The sales team is the backbone of a business, and the sales development reps work the hardest to achieve those targets.
While the commissions and paycheck keep them going, the sales development leaders give them good tips that help the team succeed and motivate them to stay focused in constant rejections.
It cannot be easy approaching people and face continuous rejection. Add to it the long working hours and the pressure of achieving those targets.
SDR’s have a high-impact role and are in constant need of motivation to stay focused. That is why the right leaders to guide them are very crucial. Sales development leaders have to play multiple roles like mentors, pipeline builders, marketing advocates, and sales experts to ensure their team is motivated and achieving the targets.
As per a study, 60% of potential leads connect with the sales development reps during the consideration stage while researching the products and services.
Let us look at those unsung heroes who have significantly impacted their teams and businesses in the past year. These twelve sales development leaders have been successful in driving their companies towards unprecedented growth.
1 . Kenzie Cross, an Enterprise sales Development Manager at Lessonly, has scaled the enterprise sales development team six times to what it was in eighteen months.
Thoughtful hiring and onboarding of new reps with a well-designed training schedule enable them to get up to speed and achieve their goals. The SDR team is empowered and developed with the right tools to love the work they do.
Interesting Read: Top 7 Tips to Become a Successful Sales Development Rep
2. Sam Nelson, the SDR Leader at Outreach.io, tries to do everything he can to ensure he shares his knowledge and those awesome ideas by hosting a weekly show. Sam is a leader who goes that extra mile to ensure his team is motivated and well equipped to face everyday challenges.
3. The Enterprise Sales Development Manager at Optimizely, Sonny Pannu, is an excellent leader that strongly advocates for his team. In just six months, Pannu has enabled each sales rep in the team to grow business in their assigned territories.
It has been made possible with an excellent sales process that clearly defines weekly/ monthly goals, restructuring the monthly quota, and a customer-centric sales development program. All this has contributed to the boost in sales and enabled the sales development reps to reach their target.
4 . Phil Minasian, Director of Sales Development & Operations at Gigster, is a fearless leader who believes in coaching the team to handle the nuances with the prospective clients. Phil is a great tutor who helps the team understand the functionalities better and works hard to refine the team’s knowledge. The account-based marketing program designed by Phil has proved to be highly successful in yielding some big wins to the team.
5 . Richard Savage, the Director of Corporate Sales for North America at Talend, is famous for prioritizing his team members. A genuine people person, Richard believes in spending time with the team guiding them, helping them grow into sales leaders, and celebrating their wins. His team swears to enjoy the kayaking trips that he takes them on.
Interesting Read: Five best practices for sales opportunity management
6. Becc Holland, the Head of Sales Development at Chorus.ai, is the queen of the sales development community – says her team. Sales development reps love her workshops and swear to have learned a great deal about human psychology and how to leverage it to improve personalized emails, messages, and calling. A study suggests that SDRs make at least eighteen calls for the potential leads actually to connect with them.
7 . Bryan Elsesser, the Senior Director of Sales Development at Aircall, built a massive SDR team growing it from just four to forty in less than six months. Prospecting process standardization with excellent coaching and support is enabling his team members to crush it. His team loves it that he does it all with a smile. Sales or not, a good leader makes so much of a difference to the team.
8. Loic Jeanjean, Head of Marketing at Ledger, is another inspiring leader who supports his team in every crisis. Setting up a sales strategy for growth and taking calculated risks has paid off with $3 million ARR for team Ledger.
Interesting Read: Top 5 Attributes of Good Sales Development Reps
9. Victoria Jennings, Enterprise Sales Development Manager at SalesLoft, is a stellar sales development leader who drives her team to success. A team player herself, Victoria believes in communicating with every individual on the team to motivate and help the team achieve their goals. The metrics graph went up and up to post Victoria leading the team says SalesLoft. The team reached 80% – 90% of their goal; the numbers hit 150% the next month and stayed 100%+ for the next three quarters.
10. Tariq Esmail, Business Development manager at League Inc., is among the top Sales development leaders that does not hesitate to invest time and effort into developing his team.
Tariq knows what leadership style to use for each individual on the team. He keeps an eye on the strengths and weaknesses of everyone on his team and makes sure to provide feedback accordingly. Tariq has successfully built a team that believes in achieving its target with great culture and team spirit.
11. The Business Development Manager at CarGurus, Inc., Joseph Volk, stepped in to lead the team during the transition period. The team badly needed someone to support, motivate, and nurture them towards growth. Joe transformed the team into a strong bunch of individuals quickly by streamlining efficiencies and ensuring improved performance.
12. Matthew Thistle, the Director of Inside Sales at Motus, LLC, has worked hard to grow his team of BDR across all the branches at Motus LLC. Matthew has been instrumental in building a solid bridge between the sales and marketing teams.
With continuous coaching and development, he and his team have achieved a pipeline target of 150%, which has led to millions of closed revenue in the year 2019.
Conclusion
One thing common among all the sales development leaders mentioned above is that they take personal care in nurturing their team and ensure to give attention to the small details and believe in building team spirit among the teammates so that they work together and not against each other.
A great leader coaches and trains his team to succeed rather than assign impossible goals for them to achieve. While it is easier said than done, coaching a team, managing the goals, and building a successful sales strategy can be challenging for anyone.
These sales development leaders have gone the extra mile in leading, training, and motivating their teams and set an excellent example among their peers.
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