Kyle Hermann is the top senior enterprise sales development representative (SDR) at Outreach, the leading Enterprise ready Sales Engagement Platform. Outreach accelerates revenue growth by optimizing every interaction throughout the customer lifecycle. Kyle quantifies his sales results and shares how he reached a two hundred percent quota attainment and broke the enterprise sales record this past April amidst the coronavirus pandemic. Kyle is a passionate learner and thinker who is intentional with his prospecting and selling. These skills and more have led to Kyle’s sustained success as a top SDR in his organization.
In this episode, Kyle speaks to his role at Outreach and how it has evolved even in the past few months given the coronavirus crisis. Kyle expounds on the importance of building a personal brand, best practices for reaching out to top sellers to learn more about their success habits, and prospecting with a purpose. Kyle shares the three things he attributes to his success, including his sense of curiosity, the training, and coaching he received at Outreach, and mimicking and learning from the top-performing reps in his field.
Kyle is a believer in following a strict routine every day regardless of the circumstances. This repetition and diligence has served Kyle well throughout his young career. Kyle details a typical day in the life from his morning email routine and prospecting on the phone, to internal meetings, Zoom calls, discussions, and sequencing to ensure his pipeline remains full. He shares some of his best tips for becoming a successful SDR. Finally, Kyle issues an actionable challenge to the audience. He encourages them to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. He urges them to take that first step and truly embrace being outside a comfort zone because soon that uncomfortable feeling will shift to a more confident and comfortable way of life.
What We Covered:
00:24 – Scott welcomes today’s guest, Kyle Hermann
00:56 – The top three things Kyle attributes to his sales success
01:11 – Number 1: A sense of curiosity and asking questions
03:56 – Number 2: Training and coaching
07:35 – Number 3: Mimicking and learning from top-performing reps
09:49 – Kyle’s role at Outreach
12:12 – Kyle quantifies his sales results
13:07 – Kyle’s sales origin story
14:39 – How Kyle has handles the necessary mindset of sales and how he recovers from a tough stretch
17:34 – Kyle recalls how he broke records this past April despite the Covid-19 crisis
22:44 – Kyle’s proudest accomplishment
24:15 – Obstacles and challenges Kyle has had to overcome throughout his career
26:09 – How Kyle breaks through to create sales success
27:33 – Kyle describes a typical day in the life
32:30 – How Kyle structures his daily prospecting and call blocks
35:16 – Other habits and routines that are critical to Kyle’s success
36:12 – The books, news, podcasts and trade information that Kyle consumes
40:41 – Tools and apps that Kyle uses on a daily basis
41:59 – Mentors who influenced Kyle throughout his career
45:10 – The art of reading a 10K as a sales professional
46:13 – Finding that perfect balance between research and activity
48:38 – Kyle’s sales style
51:01 – One of Kyle’s beliefs that the average SDR would think is crazy
52:45 – An average SDR’s belief that Kyle thinks is crazy
54:37 – The most important lessons Kyle has learned throughout his career
55:22 – The goals and expectations Kyle places on himself
58:37 – Advice Kyle would give to an upstart salesperson
1:00:07 – Best practices for approaching top sellers in order to learn from them
1:02:24 – Other core advice Kyle would give to aspiring SDRs
1:05:39 – What Kyle would want to learn about top sellers in other organizations
1:13:04 – How long an SDR should be in his/her role before considering the jump to Account Executive
1:15:46 – Kyle’s actionable challenge to the audience
Tweetables:
“He [Kyle’s dad] always stressed to me, ‘One of these days you want to work for yourself.’ And, essentially you can do that in sales, right? You’re at that point where your work – the time you put in, the effort that you put in – it directly relates to the end result.” (13:22)
“If you come in and you say, ‘Alright, last week wasn’t good, but it’s over. It’s time to restart and do something new,’ you’re gonna see the results and you’re gonna ultimately get better.” (17:10)
“The beauty of being an SDR and being on the tenured side as well is by that time you kinda get an understanding and you know your workflow, you know what you have to do to hit your number.” (31:26)
“I think what separates a good SDR from a great SDR is being able to tie in that personalization with value.” (42:54)
“I try to keep talking until a person either books a meeting with me or hangs up on me.” (53:37)
Links Mentioned:
[email protected]
Sales Success Stories Podcast
2019 Sales Success Summit Videos
2020 Sales Success Summit
Kyle Hermann on LinkedIn
Tools Mentioned:
Outreach
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Zoom Info
Crunchbase
Podcast Mentioned:
How I Built This
Sales Success Stories Podcast
Daily Sales Tips Podcast