[VIDEO] How Ambition Uses Ambition: Managing Remote SDRs in a Tough Selling Climate

On our latest Ambition webinar, Chris O'Connor, Head of Sales Development, alongside Andy Duwe, Sales Development Team Lead, shared how they use our own product to manage, coach, and measure our own sales development team. We share some highlights below — or you can catch the full on-demand webinar here. 

Virtual Accountability and Sales Coaching

Right now, sales teams are adapting and learning how to manage remote teams on the fly. But with so many modern sales tools allowing teams to discover that they can make the jump to remote without losing productivity, it's likely many teams will remain distributed, even after quarantine.

A poll on today's webinar showed that 64% of the attendees said they prefer working remotely. Whether your team is relying on Ambition to power your sales team remotely or centralized on the sales floor when things return to normal, here are some strategies you can borrow from how we use our own product to manage both remote and centralized sales reps. 

Our SDR Coaching Cadence 

• Chris meets weekly with his SDRs to go through their developmental check-in and review numbers

• Before each 1:1, Chris uses Ambition to review the reps scorecards, metrics, competition performance, and pace to goal right in the Ambition Dashoboard (AKA: his mission control center)

• The SDRs do weekly peer coaching with Andy, the SDR team lead. They focus on call coaching and do a show and tell where Andy also breaks down his own calls.

Our Triggered Sales Alerts 

• Chris uses an issue detection alert for "10 Calls by 10am." This triggered alert ensures that everyone starts the day on the right track. If a rep hasn't made at least 10 calls by 10 am, Chris gets an email notification so that he can reach out to the rep and check in.
• Every meeting set gets a celebratory alert automated into our company wide Slack so that reps can be celebrated.
• When a rep hits their call goal, a Slack alert automates. This recognizes effort and hustle, which is especially important in a tough market.
• When a meeting moves to opportunity, an automated Slack alert celebrates the SDR. This recognizes the quality of the meetings a rep is setting.

How Our SDRs Are Selling in This Recession 

Early trends

• Andy's KPIs Last week: 4/6-4/10:

  • Connect rate: 12%, Conversion to meeting: 10%, Conversion to F/U (pipeline): 75%

• Andy's KPIs One month ago: 3/2-3/6:

  • Connect rate: 7%, Conversion to meeting: 22%, Conversion to F/U (pipeline): 50%

Tactics that are working

• Andy is bucketing prospects into 3 groups based on his inital conversation opener and pivoting his pitch based on what bucket he mentally places the prospect in
  • Business as usual- stick to the same script and objection handling as usual
  • Our business is thriving- Great! Explain how we can help businesses level up while they are thriving, wait for objection, then rebuttal 
  • Our business is suffering- I’m so sorry to hear, I’ve heard a lot of stories like this.  Is there anything I can do to help? Want to talk about it.
• Less personal, more volume because when there is a real need for our product right now, people don't seem to mind and of course there is still empathy and addressing the stressful times. 
  • Doubled the amount of prospects to 100 per week.
  • Only research is into ICP, title, and industry (what is the probability that they have been affected negatively, positively, or neutral due to Covid)
  • No personalization besides persona based messaging
• Tribal knowledge sharing to address new objections and successful handling in weekly peer coaching sessions

What Our Customers and The Market Are saying (and Asking)

The majority of attendees on our webinar said they're experiencing lower connects in the current climate. At Ambition, we noticed that even in weeks when our connects were lower, our talk time was up. Informational or educational conversations were happening, giving our SDRs a chance to connect with prospects and spend time on the phones. Talk time may be a metric your organization can add into scorecards if connects seem to consistently trend down. 

Q&A

What are the best TV screens to drive sales performance?
Make sure to show any running competitions, so you can increase engagement levels. We also suggest showing metrics that reps have control over. Especially if revenue or meetings booked are down, you'll want to show numbers that aren’t deflating for your team. 

Business Owners are answering their phones, is there an approach that's different with them you recommend?  
Talk about going higher in persona.  They’re answering and if they have a need they will respond to a pitch in a positive way

Have your competitions changed now that everyone is remote?
Yes! This month our competition is around call connects and talk time, not on our normal meetings set. 

How do I make calls faster?
Compartmentalize your day/week.  Set a tight schedule and stick to it.

Do you have any strong suggestions of what is not encouraged to do via Remote Presentations?
Vaping, don’t have your underpants hanging up in the background, pay attention, have your camera on - or explain why it’s not on if it’s off, ask questions to prove you’re paying attention.  In person it’s easier to signal that you’re paying attention, it’s harder to do virtually so it takes more effort on your part to actively listen.

Which of your newest features (released in 2020) are you finding most useful within your own world?
“Asks” — we are currently beta testing the Asks feature in the product.

Are your sales teams utilizing video to prospect, or have you heard of any of your customers doing so?  
We do from time to time — more often for someone that we don’t have a phone number for, or someone who has no-showed a meeting already, as a way to confirm that the meeting will hold.

What's the best method to track when you leave a voice mail (LVM)?
I have notes built into my sequence in Outreach as well as disposition for tracking afterwards.
 

Want more remote content? Download our latest sales coaching template and see the exact questions our VP of Sales asks his remote reps during their 1:1s.