Are Your BDR’s Surviving or Thriving?

Here at 6sense, we are all about pipeline & revenue. With this focus in mind, we’re hyper-passionate about BDRS, Business Development Representatives, and SDRs, Sales Development Representatives.

BDRs are the glue that connects Sales and Marketing. They are the linchpin between where all marketing’s hard work culminates into pipeline. On top of that, BDRs are, in many cases, the first person to talk to a prospect, which means they are the first interaction a prospect has with your brand – and we all know how important first impressions are! Despite how important BDRs are to an organization’s bottom line, only 48% of BDRs are consistently hitting quota, according to TOPO in their latest Sales Development Benchmark Report. More than half of the teams surveyed by TOPO are below 90% quota achievement, with 9% of BDRs below 50% of their quota.

It’s time to ask yourself, are you BDRs thriving or just surviving? And if you are a BDR, do you have the tools you need to succeed?

Since we feel so passionately about BDRs, 6sense conducted our own research to better understand the challenges faced by the role and uncover strategies and tactics that successful sales development organizations are doing. Over 100 BDR/SDR participants were surveyed. For the full report, check out our eBook, BDRs are a BFD.

Our research shows that BDRs are naturally driven, hard-working, competitive people. The majority of them, roughly 74%, feel very or extremely satisfied in their job, but on the flip side, most aren’t making their numbers and there’s high turnover.

6sense Research Found That:

• Nearly half (46%) of BDRs do not know their targeted prospects or if these prospects are in-market.
• More than half (57%) of BDRs receive negative responses when engaging with a prospect.
• Nearly a third of prospects (29%) that BDRs try to engage with aren’t at the right stage in their journey. 20% of prospects “aren’t ready” and 9% have “already purchased a solution.”

Successful BDRs Are: 

• Hungry – If BDRs aren’t hungry and don’t truly want to succeed, then it’s impossible to motivate them.
• Coachable – BDRs who are willing to grow, push hard to get better, listen to others, take things in, and constantly improve are the ones you want on your team.
• Adaptable – Sales is hard. It takes time management, adaptability, strong problem-solving skills, the ability to read your audience, and much more. Not everyone can do it.

But, if BDRs aren’t trained properly and given access to the proper technology, you’re not only missing out on pipeline and revenue, you’re damaging your brand’s reputation and hurting the potential for future business. How do you avoid that and make the most of this valuable role? Here’s how!

Best-in-Class Organizations Ensure BDRs Are Successful:

1. Education – Take the time to learn about the market and product. Certain industries will require a larger amount of industry knowledge and experience (i.e. pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, life sciences, etc).
2. Alignment – Clearly define your In-Market Ideal Customer Profile (IICP) to target account lists for BDRs to pursue. Align on expectations for how BDRs should customize messaging and performing outreach.
3. Value – Motivate BDRs beyond just a paycheck. Build strong internal teams and invest in them and their success at your company.
4. Training – BDRs should understand how to prospect and create their own meetings. Develop live-call execution skills and a detailed touch pattern for BDRs to follow.
5. Technology – Put an end to the guesswork. Give BDRs access to the right technology that provides insight into where buyers are in the journey and the next best step to take, thus increasing productivity.

The bottom line is BDRs need Marketing and Sales leadership to support them. Not only with the right training and education, but with the right target accounts and deeper insights that give them the freedom to focus on their actual job and empower them to do more, faster.

Where Do We Begin?

1. Put an end to the guesswork. Give BDRs full visibility into the dark funnel and power your process 100% by real insights. 6sense’s predictive intelligence engine is the key to success. Have confidence in your data.
2. No more cold calls, ever. Cold calls are a waste of everyone’s time and they erode a BDR’s confidence. That’s not to say BDRs aren’t making calls, just not cold ones. When BDRs do call a prospect, 6sense arms them with specific information about the prospect, their role, what aspect of the business they are most interested in, and where they are in the buying journey.
3. Adopt a modern tech stack. ‘In-market” is the new inbound. There is a critical window of opportunity when an account moves from wanting to learn to wanting to engage, when they become “in-market.” This window gives you a competitive advantage to be the first vendor a prospect engages with. It also allows you to establish a personal connection, hopefully avoiding the dreaded RFP process. 6sense enables BDRs to significantly scale and accelerate our efforts while simultaneously delivering multi-channel, hyper-personalized experiences to the entire buying team for every account.

Given the support and empowered with the right technology, BDRs are enabled to work smarter, not harder. They can confidently prioritize accounts and know how to best interact with buyers throughout their buying journey. 6sense automates and alerts BDRs when prospects are ready to engage or take a meeting, so they know exactly what to say and do when they reach out.

Think BDRs are a BFD? Check out the full ebook and details of the survey on our content hub. Interested in what others have to say? 6sense just launched a private LinkedIn community called the BDR Breakthrough for BDRs and revenue leaders who are looking to learn, grow and be celebrated for the value they bring to an organization. For more information on 6sense and its offerings visit 6sense.com/contact-us/.

About 6sense

6sense’s Account Based Orchestration Platform helps revenue teams compete and win in the age of Account Based Buying by putting the power of AI, big data, and machine learning behind every member of the B2B revenue team, empowering them to uncover anonymous buying behavior, prioritize fragmented data to focus on accounts in-market, and engage resistant buying teams with personalized, multi-channel, multi-touch campaigns. 6sense helps revenue teams know everything they need to know about their buyers so they can easily do anything they need to do to generate more opportunities, increase deal size, get into opportunities sooner, compete, and win more often.