cold calls to book meetings successfully? Let\u2019s find out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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i) Warms up the Call in Any Way Possible \u2014 From Arranging Dinner Parties To Emailing Content<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The cold calls Ashley makes aren\u2019t all that cold. She tries to warm it up in one way or another. One of her ways is throwing a dinner party for customers and inviting a list of prospective clients via calls. \u201cLet’s say three people answer. Whether they come to the dinner or not, doesn’t really matter that much. I’ll keep track of those three people and put tags on them. Those leads are semi-warmed up because they know you now,\u201d she explains. Now, if she calls those prospects, they will likely have a conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another way she recommends is to ask prospects during the call whether you could share any sales enablement content that\u2019s relevant to them, something on the lines of, \u201cHey, we just published this cool report for marketers, it’s got all these neat KPIs on LinkedIn ads and Facebook ads. I was hoping I can send that to you. Would that be okay?\u201d This way, SDRs will warm the prospects up a bit, and it’ll be much easier to get them to say yes during the second call, she elaborates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ii) Uses Permission-Based Openers During the Call<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In line with her usual approach of being kind and authentic while calling prospects, Ashley always uses permission-based openers like \u201cDo you have a minute to chat?\u201d or \u201cIs it a good time to talk?\u201d at the beginning of the call. Her introduction would typically go something like, \u201cHey, Kim! Ashley from Metadata. We haven’t spoken before. Do you have a minute to chat?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople take it more as a sign of respect, that you’re making sure it’s okay to continue your pitch when you call them out of the blue,\u201d she notes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, if she hears over the phone that the prospect is in a noisy environment like being stuck in traffic, she\u2019d immediately modify her opener a bit to say, \u201cIt sounds like it’s not a great time. Sounds like you’re driving and I don’t want to bother you. Is it okay if I call you back tomorrow afternoon?\u201d This has worked for her well, because this gives the impression that she\u2019s respectful of the prospect\u2019s time, making them more willing to talk to her when she calls back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

iii) Handles Objections Through Lightheartedness:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to objection handling, Ashley not only does it with a smile but tries to put a smile on the prospect\u2019s face as well. By keeping her responses to objections lighthearted, she manages to keep the conversation going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I’m reaching out to people, I like to have fun. I think the most satisfying part of our job is that we can do silly stuff and be creative, and I really enjoy making people laugh personally. So anytime I’m able to do that, I will,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s look at some of the objection handling techniques she shared in action:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a) Objection: \u201cI\u2019m Not the Right Person.\u201d<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

If Ashley reaches a person who is not the intended prospect, she quickly searches for their name on LinkedIn while being on the line. There, she pulls up a snippet of information about them, like the university they went to \u2014 UCLA, for instance \u2014 and would Google fun facts about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’ll say, \u2018Did you know that the first mascot at UCLA was a jellyfish?\u2019 Just something silly,\u201d she says. This usually gets a laugh from the person on the other side of the line and keeps the conversation going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

b) Objection: \u201cI\u2019m Not the Decision Maker.\u201d<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This is a variation of the previous objection. Most of the time, Ashley says she would research the prospect well enough to see if her product would be a good fit for their role, and she would make this clear in her response to this objection before pitching to them. \u201cIf I call somebody, I want to talk to them. it doesn’t matter if they do the check on the contract or if they’re the ones that sign off,\u201d she points out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

c) Objection: \u201cWe Already Have a Solution in Place.\u201d <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

To this, Ashley would ask questions to \u201cunpack\u201d this objection. Some of the questions she asks the prospects are: <\/p>\n\n\n\n