Sales as industry and profession continues to evolve and grow. More formal education, greater role-based focus and specialized leadership for support. For example, as technology grows to play a larger role in a rep’s success, Sales Enablement was introduced. In fact there is a whole society of them, we would not want to confuse them with those Sales Operation types. All this makes one wonder why we do not have specialized leaders for one of the most critical elements of sales success, prospecting?
You can get anyone in the trade to recites the old adage, “nothing happens until someone sells something,” overlooking the inconvenient truth that no one sells anything until someone is prospected. Yet we continue to treat this skill and function as sale’s redheaded stepchild.
To be clear; this is not a tiresome outbound vs. inbound, let the usual suspects duke that out. With few exceptions, new business in the form of new prospects continues to be at the top of the list of “the things I would improve” for most VP’s of Sales. I’d like to explore how we support prospecting as much as we do other sales skills and functions to move closer to achieving that goal.
One of the opportunities that come from disintermediating sales, or as some say, “we have specialist roles,” would be to elevate the quality of prospecting. This would have tremendous benefits for individuals, and the company as well. Gain in time and resources achieved by better prospecting can be reinvested into improving the rest of the sales cycle. In case it was glossed over earlier, no “rest of cycle” without a prospect.
I recently met with a VP of sales and their Enablement Manager, they shared their desire for their reps to be skilled across the whole cycle. But when we looked at the core training, it was heavily skewed towards Discovery and beyond, prospecting was an appendage. They did highlight that most of their AE’s were home grown, coming from the SDR ranks. What was even more revealing was their recruitment and intake.
Right out of the gate, the message these new recruits get is “do the SDR thing, once you are ready, you can become an AE.” And the only training they take in is the Discovery training, because “I’ll be outta here soon.” I have seen SDR’s promised a promotion to within six months, one even marked on his calendar. When I asked why he marked it, he said if he is not “paroled’ by then, he’ll shop his vast experience to a new employer.
One SDR I trained, capable person, first job, two months in the seat, dealing with the usual issues. Five months later he jumped to another company, to Supervise their newly formed SDR team. Which explains the desire to promote rather than lose someone with potential. It also explains why the average “tenure for SDRs is 14.2 months, with over 85% of SDRs staying in the role for less than 18 months;”* with nearly half exiting the role before 12 months. How ready are they to “solve” buyer’s issues, to provide a real “solution”, to represent your company?
A Prospecting Manager would make a clear statement to recruits, while also ensuring that they have the skills and support to help them contribute more and directly to the top and bottom line. A manager would enable new recruits to understand the realities and opportunities in prospecting. I realize many don’t set out to have a career dominated by rejection, but it is truly contextual, having a manager would ensure that the context is in place. Many reps I train have a 30%+ conversion rate, making them superstars if they were on a baseball team. I suspect a 30%+ conversion rate would make them a superstar on your team, if you had a Prospecting Manager.
Prospectors need to be led, when was the last time you heard a candidate say they want to be a career SDR, or prospect the rest of their sales career? I have reps with five years’ experience tell me they “have earned the right not to prospect.” (many make the choice much earlier). A prospecting manager would change that; a sales manager should, but often don’t due to a sever fear of vacancies.
Many people who supervise prospectors lack the depth and experience to actually do the job, how will they inspire and develop their teams when they have no grounding? Given the transient nature, it seems many are babysitting, sorry, supervising the cohort till they exit, or they get their own promotion out. How many cohorts do most supervisors survive? The absence of tribal knowledge and experience leads to what would be an avoidable problem with a Prospecting Manager in place. This may not seem obvious now while the band is playing, but it will when the economy slows or takes a breather; remember the panic, deferred decisions and temporarily frozen budgets when the market had a fright in January.
Like our prospects, many find it hard to change when things look good, “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?” However, the best time to implement meaningful changes is when things are at the “Top”. When things reverse, people either don’t make decisions, or make panicked ones. It would be simple to shape and introduce the role now, and realize the benefits now, and when the slow down occurs. But I suspect the lack of deep tribal knowledge is preventing many from making the move.