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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

We actually had Jill Rowley at our office earlier this week. She’s a social selling guru if you will and she talked a little bit about how in order to be interesting you need to be interested. And I really like this because it’s something that I try to be in my research phase. I try to actually be interested in what a company’s doing. Maybe understand their business model. Maybe understand what that specific marketing executive wants to have for their goals. And as I have experience more and more speaking with these professionals I can kind of understand what priorities they have, what they’d like to hit. But every individual company is also different so if I’m able to take the time and really be interested in what I believe they’re looking to accomplish it often transpires into more likely to them being more likely to chat with me as well.

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

For me it all begins in the research phase. We use Salesforce here so I will often look into accounts and run specific reports on whether we’ve had conversations with them in the past. We’ve met with them at conferences. If we’ve never had any sort of interaction with them I’ll go even deeper and do things like follow the company on Sales Navigator. Setup Google alerts, just so I can understand when people are interested in the video process. Because if you can understand when a company has a reason to invest in video or invest in their digital strategy. You’re going to be more likely to have that conversation. So I really begin with the research phase and try to understand; does it make sense to be reaching out at this point in time. I find that research is one of the most important things whether it’s the company or whether it’s specific people. Because if you really feel in the back of your mind that you’re reaching out for a purpose and for a reason. It’s not going to bother you whether you’re interrupting their day or whether they’re too busy because you’re coming there with real value and you really want to help and you really believe in the company you’re standing behind. So I think that’s a big part of how you find the companies that you’re going after and the people specifically that you’re looking to contact.

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

Something I think was imperative was asking a ton of questions and really learning. I’m lucky enough that I’m in a position that I have a manager who’s a rockstar across our company. He’s always open to learning new things and helping us grow. So I really leveraged that early on and I asked a lot of situational specific questions. Whether it be how to handle current messaging. What strategies to go into accounts with, and it really helped me ramp up really quickly and get to where I wanted to be in the role. Then not only my specific manager, but I also tried to really be a sponge and soak in everything that my peers were doing when I saw that they were being successful. So whether that was somebody in a role that I wanted to move into at some point in the company. Somebody who was doing really well in the BDR spot. I tried to pick and choose things that I saw them doing that were working and put them into my own processes and really try to make a fit there. So that was a big thing for me at the beginning. The second thing is actually just taking action from what I was learning. I think it’s easy to have one thing go in one ear and out the other, especially when you have a lot going on. But to actually be meticulous in what you’re learning and actually action that knowledge to your day to day processes is a really big thing. It doesn’t matter what you’re reading or what you’re hearing in blog posts. You really need to actually put it towards your day to day and see what’s being successful.

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Clip from Episode 14 – How Kyle Gutzler Doubled his Sales in 1 Year and Sold Over $1 Million Dollars at PayScale

My actionable suggestion would be in your company right now you need to locate the people that are top performers and are essentially where you want to be. And you need to ask for their time and try to set aside some intentional hours or minutes to speak with those people and to understand what it is they’re doing differently that’s getting the results that you ultimately want to have. That and not just people in your work environment, but also outside of your work environment that are ultimately going to bring you upward. So making more intentional efforts and I would say in the next week, I guess that would be my challenge, is find that person and actually reach out to them and try to set something up with them. Scott: That’s awesome, that’s actually my favorite suggestion so far, and I’ll add two pieces to that. One is I think anytime you are trying to open that type of relationship. Kyle already made some good suggestions earlier about making it finite and defining exactly what you need. I think the other thing you can think about is what can you bring of value to that relationship. That’s a place you can actually leverage me. If you are reaching out to the number one seller in your organization, one of the things you might want to suggest is ‘hey I listen to this show called the Sales Success Stories podcast and they talk to top sellers like you’ I would love to introduce you to Scott and I’ll give you my email address right now so you’re in a position that you can make that type of intro because we’ve been friends forever. You’ve been listening to me for hours. So you can send a note to scott at top1 dot fm.

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Clip from Episode 14 – How Kyle Gutzler Doubled his Sales in 1 Year and Sold Over $1 Million Dollars at PayScale

You need to target the people that are successful, that are where you want to be. And do your best to make that something that you do on a regular basis. So one of the things that I’ve done with a couple other people that I consider top performers at our company is we go out once per month. We go out and we have a brunch on a Friday. I think it’s the first Friday of every month, and we just talk about things and when you’re rubbing shoulders with people that are top performers it just starts to rub off on you. It keeps your game sharp. So I would say the first thing you need to do when taking massive action is reach out to people that are really where you want to be

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Clip from Episode 14 – How Kyle Gutzler Doubled his Sales in 1 Year and Sold Over $1 Million Dollars at PayScale

Something that I’m a big believer of is talking in terms of how other customers have won with my process or how other customers have essentially gone through the steps to get something approved. I think it’s one thing if you’re a sales person and you say this is why you do it this way because I have a quota to hit. Versus, I’m going to speak kind of from a neutral standpoint and tell you, here’s how this other customer did it. Not me. You kind of put yourself as a neutral third party, and so I’m a big believer of saying ‘what our customers would tell you’ or ‘here’s how this customer did it,’ and having kind of a bank of different customer stories that are ultimately going to help your timeline. And you can use that really for any topic, not just timelines but literally every aspect of your sales process. Rely as much as you can on talking about how other customers have done it, and how they’ve ultimately won.

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