🎙️Transcript: How the Best SDR Teams Maintain High Standards
Tenbound - The Sales Development Conference
"How the Best SDR Teams Maintain High Standards"
Ralph Barsi (Tray)
November 5, 2021
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Summary
Ralph Barsi, a 27-year sales veteran who led ServiceNow's global sales development organization from 75 to 230 SDRs, delivers a passionate keynote on the critical importance of maintaining high standards in sales development.
Opening with the sobering statistic that there are nearly 50,000 SDR job openings on LinkedIn with nearly identical job descriptions, Barsi argues that the profession risks becoming "watered down" through volume and lack of differentiation.
He challenges both companies and candidates to "level up" and represent the profession with excellence, emphasizing that sales development serves a dual purpose: driving revenue pipelines and developing talent pipelines for organizations.
The talk weaves together examples from hospitality (Ritz-Carlton), military (US Marine Corps), and technology (ServiceNow, Tray.io, Loopio) to illustrate what world-class standards look like in practice.
The presentation culminates in Barsi's Four P's assessment framework (Performance, Proficiency, Process, and Professionalism) that he implemented at ServiceNow and continues to use at Tray.io, where SDRs receive monthly evaluations rather than annual reviews.
This systematic approach to maintaining standards includes practical elements like requiring SDRs to present certification learnings to their teams, maintaining impeccable CRM hygiene, and sharing successful talk tracks with teammates.
Throughout the talk, Barsi emphasizes the human element - from sending handwritten thank-you notes to caring genuinely about prospects' problems - arguing that "it's a race to become more human" and that doing things that don't scale is what moves the needle.
The presentation concludes with powerful Q&A insights about accelerating SDR development timelines and identifying candidates who will thrive in high-standards environments.
BIG Takeaways
• The 50,000 Job Problem Demands Differentiation Through Standards – With nearly 50,000 identical SDR job postings on LinkedIn, Barsi applies Boyle's Law (more volume equals less pressure) to illustrate how the profession risks dilution.
When candidates can "just shoot some resumes out" and companies post cookie-cutter job descriptions, the entire profession gets watered down. The solution requires both sides to step up: companies must show well-lit career paths, celebrate rather than tolerate SDRs, prioritize mental health check-ins, and discuss compensation transparently.
Candidates must prepare thoroughly, send thank-you notes (which Barsi notes most don't do anymore), establish conversation flow at every level, and actually care about what they're doing. This mutual commitment to excellence is what separates world-class organizations from the masses.
• "Ladies and Gentlemen Serving Ladies and Gentlemen" Sets the Professional Tone – The Ritz-Carlton's motto fundamentally transforms how SDRs should view themselves and their role. When you carry yourself as a professional serving other professionals, you develop swagger balanced with humility.
Barsi emphasizes that SDRs are often "the tip of the spear" - the first conversation prospects have with your company. They must be empowered to delight customers from the outset, like Ritz-Carlton staff offering champagne to guests waiting in line.
This service mentality includes being responsive to both expressed and unexpressed needs (reading the room's energy), building relationships for life (long-tail mindset that "it's just a matter of time before our companies work together"), and continuously seeking opportunities to innovate the customer experience.
• The Four P's Framework Provides Monthly Accountability, Not Annual Surprises – Barsi's assessment system evaluates SDRs monthly on Performance (hitting numbers and activity levels), Proficiency (product knowledge and certifications), Process (CRM hygiene and following procedures), and Professionalism (leadership, coachability, teamwork).
SDRs first complete self-assessments, then reconcile with their manager's evaluation, creating ongoing dialogue rather than year-end surprises. This framework quantifies development - for example, an SDR might say "I was scoring 2.6 in proficiency for my first six months, but here's how I improved."
The monthly cadence ensures continuous improvement and clear documentation for promotion decisions. It also identifies A-players quickly through their willingness to share successful talk tracks and host brown bags for teammates.
• 24 Months Is the Right Tenure, But Can Be Accelerated Through Rigor – While many SDR candidates' "jaws drop" at a two-year tenure, Barsi argues this is the finite time needed to develop essential skills that never stop mattering: networking, prospecting, writing well, speaking well, articulating messages concisely.
When Terry Sain asks about compressing development from 24 to 12 months during hypergrowth, Barsi's solution is to "infuse rigor": more frequent but shorter one-on-ones, weekly team calls, requiring SDRs to present 30-minute lessons from certification modules, and treating them as if they're already a role ahead.
This approach quickly filters out who's serious while accelerating development. The key mindset shift: SDRs must hear "let's make sure we're hearing from you more often than you're hearing from us" - expecting rather than hoping for success.
• Invert the Org Chart to Serve Up, Not Down – Barsi's leadership philosophy places him at the bottom of the organizational chart, serving up into the organization rather than down. This servant leadership approach encourages SDRs to escalate problems - but with two conditions: bring two well-thought-out solutions to every problem you raise.
This requirement develops critical thinking while ensuring leaders aren't just handed problems to solve. When SDRs come prepared with "Choice A or Choice B, what do you think?" 99% of the time the leader can quickly say "B, great work, we'll implement next week."
This approach develops future leaders while maintaining momentum. Leaders' primary job becomes removing obstacles from reps' paths so they can achieve their personal and professional goals.
• Details Matter in Every Interaction - From Email Copy to Interview Questions – Barsi challenges teams to scrutinize the actual copy in their email sequences and cadences, asking: "Does this represent me, my company, our offering, and our customers with the highest standards?"
He criticizes lazy CRM notes like "f/u with prospect" instead of clear documentation: "Following up with prospect Tuesday, 12 o'clock. This is the one hurdle we need to overcome." Like a medical chart, anyone should be able to read the notes and know exactly what to discuss and when.
Even interview practices need elevation - stop asking "Is it a good time?" (which invites rejection) and instead print out lists of thoughtful conversation starters. Every detail compounds to either elevate or diminish the profession's standards.
• Hire for Personal Purpose, Not Just Professional Skills – When evaluating SDR candidates, Barsi's key questions probe beyond experience: "What's important to you when considering a new employer?" and "What purpose is keeping you up at night?"
Understanding whether someone is caring for ailing parents, saving for a home, planning to start a company, or pursuing other dreams helps leaders determine fit and provide appropriate support. He also observes how candidates "show up" - their energy, disposition, and ability to shift the room's dynamic.
This human-centric hiring approach, combined with expecting basic courtesies like thank-you notes and strong conversation flow, identifies candidates who will thrive in high-standards environments. The goal is finding people who are "pulled toward their goals" rather than pushed, creating sustainable motivation and authentic care for the work.
Transcript
Ralph Barsi (00:05):
Today we're going to talk about high standards. Who cares? What's so important about standards? Well, if you think about standards just in general, they help us use metrics, use guidelines to evaluate performance. They help make components connect to other components that are made by different companies and streamline business processes and workflows.
They protect the buyers. Buyers aren't going to buy anything if it's not from a trusted brand or product, if there's no reliability or sustainability or equity - they're just not going to buy, they're going to walk away. So standards are really important.
And then how does that translate to sales development? Well, sales development has a twofold objective. We drive a revenue pipeline for our organizations and we drive a people or a talent pipeline for our organizations. And if we're not doing those two things properly and with a repeated motion, then that compromises our brand, the loyalty of our customers, partners, prospects, and even candidates.
Ralph Barsi (01:22):
So speaking of candidates, I did a search on LinkedIn just last week in preparing this deck. I just typed in "sales development rep" under jobs and it's close to 50,000 jobs available right now for sales development reps. So I immediately leaned to the bright side and the optimistic side of this, and I think it's a great validation of sales development as a business function.
It's clearly a critical business function for businesses to thrive, and the spotlight is on us in a big way. We've got thousands and thousands of companies that are looking for top talent, looking to drive their sales development engine and the revenue pipeline, and we've got millions of candidates out there who are all vying for a spot in a company as a sales development rep. I mean, that's all good stuff.
What's not so good is that as I go through these available jobs, all the job descriptions are the same. I mean, I think I looked at 50 to 60 different job descriptions, and some of them have the exact same language in them.
Ralph Barsi (02:23):
And so I think if we consider mathematics and physics, you consider Boyle's Law. Boyle's Law talks about the more volume there is, the less pressure there is, and it relates to gas particles in a container. But I think the same applies to sales development.
If we've got all this volume available now - open sales development rep roles - like, sure, I'll just shoot some resumes out, have a couple conversations, hopefully I'll get where I need to go, and the whole process and the whole profession frankly gets a little bit watered down.
So now I've been in this business for 27 years, and I think we need to represent. I think we need to represent ourselves and our teams and our companies and the profession at large - everybody in this room - with very high standards. I'm not down with watered-down processes. I think we just heard in the last panel, Patrick said actually it's a race to become more human. So the more human you can become, the more authentic you can become, and the more you do things that do not scale is what's going to move the needle for you, and it's what's going to move the needle for these companies and our profession.
Ralph Barsi (03:49):
So I think the responsibility and the obligation lies on both sides of the fence. I really think it's up to both the companies as well as the candidates to step things up and to level up. Companies, before they put their bat signal in the sky looking to attract top talent, have to consider a couple things as a company and have to make a decision as a company that they want to be world-class and they want to level up their game and represent well.
So these are just a few characteristics on this slide and traits that they need to be considering. Got to show a well-lit career path. Sales development reps are in that role an average of anywhere from 12 to 24 months, and for those companies that offer the role a tenure of about 24 months, a lot of the SDR candidates, their jaws drop. "In 24 months? You want me in this role for two years?"
Ralph Barsi (04:46):
Frankly, yes, because that's a very finite amount of time for the company to develop the skills and competencies along with you that you're going to need to be productive and be successful in your subsequent roles. Anybody in this room who has gone on from sales development to lead a team or run their own business knows that networking never stops, prospecting never stops.
You've got to write well, you've got to speak well. You need to articulate your message succinctly, concisely, clearly so that you can earn business, earn the relationship, earn a few more minutes on the phone. And so that takes time to teach people who are coming in with not much experience in sales development.
And so you must show a well-lit career path and what that career path is composed of to get top talent excited to be at your company. You have to celebrate them, not tolerate them.
Ralph Barsi (05:42):
I want to go where I'm celebrated. I like the spotlight. I like people talking about me - and in a good way - and putting me in a bright light. And I like learning from people and meeting more and more people in my workplace, and I like to celebrate others. I like to recognize great work that's being done on my team.
I love alumni from my team that learned while they were with me and then they went on to pay it forward to make an even greater impact in our community and in our profession because of a lot of the things that they learned while they were on my team.
Ralph Barsi (06:17):
A lot of us are at home right now watching this talk and listening to this conference. We've been going through quite a bit over the last year and a half, haven't we? Mental health is a hot topic. I just spoke about it a week or two ago for AAISP's Silicon Valley chapter, and a lot of people are feeling pretty beat up right now.
So it's imperative that the leaders in the room are mindful that your reps are going through this stuff and just check in on them. Again, the human interaction of one-to-one. Ask them how their day went, ask them how their week's going, how they're going to do this quarter, what it is you could do to help them. But make sure that you're clear and firm that it is a two-way street. You require the same from them as well - helping their teammates out, for example.
Ralph Barsi (07:02):
Pay for performance - it's really important. Compensation is not one that's talked about much in the job descriptions and it's not really talked about too much in the interview process until the very end. Start talking about it. Start talking about team attainment, who's doing well on the team, why they're doing well on the team. And that's going to create stories and dialogue from the candidates that you're interviewing about the good things that they've seen along the path to this interview. And they might be able to share stories in kind that are going to put them in a really good light and get them on your team and start producing.
Then there's the candidates. You've got to prepare. Well, we talked about the 50,000 jobs. We talked about shooting your resume everywhere. Gone are the days - at least in my experience, and it breaks my heart - where a majority of the candidates actually send a thank you.
Ralph Barsi (07:49):
They don't send a thank you email. They don't bust out a blank thank you card, which costs a couple bucks at Target, and scribble out a very nice thank you message for considering them as a candidate. "They're looking forward to the next steps. It's been an honor and privilege to meet all the people in the process. We hope we've imparted some wisdom and value in our dialogue." Just little stuff like that - you're just not seeing anymore, at least not at scale and not from the majority.
Establishing conversation flow - they're fumbling over their words on their interview calls, whether it's online or in person. That's the role. You have to establish conversation flow with every level of the organization. You should be able to bump elbows with a CEO or a fellow SDR in an elevator or at a bar or something and immediately be able to articulate the value prop of your company or ask great engaging questions just to get to know them on a personal level. But the root of it is you've got to establish conversation flow or it's going to be a steep climb.
Ralph Barsi (08:48):
Following up and following through - we leaders don't even do this well. At least the majority of us don't. We say we're going to do something and we do something else. That can't happen. Somebody who is a leader that considers themselves somebody carrying themselves with high standards - what you say you do is what you've got to do.
Don't get the team all fired up and then don't deliver that new comp plan or don't do the sales kickoff or don't do President's Club if that's what you've been telling everybody. Your credibility and rapport is so precious and it will go right out the window if you're not following up and following through.
Asking thoughtful questions - we get prospects on the phone and the first thing we ask is, "Hey, is it a good time?" No, it's not a good time. Now you're screwed. Now you've got to reach in the back pocket and you've only got maybe a question and a half to go before you're done.
Ralph Barsi (09:36):
So ask thoughtful questions, and if you don't have them at the top of your head, join the party. How about printing out a list of conversation starters and open-ended questions and having them right in front of you so that you're ready to rock and roll when they pick up that phone or when they get on that Zoom call?
And actually care. Again, I'll call out Patrick again on the last panel discussion where he talked about it's a race to become more human. You actually got to care about what you're doing. You've got to actually care about the team you're representing and the offering that you're giving to the marketplace, and you actually have to care about the problems that your prospects are trying to solve. People have finely tuned BS meters and they will know whether or not you actually care.
Ralph Barsi (10:23):
Okay, Brian Tracy - famous author, business leader, speaker - has a great quote and it is: "Decide today to be very successful in everything you do." And the key word in that quote is "decide." If you don't decide personally that you're going to do really well at the company that you're at or that you're going to think and face outward, you're going to think about others versus yourself - it's going to be a tough go for everybody. It's going to be a win-lose situation.
So once you've joined forces as a company and as a candidate, you have to commit to excellence and you have to decide together. So what I want to talk to you about in the next few minutes - we don't have much time today - are three key things that the best SDR teams are doing out there today to maintain these high standards.
And some of the things I'm going to talk about, you might sit there and go, "Yeah, I've heard this. I know this." Well, instead, I want you to ask yourself, "Well, how good am I at this? Or how good are we at this?" Okay, we all know everything, don't we?
Ralph Barsi (11:37):
So make that decision to raise your standards. Represent yourself well, look professional, speak professionally, act professionally. Represent all of us in this room with the highest standards. Make that decision - we're all counting on you.
Actually model the successful teams. Believe me, they are out there. We have resources within us and we have resources around us, and if we start to look for them, they will appear. And I'll talk a little bit about some successful organizations that you can model from right now.
And lastly, you've got to do what you say you're going to do, right? So you have to lead by example. Make sure that when you're sending that next email that you actually paid attention to the words that you put together. We all rely on cadences today. We all rely on sequences today. Get under the hood and look at the copy of those messages that are going out to your marketplace and make sure that you're answering these types of questions.
Ralph Barsi (12:38):
Does this copy in this email represent me and represent my company and represent our offering and our other customers with the highest standards in the way we want to be represented? All of it counts. Pay attention to those details.
So we'll take a look at some successful industries and some successful teams that we could model. Again, if you search for them, they will appear. It's just like if you want to see somebody in a red shirt, your brain will find that person in red as fast as possible because you're focused on it. The same applies to these successful teams that are out there.
These are just a few. There's a gazillion of them. These are some that came to my mind. I thought first about the hospitality industry. Of course, we have the Hyatt Regency. We also have Four Seasons. We also have the Ritz-Carlton.
Ralph Barsi (13:29):
Their leaders and leadership teams came together along with all the employees, and they came up with great values, great mottos, great missions, great principles that they all walk around with in little handheld cards so that they're constantly present with the representation that they all agreed upon at a sales kickoff call or at a sales kickoff conference, for example.
Then there's the US military, the Special Operations Forces. You have the Army Rangers, you have the Navy SEALs, you have the United States Marine Corps. We'll share a little example from the United States Marine Corps on how they represent with high standards.
And then there's the business world. Of course, there's those Fortune 50. There's some incredible companies that are here in this room and outside as sponsors. These are three companies that I personally have represented in my career. I used to lead the global sales development organization at ServiceNow.
Ralph Barsi (14:28):
I did it for just under four years. When I started in Q4 of 2015, there were 75 SDRs in eight offices across the globe. When I finished in 2019, there were 230 SDRs in 15 offices across the globe. So I've had this type of talk with a large group of sales development reps who have gone on to really represent themselves well, get promoted from within, and go on to lead teams, sell the offering in the field as an individual contributor, et cetera. But they've gone on leading by example and representing themselves and their time with me and my leaders very, very well.
Then there's Tray.io. We're here in San Francisco. It's where I work today. We're constantly instilling these types of values and principles. And Loopio is another example that I came up with - a company that I advise in Toronto - and they have an incredible list of values and a mission that really pulls people towards their goal versus pushes them towards their goal. So these are three that came to mind when I was thinking about our own industry.
Ralph Barsi (15:28):
So we'll start with the Ritz-Carlton. The Ritz-Carlton came up with these incredible service values. I'll read some of them to you. It's tight text here on the slide, and I want to make sure you get some of the key punch points of their service values.
Now, mind you, this is an index card. It's maybe this big, a little bit bigger than an index card. It folds up threefold or fourfold, and people can keep it in their lapel pocket or on their person so that they're constantly tethered to the service values when they're working.
First and foremost, their motto is: "We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen." Now, if you go back to what I said earlier, I dress professionally. I'm proud of it. I'm proud of my professional language. I'm proud of my professional approach to our industry.
Ralph Barsi (16:19):
When you say those things, you act as if. So if you walk around feeling and thinking that you are a lady or a gentleman serving ladies and gentlemen, you're going to carry yourself differently. You're going to have a little bit of swagger and a little bit of confidence, but you're also going to have a lot of humility. You're going to be humble and modest as you approach people when you're in a service business. And I hate to break it to everybody in this room, but we're in a service business.
So a couple of things I want to call out from Ritz-Carlton. Number one: "I build strong relationships and I create Ritz-Carlton guests for life." Oftentimes sales development reps have a finite amount of time to make an impression, build rapport, establish credibility on the phone or in person. But if they approach it with the mindset of "it's just a matter of time before our companies start working together," now they've got that long-tail mindset. And they feel like when that time comes, you're going to know who I am. You're going to remember the experience you had in our initial conversations, and our company's going to have a seat at the table while your company discerns how they want to move forward in solving the problem that we can solve.
Ralph Barsi (17:38):
Number two: "I am always responsive to the expressed and unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests." Unexpressed is the key word in that one. There's that nonverbal communication when you walk into a room and the life has been sucked right out of it - you can feel it versus the opposite. So when it's unexpressed, you have to be mindful and cognizant of that and make sure that you can tailor your presentation, tailor your talk track to the unexpressed wishes in the room.
Third is: "I am empowered to create unique, memorable, and personal experiences for our guests." Empowered. Sales development reps on the phone are oftentimes the tip of the spear and the very first conversation that the marketplace is going to have with your company. It's the first acquaintance that company or that persona is going to have with your brand and with your other customers and with your partner ecosystem.
Ralph Barsi (18:40):
Those sales development reps need to walk chin high. They need to know that they're stepping into some of the toughest conversations that people in the company are going to have to have, and they need to be able to represent well and know that they're empowered to delight customers from the outset.
If you check into a Ritz-Carlton as a guest or a Four Seasons, for example, and you might be second or third in line at the check-in counter, they will walk around the counter and offer you a glass of champagne while you're waiting. I've had the opportunity to do that, and I've said yes when they've offered that. Are you kidding me? Who doesn't want a glass of champagne while they're waiting in line? Suddenly I'm not upset at the line. I'm not upset at how much time I'm sitting here waiting to check into my room.
Ralph Barsi (19:27):
Figuratively, SDRs could be serving those glasses of champagne as well. They can make sure that they're delighting our prospects, our partners, our candidates, and our customers in those initial conversations, if you let them know that they're empowered.
Number five: "I continuously seek opportunities to innovate and improve the Ritz-Carlton experience." So if there are changes you think we need to make as an organization, feel empowered to raise it. As a sales development leader and as a leader in general, personally, I've never seen myself at the top of an org chart. I'm at the bottom of an org chart. I've always inverted that hierarchy so that I can serve up and into the organization instead of down to the organization. That's ridiculous.
So with that mindset and that approach, people will come to me and they'll tell me what they're bothered by. But I have a couple conditions.
Ralph Barsi (20:24):
If you're going to escalate a problem to leadership, have two solutions to that problem that you've thought through, that you've critically approached, that you've sought advice and expertise from others on, so that you can come to the table with "This is the big, big problem. However, this is what I think we might want to do about it. Choice A, choice B - what do you think?"
Ninety-nine percent of the time, the leader's going to say, "B. Great, great work. That's awesome. We'll implement that next week." But if you come to them with none of these solutions, first of all, you're on a long road to becoming a leader yourself, and you're probably going to turn off that leader because you're making them do the work. So have two solutions to every problem before you escalate it, but by all means, raise those problems.
Ralph Barsi (21:16):
I'll spare you from reading the whole card. I'll read a couple others. Number 10 - we've been talking about it all day: "I'm proud of my professional appearance, language, and behavior."
"I protect the privacy and security of our guests, my fellow employees, and the company's confidential information and assets." You have to respect the intellectual property, respect the content, respect the slide decks that are saved in the sales center repository. It's for our company to have an advantage in the marketplace. That's what a capitalistic society does, so you have to respect that and protect it for the company.
Lastly: "I'm responsible for uncompromising levels of cleanliness and creating a safe and accident-free environment." Many of you are being mindful of everybody's health in here wearing masks. Those who aren't probably are vaccinated or had COVID themselves. Either way, even to come into this conference, you had to be mindful of everybody else's safety, health, and wellbeing.
Ralph Barsi (22:15):
That's what leaders do. That's what humans do as well. So good on you and thank you. But let's be ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.
The United States Marine Corps - lots of different special ops organizations in the United States military. They live by codes. They have things written in black and white that are very clear to all feet, all boots on the ground. This is an incredible evaluation assessment, and this is just a snippet from it that informs and defines what the United States Marine Corps calls the "eminently qualified Marine."
So Marines go through rigorous evaluation programs and they're ranked one to five - one being really poor performance, five being outstanding and exceptional. And they're graded on leadership. They're graded on their individual contribution. They're graded on how well they accomplished the mission or sought evaluation performances from others and how they did well in the field. And they're stack-ranked in this Christmas tree-like image of where they are and where they need to improve.
So much of this evaluation form, which I'm sparing you - I'm not going to go through all the details of - but so much of it translates to our sales development teams and our sales teams. We have to make sure to maintain standards that we can show them in black and white what's important to us as an organization so that they can represent.
Ralph Barsi (23:55):
And so with that, it informs this slide about standards of excellence that our team implemented at ServiceNow and standards of excellence that we implement today at my company at Tray. And it goes a little something like this.
You have four P's that you're going to be assessed on every month, and you are going to start by doing a self-assessment. And then you're going to meet with your manager to reconcile how accurate your self-assessment was to how accurate their assessment of you is. And the four P's are: Performance, Proficiency, Process, and Professionalism.
There's a lot of cool stuff about this. You're not waiting a whole year to get an assessment or have this type of discussion with your leader. You're doing it every single month. You have scores from one to five - one poor, five exceptional - being assessed on a monthly basis, quantifying your performance, how well you're doing with process in the organization, how proficient you are in articulating the offering and value prop to the marketplace, and how professional you are.
Ralph Barsi (25:09):
And if you want to break it down, performance is pretty black and white. You either made your number or you didn't. You either did your activity to the levels that we asked you to or you didn't, whether that's email, phone call, social outreach, et cetera. So that's pretty easy to quantify.
Proficiency though is about product knowledge. So if you don't have it yet, invest in a learning platform, create a curriculum that includes modules, and in those modules, your sales development reps and your salespeople get certified - level 101, level 201 - on the different offerings, the different problems, the different case studies, the different use cases. So that they can show you when that 18 to 24 months is up and they're now eligible for promotion, what areas they were deficient in and how they improved them over time.
"Ralph, I was scoring an average of 2.6 for the first six months I was here as I was onboarding and ramping and getting acquainted with our marketplace. But here's what I did to fix everything as it relates to proficiency, and here's what I did as it relates to process."
Ralph Barsi (26:13):
"My Salesforce maintenance or my CRM maintenance is on point. I carve out specific time in my week to simply work on meeting records, meeting notes, account records, contact records so that everything is buttoned up and dialed in. If anybody in the organization looks at what the next steps are in this opportunity, it's very clear."
It doesn't say "f/u with prospect" and f/u means something else to me than it does to a lot of people. So just write out: "Following up with prospect Tuesday, 12 o'clock. This is the one hurdle that we're going to have to overcome in this next call." That way, like a medical chart, the doctor who's going to prescribe what you have diagnosed can take one look at those notes and go, "I know exactly what we need to talk about, and I know exactly when I'm going to introduce it in the call."
An SDR who's kind of half-assing this isn't going to go far, and neither is the organization. So you can see the systemic impact that this great work can have or this crummy work can have on everybody involved.
Ralph Barsi (27:13):
Professionalism - leadership, coachability, teamwork. Let's say you're an A-player on the team. What good work are you sharing with your teammates who aren't A-players? Are you hosting brown bags where you're talking about, "Hey, this talk track has really been working for me over the last quarter. I thought I would share how I'm opening up conversations, what my initial questions are, how I'm closing things out, how I'm passing the baton to the AE"?
Or are you keeping it close to the vest and not sharing it with your peers? Because A-players in my eyes are going to be sharing what's up with the team so that the entire team can win. There's a big difference between being on a team and being a team. So let's act like we are a team, and that's what that means.
Ralph Barsi (28:16):
So with just a few minutes left, if your team is not doing this, when will they decide to raise their standards? When will you decide to raise your standards? What successful teams will you decide to model? And how will you lead by example? Are you doing well at all of this today? If you are, I can't wait to meet you after this talk. But if you've got some work to do, join the party. We all have to constantly work on improving.
So my name's Ralph Barsi. As I said, I've been doing this for about 27 years. I had a full head of hair when this started. This is what happens when you're in sales for almost 30 years. You can reach me on LinkedIn. If you have a question that we don't get to today, tweet it to me at @rbarsi. Check out my blog, ralphbarsi.com, and subscribe.
Ralph Barsi (29:03):
If you want to get maybe four emails from me in the course of a year - I'm not going to blast your inbox. And when I do, it will hopefully impart some wisdom and value.
Some of the organizations that I represent: I mentioned Tray, I mentioned that I'm a former leader at ServiceNow. I'm an advisor to two different companies - Loopio and HubUP. I was a leader at Achievers, InsideView, Elsevier - some really sweet companies that I learned a lot from. And I've been a mentor at Girls Club because I think we need more women in sales. I mean, let's just look at how this audience is comprised - we need more ladies in here. Also a mentor at Women in Sales.
And I mean to keep it real - I'm a husband, I'm a dad. I've got two boys in college. I've got one who's a junior in high school. And I've been with my college sweetheart since sophomore year of college. So I actually care about what I'm doing and I actually care about your success. So make sure that you represent all of us well when you walk out of this room and carry yourself with high standards. Thanks for having me.
Ralph Barsi (30:18):
Do we have time for questions, Brittany?
Moderator (30:20):
Yeah, let's do one to two questions. Anybody got ones? I'm coming over to you.
Ralph Barsi (30:25):
Hold on. Yes, sir. Name and where you're from first.
Terry Sain (30:30):
So Terry Sain, VP of Sales Development over at Orum.
Ralph Barsi (30:33):
Sweet. How are you, Terry?
Terry Sain (30:35):
Doing good, man. I've had close to 10 years of sales development experience, and one of the things that you - it's been crazy to continue and you mentioned it's always be prospecting. You're always going to use that, especially as an AE. Top AEs are typically top SDRs.
And we're going through a period of extreme hypergrowth, right? So we're going to be going from maybe five SDRs to 25. And I think one of the mandates that we have, and I love your thoughts on this, is we actually need to make them world-class SDRs. But I don't have 24 months to do it. I actually have closer to 12, and so I'm used to having maybe 18 months' time, 24 months. And so how would you approach that problem where you need to do it in half the time?
Ralph Barsi (31:21):
I love it. In fact, I think that's a great approach to expedite things and have a sense of urgency because frankly, it's going to put some pep in everybody's step and you're going to quickly filter out who's serious and who isn't.
So I would just infuse some rigor to everything that I do. So we have a weekly team call. We have a little more frequency in one-on-ones, but it's a smaller amount of time that we meet one-on-one. We expect the SDRs - if they were just onboarded or if they just did a certification program - present to us for 30 minutes what you just learned in that module. Talk to us the way an account executive would.
If 80% of SDRs are aspiring to become account executives, start treating them as if they're already a role or two ahead of where they are today. And you will notice who the A-players are very, very fast.
Ralph Barsi (32:14):
But also the flip side is, hey, we don't have a lot of time here. We've got 12 months. If we're going to get you ramped up, dialed, performing consistently, repeatably, predictably before you can go on to produce in another role - again, you're going to be representing us and our team in this next role. It doesn't matter if you go to customer success, finance, marketing ops - doesn't matter. You're representing your time here as an SDR.
So let's decide to get to work here and let's make sure that we're hearing from you more often than you're hearing from us. A lot of sales development reps hope things work out. They don't expect things to work out. And a lot of SDRs wait - "Well, nobody told me to do that. I didn't know we had to learn this."
Well, how do you think you're going to be successful in this role? How do you think you're going to be seen as an A-player? How do you think you're going to establish the credibility and rapport on these initial calls that we all expect you to? It's by being self-sufficient, by being a leader. It's by actually illustrating what being empowered is all about.
Pick up the mic, talk to the team. Let's get to work. And when you talk, act, and think like that, 12 months is nothing. In fact, that's a long time. So that's a great question, Terry.
Moderator (33:31):
Anybody else? Yay, my buddy in the front. I'm coming back.
Ralph Barsi (33:36):
You got me fired up, by the way. You probably heard it. I get all fired up about that stuff.
Paul Mojica (33:41):
That was a great question. Paul Mojica from Pendo. Question is, so we're talking about establishing excellence inside the organization, and if I'm thinking about the right individuals at the right time, at the right moment - when we're looking at hiring SDRs, what are some questions from your experience that you have asked to help you understand, is this the right candidate to fill in this role given the dynamic of the 46,000 job openings and all the complexity of that tying into it as well?
Ralph Barsi (34:14):
What's important to you when you're considering a new employer? What are you looking for? And I might be able to meet that or exceed it or not, but it's going to be difficult. And if I don't know what it is that they're after...
I also want to know on a personal level, if they're open to sharing with me, what is the purpose that's keeping them up at night? What's driving them? Like I mentioned earlier, what's pulling them towards their goals? Sometimes people are caring for their ailing parents. They're waiting to get married, they want to buy a home, they want to become an investor. They want to start their own company.
The more I know about that, the more I can discern if this is the place for you and if I can help you as a leader - again, being on the bottom of the org chart, because our jobs as leaders is to remove obstacles from the paths of our reps so they can get where they want to go.
Ralph Barsi (35:08):
I don't want to make it a difficult experience. I want it to be an inspiring experience. And so the earlier I can find that out - what's really driving them - the better. And I can tell them if it's not the environment for them or if it is.
And I also keep in mind how they show up. Not just what they're wearing and stuff, but what's their disposition? What's the energy level? It's why I asked that when I got on stage - "What's the energy level today? How's everything going?" Do I have to flip my coin just to get people to shift how they're doing? What is up, what is driving you? And if I can find that out from a candidate, it's a win-win. Everybody's going to have a good conversation. Thanks for that question.