Clip from Episode 11 featuring: Debe Rapson of Demandbase:

Yeah, I look at the things that I need to do to move the needle in my deals. Sometimes that’s following up on stuff that is in process, you know, follow up thank you notes after a meeting with a client or sending case studies or you know, research, white papers, etc.

Sometimes it’s just making a list of folks that I need to follow up with, right, ‘hey tomorrow I’ve really got to check the box here with this 4 companies and make sure that I touch base and that we move the needle.’ Sometimes it’s preparing, I always take a look at my calendar, you know, a little, a day or 2 ahead. Then what do I really need to focus on for tomorrow? Do I have to prepare for a presentation? You know. Do I need to make a list of companies that I wanna attack? Right, that I wanna start going after and really working with and maybe I’ve got to do a little bit of research before Discovery calls the next day etc, so it’s kind of whatever’s on my plate. I’ll take a look at typically every Sunday night I do that for the week ahead and then I do that on a daily basis so, really just so I kinda stay on top of my game and I continue to move the needle forward so, I’m not a naturally organized person so I have to have a discipline around it otherwise I wouldn’t be organized at all.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 11 featuring: Debbie Rapson of Demandbase:

The key is you want to be in control of the decision; you don’t want, things to happen do you. You wanna drive your destiny and although sometimes if it feels like things are happening to us, I think it’s important to realize that, that we actually do get to drive our destiny and the more pro-active you are about it, the better life you’ll lead both professionally and personally.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 11 featuring: Debe Rapson of Demandbase:

I think that what goes through my mind is a complete reassessment when those things happen, and they pretty much, territory doesn’t change every year although some segment of my territory definitely changes every year you know. Maybe its adding accounts or cutting accounts or focusing more on customers, versus prospect. So certainly there is an element of change every year. I really sit down and go right into research mode and put together you know, and evaluate what is my opportunity here. How can I, can I capitalize, can I make the numbers that I want to make, can I make the money that I want to make? Is my situation still ideal and I’ve got you know a list of things like, this is an example, for me working in the office is a non-starter. So if somebody said to me okay now next year we want you to you know come 100% into the office every day. That would a no go decision for me. Making a certain amount of money, you know if I can make over great, if it’s less it’s a no go decision for me. So I’m very clear about what that criteria is and I just go into evaluation mode. Can I do it with what I’m given here and I also don’t hesitate to negotiate whatever it is that’s changing.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 11 featuring: Debe Rapson of Demandbase:

One of the things management did for me, it really helped me to become a better rep. I understood very quickly after that when I decided to go back into sales and carry a bag. I decided it  really gave me some great insight really how to be a better rep. The things that managers think about, you know solving problems for myself and bringing solutions to management etc. So it was really neat. A neat experience.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 11 featuring: Debe Rapson of Demandbase:

That is a great question. I now think it has played a huge role in my success but 20 years ago if you’d ask me that question, id probably would have said I don’t think it matters at all but through the experience that I’ve gotten, and the expertise that you get by staying in 1 industry I think it matters a lot. Not only for the experience that you get in the industry and it really helps you to become an expert, and provide credibility to your customers that you really know your stuff, but the networking factor is absolutely huge. I’ve had customers for the last 10 years that I have been in this industry buy from me 3 or 4 times, because you know they I’m not going to steer them on. I’m always going to be straight up with them and I’m going to make sure that they are well taken care of, and that huge in just getting that repeat in business because our clients move around to other companies, and we move around to other companies but staying in that same industry I think has really benefited me.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 11 featuring: Debe Rapson of Demandbase:

Not long ago I was in a deal with a company that will remain nameless, but they’re a large telecom manufacturing equipment company and we were in a sales cycle, and it was getting very competitive and because I had done so much discovery upfront, I really understood what the client was trying to achieve but my competitor was kind of wooing the client with gifts, and tickets to places and unfortunately the solution that the competitor was offering really and truly didn’t make sense for the client. It wasn’t going to help that person achieve their, you know their goals and it was actually you know probably going to be one of the sticky decisions that sometimes clients make that make them look bad, and we have seen folks get fired over sometimes over those kinds of decisions. So instead of letting it go I decided to just have a heart to heart with the client, and say look whether you decide to move forward with me now, or whether you decide to move forward with demand base later, you know here is what I know  and I kind of took it back to what I had learned in the discovery and provided documentation, on why that competitors solution wasn’t going to meet their needs, and it was a risk right because this person was being wooed and, and I could tell that this person was kind of moving in that direction to go with the decision that wasn’t really going to be good for her or her business. So I kind of stood up and said look, whether you decide now or later you need to know this because at the end of the day we are going to do business at some point in my career, and yours and I want to make sure that I have done all that I can do to steer you in the right direction and to be transparent with you, and the client did a 180 turnaround and thanked me and this person had a pretty big ego. So that was part of the risky stuff of telling this person, hey you are going down the wrong path here right, and did a 180 turnaround and we ended up getting the business, and she told me she really valued me doing that and you know providing the evidence that she needed to really understand why.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 11 featuring: Debe Rapson of Demandbase:

I always try to start in asking general questions that aren’t going to threaten people or make them more uncomfortable right. So I want to ease right into it. So I want to understand a little bit about how their marketing organizations, so I sell marketing technology, so how their organization is structured, what are the different goals that they are looking to achieve in supporting the business? I typically ask broad based questions about their business. What is the company, where are they trying to grow their revenue, what are the key initiatives that the sea-level folks are pushing forward in the incoming year etc.? So starting broad and then narrowing into what are their challenges, and what are their goals and I typically like to ask the same question a little bit differently, maybe 3 or 4 times because when I do I find that I get a different answer and so I typically do that around their challenges, and their pain points and what’s really hurting, what’s really keeping them up at night if you will in a less canned way than that, but I think it’s really valuable to go deep and to ask those questions a little bit different way, because it nudges additional information out of them, and then I like to very often to different areas, probing deeper around some of those pain points and how they support the business, what is going to make them look good, how do they measure their success. Those types of things. My first discovery call is never any less than an hour where I’m just probing and asking questions, and giving a little nugget here and there so that I’m keeping them engaged and feel like they are getting something out of it, but really focusing on their story.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 12: Top Business Development Rep (BDR) Reid Oliver of Vidyard on Leveraging Video to get more Meetings

One additional point that I wanted to bring up that’s not actually on our dashboard, but it’s a metric that I look at quite often is within SalesLoft you’re able to understand what your email open to response rates are. What your open to your click through rates are. That’s a big thing that we track especially from an A/B split testing standpoint of whether we are sending video or whether we’re just sending text emails or kind of what’s working. And I try to make sure that my ratio is really high because I don’t want to have wasted opportunities where somebody is clicking on my video or even opening my email and then they’re not getting back to me. So it’s a big metric that I care about as well that I thought I should point out.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 12: Top Business Development Rep (BDR) Reid Oliver of Vidyard on Leveraging Video to get more Meetings

I pay the most attention to the hard numbers in terms of meetings booked and qualified opportunities because those are essentially the end goal. But often times if those numbers aren’t there I’ll look back and see maybe why is that. Maybe I’m having less activity. Have I been moving in a different direction and not getting my numbers up across the board on the dashboard. And often times, more often than not. It is the people that have high activity that are doing the best because at the end of the day I think a big part of sales is the balance between having a numbers game and having the calls, having the emails. But then also using that differentiation so when you do get into somebody’s inbox they’re actually willing to respond to you. So I think it’s making sure that your numbers are up and then also applying all the strategies that you’re bringing the background as well.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 12: Top Business Development Rep (BDR) Reid Oliver of Vidyard on Leveraging Video to get more Meetings

To drink my own kool-aid here at Vidyard. Video has been a game changer for me in terms of cutting through the clutter. I mean I think I see everyday LinkedIn posts about how many emails executives are getting or we often see people who write this is another poor BDR or SDR prospecting email. So I try to really think differently and a huge part of doing that is including video in my email strategy. So I’ve found personally just including a thumbnail of myself or for example a whiteboard we’ll add some personalization and say ‘Hey Scott.’ My click through rates on my emails have actually gone up by between 5 and 7X. I’ll even take that further and I’ll put together a short demonstration of where I see on their website that we can provide value. Or how I noticed a campaign coming up that I think would be interesting. So the whole point is to try to just get somebody to actually take that ten seconds while their scanning to say ‘OK, this looks interesting to me,’ and then boom you’re able to actually follow-up and understand and hopefully book that meeting and have that conversation with them.

Continue Reading …