🎙️Transcript: How the Best Outbound Sales Teams Are Managed
SaaStr Annual
"How the Best Outbound Sales Teams Are Managed"
Aaron Ross, Lauren McGuire, Mark Roberge, Ralph Barsi
September 25, 2017
Summary
In this panel discussion moderated by Aaron Ross (author of Predictable Revenue and From Impossible to Inevitable), three seasoned sales leaders share insights on managing high-performing outbound sales development teams.
The panelists include Ralph Barsi (ServiceNow), Lauren McGuire (Box), and Mark Roberge (former CRO of HubSpot, now professor at Harvard). The conversation explores critical management ratios, compensation structures, career progression frameworks, team motivation strategies, and work-life balance.
Key themes include the importance of maintaining proper manager-to-rep ratios (closer to 1:10 rather than 1:20), creating skill-based promotion paths rather than time-based advancement, compensating on pipeline or revenue rather than just meetings set, and helping BDRs build their personal brands through platforms like LinkedIn.
The panelists emphasize that successful SDR management requires balancing business pipeline commitments with individual career development, creating engaging cultures that make the inherently repetitive work feel meaningful, and providing multiple career paths beyond just sales roles.
Throughout the discussion, all three leaders stress the importance of setting clear expectations, building strong BDR-to-AE relationships through tight ratios, and treating SDR roles as foundations for building lifelong sales skills.
BIG Takeaways
Manager-to-Rep Ratios Should Be Closer to 1:10, Not 1:20
Lauren McGuire learned early that managing 20 direct reports was unsustainable and ineffective. The sweet spot for SDR manager ratios is closer to 1:10, allowing for adequate coaching, development, and oversight. When ratios get too high, managers lose the ability to provide meaningful guidance and team performance suffers across the board.
Tighter BDR-to-AE Alignment Creates Better Outcomes
Mark Roberge found success with a 3:2 ratio (three BDRs supporting two AEs) rather than having many BDRs feeding a few AEs. This tight alignment allows AEs to mentor their BDRs more effectively, eliminates disputes about meeting quality, accommodates individual AE preferences, and creates accountability loops where BDRs see the downstream impact of their work. The ratio depends on deal size and sales cycle length, requiring experimentation to find the right balance.
Compensate on Pipeline or Revenue, Not Just Meetings Set
Avoid compensating BDRs solely on meetings set, as this creates misaligned incentives where quantity trumps quality. If you have short sales cycles, comp BDRs on the revenue success of their aligned AEs. For longer sales cycles, comp on qualified pipeline generation or similar metrics that indicate real sales progression. This ensures BDRs focus on quality opportunities rather than gaming meeting metrics.
Create Six-Tier Skill-Based Promotion Paths
Rather than time-based promotions (must stay 6-12 months), HubSpot created six progressive levels based entirely on skill mastery and results achieved. Requirements included passing tests, setting appointments, building install base, achieving specific MRR and churn targets. Rewards at each level included option grants, base salary bumps, work-from-home privileges, and qualification for AE training. The fastest performers completed all six tiers in 7-8 months while others took two years, putting advancement entirely in their control.
Help BDRs Build Personal Brands Through Social Selling
Ralph Barsi emphasizes that BDRs are obscure to the marketplace and often pitch before prospects know who they are. When prospects receive compelling emails and look up the sender, they need to find optimized LinkedIn profiles with professional headshots, strong headlines, and compelling summaries. Investing in personal branding helps BDRs establish credibility, differentiate themselves, and create opportunities for prospects to self-educate before engaging.
Balance Pipeline Commitments with Career Development Timing
Leaders face tension between moving BDRs to AE roles when they're ready versus maintaining pipeline commitments to the business. The solution involves setting clear expectations upfront (often 12-24 month tenures), creating milestone-based progression that acknowledges individual readiness, and having honest conversations at the one-year mark about whether reps want to continue in sales or explore other paths like customer success or finance.
Create Engaging Cultures That Make Routine Work Feel Meaningful
The BDR role can become repetitive after 3-4 months once systems are learned. Successful teams combat this through creative cultures (Yelp's dance club environment with music, competitions, and celebrations), positioning the role as foundation-building for future sales careers, emphasizing the life skills being developed, and providing multiple career paths beyond traditional sales advancement. Leaders must help BDRs see the bigger picture beyond daily calling quotas.
Transcript
Announcer (00:00):
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome author of bestseller must read, Predictable Revenue and co-author of From Impossible to Inevitable, Aaron Ross.
Aaron Ross (00:09):
Hey, I'm excited for the panel today. Oh, there we go. I'm going to take this spot now. Do I introduce them or does God introduce them? Here we've got Ralph Barsi from ServiceNow. Woo. Super Bowl entrance. We need paper here. You can break through. Hey, thanks for joining us.
Lauren McGuire (00:28):
How are you on?
Aaron Ross (00:30):
I don't think it's, yep. And Mark Roberge, former CRO of HubSpot. Now lounging at Harvard as a professor, man of leisure. Good to see you bud. Hey, glad to have you and Lauren here, McGuire from Box, 34 weeks. Yeah, glad to have you. Thanks. If you guys could take a seat. Thank you. So quickly Lauren's managing the SDR team at Box. Prior you also worked at Salesforce, Mark Roberge. I don't think we need much more introduction for you.
Lauren McGuire (01:06):
And...
Aaron Ross (01:07):
Ralph here. So managing SDR team at...
Lauren McGuire (01:09):
ServiceNow.
Aaron Ross (01:10):
ServiceNow, but before that too, you've done, at least...
Ralph Barsi (01:13):
Prior, I was at InsideView and Achievers in San Francisco.
Aaron Ross (01:16):
Okay. Sorry, one more thing before we start the actual panel, I would like you to share just a bit of a fun or weird or random fact about yourself. I think obviously mine, I've got 11 kids, but besides that, I like tattoos. So does my wife so...
Lauren McGuire (01:31):
Nice. I have a degree in pre-veterinary medicine and was supposed to be a veterinarian. Oops.
Aaron Ross (01:37):
Oh, okay. Never too late. All your dreams.
Mark Roberge (01:41):
So I have a slew of celebrity stories from my twenties in New York. I had a fun time. One of the good ones was I fell asleep on Diana Ross's shoulder in a club, which was cool.
Aaron Ross (01:53):
Asleep?
Mark Roberge (01:54):
Yeah, kind of I was tired. But what was really cool about it, I tell this story when we do our millennial BDR group meetings and I was dating myself because two of them looked at each other.
Aaron Ross (02:07):
Who's Diana Ross?
Mark Roberge (02:07):
Who's Diana Ross? And the other one said, I think she knitted the American flag. What am I 300 years old?
Ralph Barsi (02:17):
I've been a drummer for 42 years. If I had not gone the sales and sales leadership path, I would've been a drummer in a band. My band is called Segue, S-E-G-U-E. Not to be mistaken for what you ride around in San Francisco and we have three albums all on Spotify and iTunes. How about that?
Aaron Ross (02:36):
Oh, that's cool.
Ralph Barsi (02:37):
Yeah, come check it out.
Aaron Ross (02:39):
All right, so let's start off with a conversation starter here. So in terms of we're talking about managing teams and reflect back on mistakes that you have made or maybe making that you still see everybody making time and again, Lauren, you want to start here?
Lauren McGuire (02:55):
Sure. I think the biggest mistake I made early on was not getting loud when my ratios got too high. I let myself get up to 20 to one reps.
Aaron Ross (03:03):
Okay, so define that. One...
Lauren McGuire (03:07):
Actually how many direct reps I was managing.
Aaron Ross (03:10):
Oh, that you were managing. I got you.
Lauren McGuire (03:11):
Yeah.
Aaron Ross (03:12):
One manager to you had 20.
Lauren McGuire (03:13):
Yes. Not accomplishing a lot.
Aaron Ross (03:15):
Okay. What do you think is a fairer number?
Lauren McGuire (03:18):
I would say closer to 10.
Aaron Ross (03:19):
Yeah. Okay, good. Good answer. You pass. Cool.
Mark Roberge (03:23):
Yeah, I'll throw two out there to start. So when we started our BDR program, first off I think we had five or 10 of them throwing appointments over to a couple of reps and we were comping them on the meeting set. And basically what happened was the reps were lying about the number of meetings that were set if they crushed their number to hook up their BDR and they were complaining that they shouldn't get credit for meetings when they missed their number. And also what was happening was all the reps had slightly different preferences on how far along they wanted the appointment and what they wanted the BDR to accomplish, et cetera. We had a lot of success in having just a tighter alignment. We went to a three to two ratio of BDRs to AEs and they, you saw the AEs...
Aaron Ross (04:12):
Three BDRs to...
Mark Roberge (04:13):
Three BDRs to two AEs, and they just had a really great relationship that we didn't have to just get in, define all the rules, and they all had their little preferences and the AEs tended to mentor the BDRs a lot more because it would come back to them. And the other big thing is we had a shorter sales cycle, so we comped the BDRs on the revenue success of those AEs. We didn't comp on meetings at all. Not everyone can do that. You guys have longer sales cycles. But I think the point there is I'm not a huge fan of comping on meetings. Sure, comp on something, but comp on revenue if you have a short sales cycle or if you have a longer one comp on something like pipeline generation or something like that.
Aaron Ross (04:49):
Yeah, some sort of qualified step after meeting beyond that. So a quick question. What do you think is the most in terms of ratio of one BDR can support up to how many salespeople effectively?
Mark Roberge (05:03):
I think it's so contextual on your deal size and that kind of stuff, and I think it's something that needs to be experimented with. Obviously the trade off there is...
Aaron Ross (05:14):
More is not better.
Mark Roberge (05:16):
It's not necessarily, I mean your unit economics are going to blow up, your CAC's going to blow up, so you've got to maximize that 40 or 50 hour work week for the rep as efficiently as possible. And you've got to just find that right ratio for your team.
Aaron Ross (05:30):
Okay, Ralph?
Ralph Barsi (05:31):
Yeah, I guess a mistake or challenge or something I would do differently is get the BDRs to focus more on how they're branding themselves in the marketplace. So I used to not make a big deal out of what their LinkedIn profile looked like and what it said and how they appeared and how they represented themselves and the company. And my mindset has really changed over the years because that's a critical piece. BDRs in their unique role, they're obscure to the marketplace for the most part. A lot of companies get emails from a BDR, they have no clue who they are and they're immediately pitching. So if they send a halfway compelling email and it's enticing enough for the recipient to want to look them up and learn about them, you've got to give that recipient a location to go learn from and let them do their own studying and research before they decide to engage. So I've really doubled down on the social selling aspect and really making sure that the BDRs are branding themselves better.
Aaron Ross (06:29):
Do a lot of the younger BDRs have LinkedIn profiles usually or not?
Ralph Barsi (06:34):
They all do. They all do in my organization.
Aaron Ross (06:35):
Okay.
Ralph Barsi (06:37):
But there's a lot of younger BDRs in the industry that while they have a LinkedIn profile, they're certainly not optimizing it. There's still a lot of cases where you see a silhouette as the profile pic.
Aaron Ross (06:49):
Or there's like a party picture.
Ralph Barsi (06:51):
Yeah, exactly. That just doesn't help.
Aaron Ross (06:53):
Yeah. Okay. Actually speaking about young BDRs, one of the questions people constantly ask and are struggling with are expectations and motivations slash promotions. So actually Mark, I think you wanted, this is one of your main points.
Mark Roberge (07:09):
We had a lot of success with this. We were banging our head, I would interview these 22, 23-year-old BDRs and what do you want to be doing in a year? I don't even know. They're just, there's this so different perception on time and that got a light bulb going. One of our great sales directors. So what we did was we created a six tier promotion path. They went through six levels and to get through each level, one of the requirements was not tenure, it was not three months, it was like...
Aaron Ross (07:48):
None of it was time-based.
Mark Roberge (07:49):
Level one was like pass this test, set five appointments and get one customer. Then you go to level two. Level two have an install base of like 30,000 MRR and a churn rate less than 2%. Level three, you can keep going on these things you could not get through in a week. They weren't set up so that it was going to take somewhere between two and four months, but it's really up to them on how fast. And there was always that carrot that was like once they got to level two, there was that thing that was out there and the rewards were meaningful. Like options, a 5,000 bump in your base, you can work at home one day a week. At level four, you are now qualified to go into account executive training. And that worked so well to turn this really hard job of cold calling all day for nine to 18 months into something that felt like you were continually making progress. So that was a home run for us and I think worked very well for this type of...
Aaron Ross (08:44):
So it was like six sort of tiers in the first X, four to six months to get them rolling. And then after that, was there anything else or more, is it more of a promotion?
Mark Roberge (08:54):
Basically were, honestly, because the fastest ones got through in seven or eight months and some of them it took two years and it was really cool to have the person that got through in seven months be there on the first day of BDR training and say, Hey listen, this is what I did. And I got through and they were like that rockstar that everyone wanted to be. And you kind of controlled your destiny. It worked really well.
Aaron Ross (09:15):
Lauren or Ralph, do you have anything else you want to add about motivation?
Lauren McGuire (09:18):
Yeah, so I think it's hard. You have to walk the fine balance between what you've committed pipeline wise to the business. And if you move someone too close to that six month mark, you might not get it. And that's not sexy for them. Your reps don't care about that. So you're trying to walk that balance and still move them in that reasonable timeframe. So I really like what Mark was saying, kind of setting these goals that you can maybe achieve in 12 months in six months or whatever it may be.
Ralph Barsi (09:42):
Oh, sorry. I was going to say I definitely start with a macro perspective and I'd show them a statistic that if you make $40,000 today in the United States, you're among the 3.5% wealthiest people in the world and you're 52 times wealthier than a billion people. So that gets the BDR to start developing an attitude of gratitude that you've got it made already. And also find a personal trigger, whether that's people or places that you want to aspire to achieve in your career. And that alone will pull you through that day-to-day grind.
Aaron Ross (10:16):
Yeah. So actually quick question on day-to-day motivation, because it can be not only whether you call it a hard job or it can also be a rote routine job. Once you've got your system down, you're at it for three months or four months. All right, I'm doing this. At Salesforce, we probably kept them about eight months before we had to promote them, but sometimes you have them in the job for two years. So do you see things that you have done to help them enjoy the day-to-day job more, or at least bring more learning or creativity to it to help shake it up, to help balance out the goal setting?
Lauren McGuire (10:49):
So for us, I think we have to kind of position our roles as building the foundation to be an amazing account executive. And I think when you do have this elevation or promotion path that you tell, look at that person. They're an enterprise account executive, they learned A, B, C in this role. So I think it's super important to kind of paint the vision as far as your skillset. You're building this foundation and that's why making 40 calls or whatever amount of minutes...
Aaron Ross (11:13):
Value is super important. Value of the skills...
Lauren McGuire (11:15):
You have to tie it back.
Aaron Ross (11:16):
Because it's a life skill to learn how to do this.
Lauren McGuire (11:18):
Exactly.
Mark Roberge (11:20):
Yeah. I mean I've seen some amazing cultures. The best one I've seen is probably Yelp. I went to their New York office. Jed, their CRO, we've had a dialogue for a number of years, we're just hanging out having some coffee downstairs. And he was like, yeah, let's go up, check out the office. It's a frigging dance club. I mean, it's like you walk in the music's blaring, there's tables of 20 BDRs. Each table is a start class. That's the September class, that's the October class, that's November class. On the pillars, there's huge life-size paintings of the BDR of the month on the wall. Then the bell rings and someone stands on the stage and someone goes up to the second floor and there's dollar bills floating down. I mean...
Aaron Ross (12:01):
It's like, sorry, where was this?
Mark Roberge (12:03):
Yeah, it was Yelp in New York. If you have a chance to, I've seen ones like this. I mean you can picture this, it's like you can get very creative in the culture. It's super fun for them to show up to work.
Aaron Ross (12:13):
Although after six months of that...
Mark Roberge (12:16):
Burnout.
Aaron Ross (12:16):
Everyone gets tired of, you could live at the...
Mark Roberge (12:19):
Maybe I think it worked pretty well for them, but yeah, maybe they do get burnt out. But you've seen these environments are just a lot of fun. You can get creative with that.
Ralph Barsi (12:28):
So while most of the BDRs end up pursuing a sales career, there's a lot that don't. So we want to make it very clear that there's a multitude of paths that they can take and the ones who are doing the best work ultimately become indispensable to the organization. So we will move obstacles out of the way to get them in a place where they're truly going to shine. And that could be as a customer success manager, it could be in the finance team. It doesn't have to be in sales. So we do follow along kind of a two year tenure. And at that one year mark, we actually have a come to Jesus meeting and we talk about the first year and we reflect on where their successes have been and then they decide whether or not they want to throw their hat in the ring and really pursue sales. And then it'll be a two-way street and we'll help get them there. Or we have a deeper discussion about the other options that are in the organization. And this again assumes that they're an A player and they're adding value.
Aaron Ross (13:23):
Yep. Okay. Sort of switching topics here. First part of the question, how big is your team? But then how do you juggle life and work yourself? Obviously appropriate question here.
Lauren McGuire (13:39):
Wow.
Aaron Ross (13:39):
And the second part's going to be, what do you expect or tell your team to do on their own? Do they work a lot or you tell them to take time off or you tell them not to or there's no right answer. I'm just curious because everyone's a bit different here.
Ralph Barsi (13:52):
For me personally, so my organization is 130 people around the world...
Aaron Ross (13:57):
Around the world, right.
Ralph Barsi (13:58):
Around the world. A hundred of them are BDRs, the other 30 are directors and managers. For me personally, I see this as more of a vocation versus a career. So the life work balance, it's all one to me. I have a wife of 20 years and we have three boys. So there's definitely, you have to straddle between the two roles on a 24/7 basis. But when you live by the philosophy one team, one mission and at work they know what you're getting after and at home they know what you're getting after, the synergy is there and it's pretty easy to do.
Mark Roberge (14:38):
Yeah, I mean I have a lot of time these days. I mean it's kind of busy during the semester, but not very busy, so I have a lot of time to be a good dad and a good husband and a good church member and a good community member, which has been a blast. More from the HubSpot days, I put a lot of effort into time management. I would every month have this list of three critical things that I need to make happen. And I'd check in that list after every week to see if I'm aligned with it. And then I would just probably every Sunday night, just lay out the entire week schedule, make sure everything's aligned. And I usually left the office at four on Wednesdays and Fridays. The other days, I usually didn't get home before the kids were in bed, but Wednesdays and Fridays were my days to get home, chill, do the baths and do dinner and that kind of stuff. And I never worked on the weekend except after they went to bed. So I'd do a lot of, they'd all crash at nine and then I'd do another three hours there. So it's rigorous. You got folks going through this stuff, it's rigorous, but you got to find that balance for the long-term view. And I put a lot of time in that time management.
Lauren McGuire (15:49):
Yeah, I mean I echo a lot of what they're saying, but I put a stop at the end of the day, I take the train. So we have to work around...
Aaron Ross (15:56):
How old, this is your second, how old's your first?
Lauren McGuire (15:57):
She's two.
Aaron Ross (15:58):
Two.
Lauren McGuire (15:59):
Yes. And I have a husband that travels 300 days of the year. So...
Aaron Ross (16:01):
300?
Lauren McGuire (16:02):
Yes, 300. Google Calendar is our best friend for managing that. But yeah, we make it work. You go home and you're home, you're present, you're a family member and when they go to bed you get back online and kind of fix up whatever you need to. But even if you talk about the reps, and I don't know how your orgs are structured, but ours are hourly and we have to remind them go home.
Aaron Ross (16:24):
And...
Lauren McGuire (16:25):
Because they're quota based, they want to keep working. And so yeah, I definitely encourage my reps to go take vacations and sometimes it's just a day off, just go take a mental break. Everyone needs it, not just us.
Aaron Ross (16:39):
So we have a little bit of time left. I want to point out, so Ralph shared a couple tools and maybe in the back you can put up the screen. Cool. So one's your reading lists of favorite books. I noticed there's a key one missing, but another one...
Ralph Barsi (16:55):
Well it's on there.
Aaron Ross (16:56):
No, the other one.
Ralph Barsi (16:57):
Oh, the other one, yeah, it's not there yet.
Aaron Ross (16:59):
But the other one...
Ralph Barsi (16:59):
I haven't read it yet.
Aaron Ross (17:00):
Is an SDR bookends.
Ralph Barsi (17:03):
So...
Aaron Ross (17:03):
I don't know if you can scroll down a little bit to see the picture.
Ralph Barsi (17:05):
Yep.
Aaron Ross (17:06):
So you can grab this. This is on my Twitter. I put it, it's Moto_CEO on Twitter. This picture, what is this?
Ralph Barsi (17:12):
Yeah, so it's a time management tool that I call the bookends approach. And a lot of BDRs in my organizations have used this where they use Monday and Friday as the bookends or the caps of the week where they do a lot of admin work, internal meetings. But then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is solely dedicated to inbound lead follow-up or outbound prospecting. And the entire organization knows that and will not book meetings with the BDRs because they have blinders on and they're getting after it on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Cool.
Aaron Ross (17:42):
So you can download that from, and also I posted Mark has a bottoms up sales and marketing template. Either it's below or above this. Anyway, you can download the Excel sheet and this is...
Mark Roberge (17:57):
Yeah, so I wrote a pretty lengthy article on Medium. If you Google my name Mark Roberge Medium this summer. One of the things was there's so many numbers are missed because of bad planning. And this Excel allows you to input how many reps you're going to hire a month, what the ramp is, what the attrition's going to be, your manager to rep ratio. The demand of either appointments from BDRs or meetings or leads from inbound is matching up to hit the numbers. It's just a really nice checking point for you. You can play with that just to make sure as you're planning for the year, the quarter, all that stuff's aligned.
Aaron Ross (18:31):
So finding that, there's a link to it here. And last things we wrap up, I will share that there's now finally after a year, the audio book from Impossible to Inevitable came out. Thank God. If you didn't know that Jason Lemkin and I wrote a book, it's out there. And finally, audio took forever. Hey, I want to thank you all Ralph, Mark and Lauren for your panel and then we'll be back here in a few minutes with the next panel, which is on building your first outbound team.
Ralph Barsi (18:59):
Thanks Aaron. Thanks everybody. Take care.