The Exchanges

Q First week one then, what are we doing in week one to make them ready for week two calls?

A So week one is, um, like company onboarding, uh, heavy focus on like our product focused on, um, our competitors, things like that. Week two is more about how to do the SDR job. So here are the different systems and tools that we use, which is like sales navigators, zoom info, all that fun stuff. We use outreach, which is, um, the email sequencing tool. And so teaching them how to actually do that. And then towards the end of the week is when we give them their books and they can actually start doing the job. Now, I don't expect them to do the job at full scale in, you know, week two or week three, but we give them ramping goals. So, um, they're on a ramping quota as well. So it actually takes them until month four to be on full ramp, but every month leading up to that, they do have some sort of quota so that they learn that muscle that they like build their pipeline. And so it's kind of like a compounding baby steps.

AI assessment note: “week one is, um, like company onboarding, uh, heavy focus on like our product”

Q That is very, very kind of you. I, I always love to start with kind of actually the love of sales. I think it's often a moment. When did you realize that you loved sales and that this was what you wanted to do as a career and for life?

A I actually started my career working for NASCAR, which is probably, um, a topic for, for a whole nother day, but, uh, world of sales. I started as an SDR at Zenefits. Um, I very truth be told, I did not know what an SDR was. I thought I was going to be doing demos, uh, in person with, with customers. I was clearly very wrong about that. Um, but I ended up falling in love with the top of funnel. Um, SDR to me is just such a special, um, Role that is, you know, both pipeline building, but also career development at the same time. And so I stayed on the side of, of the sales funnel and, uh, within three years of Zenefits, I left as a director. And then, uh, since then I've built out sales development orgs at different tech companies out of the Bay area. So, um, Lever, Brex, and now Ripley. So I guess you could say I'm a lifer for, for sales development.

AI assessment note: “ended up falling in love with the top of funnel”

Q That is fantastic. I'm thrilled. Um, so when we, so now we've kind of got those kind of three core traits. Is that in one meeting? Is that in two meetings? Just help me understand, like, do we do a test? Do we do a, uh, uh, role play? Um, Help me.

A Yes. So we do your typical, um, we'll have a hiring manager that does a phone screen and then we do, you know, two to three. Uh, actual panels, what used to be in person sadly is now over zoom in this new modern world. Uh, but essentially an in-person interview. Uh, we do, we do role plays and we do an email assessment actually. And for me, both of those are equally important. Um, I don't expect someone to nail the role play, right? They, they don't work for us. They haven't gone through our training program or anything like that. But if someone gives you feedback on the role play, And then you do the role play a second time. If you're not implementing that feedback, then you're clearly not what we talked about earlier, coachable, right? You're not implementing the feedback. And so it's a, it's a way to like test it live.

AI assessment note: “we'll have a hiring manager that does a phone screen and then we do”

Q So we've done email tests. We've done role play. Uh, we, we want to give this candidate the job, actually. Um, you've got no idea how much to pay them, Ashley, and like how much should be in terms of like actual salary versus like, um, bonus, how we should structure that. Can you help me understand the actual financial package?

A Yes. So finance package will deter will be determined based off of geo location. So we have, you know, different markets that are more expensive for cost of living. Um, so those are a little bit higher of a total, um, OTE, but as far as, um, the comp structure, we do a 70% base, uh, salary, and then we do 30% based off of their variable, which is tied to their, um, their quota. And so their quota is based off of what we call stage two opportunities. So Um, basically a demo has been held by an AE. The AE has decided, yes, this is a director hire within one of our personas. Uh, it's something that can actually be a customer of ours. We have next steps that we're going to continue the conversation and we're going to try to make them a customer. And then the AE moves that into stage two, and that's when an SDR gets, um, their credit for it. And then each, uh, team segment. Function line, whatever you want to call them. They all have a different quotas based off of the, the TAM and types of roles that they are.

AI assessment note: “we do a 70% base, uh, salary, and then we do 30% based off”

Q That is fantastic. I'm thrilled. Um, so when we, so now we've kind of got those kind of three core traits. Is that in one meeting? Is that in two meetings? Just help me understand, like, do we do a test? Do we do a, uh, uh, role play? Um, Help me.

A Yes. So we do your typical, um, we'll have a hiring manager that does a phone screen and then we do, you know, two to three. Uh, actual panels, what used to be in person sadly is now over zoom in this new modern world. Uh, but essentially an in-person interview. Uh, we do, we do role plays and we do an email assessment actually. And for me, both of those are equally important. Um, I don't expect someone to nail the role play, right? They, they don't work for us. They haven't gone through our training program or anything like that. But if someone gives you feedback on the role play, And then you do the role play a second time. If you're not implementing that feedback, then you're clearly not what we talked about earlier, coachable, right? You're not implementing the feedback. And so it's a, it's a way to like test it live.

AI assessment note: “we do your typical, um, we'll have a hiring manager that does a phone screen”

Q I'm interested when we think about like SDR. Accountability, or where it sits. Should SDRs roll into marketing, or should they roll into sales, do we think?

A I have my, my honest answer, but I'll give you two of those two other ones first, because I think there is different schools of thoughts on this and really, it really could be either. I've actually done both. So I've been in orgs that have reported to marketing, um, currently in one that reports into sales, they have different use cases. So I think, um, if you're a heavy inbound org for SDR, um, there's a lot more science to it. Um, and being really tightly aligned with the team that's driving the funnel, um, Is where you have, um, that feedback loop that is so important. And so when you think about an inbound funnel, um, you're thinking about what we call leads, we call MQLs, right. That are coming through and then having to convert those into an SQL, which is essentially a demo set for, for an AE. And like the, like I said, the feedback loop for the quality and the volume of those leads is so important. And I think, um, if, if you get, if you have a big inbound org reporting into marketing, that makes it so much easier to do. Um, Now, if you have a big outbound org, there's more of like an art to sales development at that point, you have to be a lot more proactive in the way that you're engaging cold accounts. Um, you need to be able to educate them on a product. They probably have no idea even exists or pain points that they don't even know that they have. Um, so it's, it's …

AI assessment note: “if you have a big inbound org reporting into marketing... outbound org... rolling into sales”

Q Can I just ask Ms. Kelly, uh, I feel like I'm a student raising my hand here, uh, but you mentioned there about, kind of, when it's a heavy inbound model, and actually that MQL to SQL, Should they not be like a pretty good hit? Like if there's a big difference between MQLs and SQLs, aren't the MQLs not doing their job very well?

A It's a fair point. Um, I would say it's the different types of MQLs and where they convert. So you have like your high intent ones, which are a demo request or someone that's clicking contact us. Like, yes, that, that should have a higher hit rate. Um, but if it's lower intent, like they've just downloaded content, they might not actually be like ready to be in a buying motion or to be Speaking to a, to a, um, a salesperson. So we do see different conversion rates across different types of MQLs, but that's why it's important to be tied very closely to your marketing team so you can talk through those. So it's like, how do we actually get more demo requests coming through our funnel than people just clicking on a white paper?

AI assessment note: “it's the different types of MQLs and where they convert.”

Q Again, how do I tell in an interview? I'm terribly unorganized. I have an EA. Thank God. Otherwise I wouldn't be at anything. Uh, but I would tell you that I'm very organized.

A I mean, I ask how, and one of the answers I expect is like they live and die by their calendar. Right. And again, a lot of these people could be coming out of, um, out of school or in a type of role that relies on organization, but answering like, you know, I have, I have calendar blocks. So that's a big thing for SDRs to be successful is they'll block off their calendar for different times that are dedicated to, to Calls dedicated to scrubbing their accounts, dedicated to personalizing emails. And so if someone is very type A in the sense that they are, you know, live and die by their calendar, they're, they're more likely to be successful.

AI assessment note: “I ask how, and one of the answers I expect is like they live and die”

Q Okay. So we have that elevator pitch. You got 60 seconds. Go pitch this key account. Uh, the, the other one you mentioned was the email test. I haven't, this is very exciting. I haven't had this before. What is an email test?

A Uh, so what we want to see their writing skills, right? A lot of the times, uh, we are booking demos over email. We have sequences and we have templates that we use, but when you get an objection, it's really important to make sure just like the active listening on a cold call that you can actually actively read. And so are you actually taking the content that the prospect is, is responding to? Are you mirroring their language? Are you able to actually, um, respond in a, in a short, cohesive Way to actually continue the conversation, engage and book a demo. So that's one example. Um, we also do cold email outreach as well. So if you, um, remember John Barrows, like the why you, why now framework that I grew up with, I still think it is like super valuable. And so again, being able to, um, be relevant with your information of why you're reaching out to a company, why you're reaching out to that persona specifically, um, and seeing someone connect those dots in their email is, is a Good sign that they will be a good SDR.

AI assessment note: “so what we want to see their writing skills, right?”

Q Has the way that you hire SDRs changed over time? You've mentioned hiring 800. When you think about the early days of hiring SDRs compared to now, how has it changed?

A It's funny you say that because pre-COVID, I probably never would have hired an, uh, an SDR that had SDR experience. I would have preferred to hire people fresh out of school, um, that we could, you know, really like mold and grow into the role. My fear back then, not anymore, but my fear back then was that SDRs, I would have to break a lot of their habits and then, you know, reteach them our ways at, at, at our company and our process. Um, also there was always the, the thought of, well, if you've been in SDR, you know, for a year and you haven't gotten promoted yet, one, why two, are you going to be willing to sign up to be an SDR for another year at our company? Cause again, it's a grind. Um, but that was kind of a red flag back pre COVID. Now, We have so many different tech layoffs that are happening left and right. There's one of the first orgs to go typically is SDR. And so there's a lot of good talent that's out there that has had previous experience that just kind of got the short end of the stick during going, going through these rifts. And so, um, it has changed quite a bit that now we hire more people that are coming from the SDR role, um, because there's more talent out there that's available.

AI assessment note: “now we hire more people that are coming from the SDR role”

Q How, how does the targets differ on ACV? And what I mean by that is like, if we're doing like, I don't know, PLG, kind of PLG, but with expansion, uh, but it's like small ACVs coming in five to 20 K ACVs versus big hundred K ACVs. Does that differ our expectations on stages and what should qualify?

A It doesn't change stages of what would qualify. It would change Quotas that we would set for people. So the lower the ACV, the higher number of S twos you actually need to be producing, right? Because it has to make sense from a CAC payback perspective. And so we do a lot of work. I mean, this is what my RevOps team focuses on all day, every day. And we make sure that the production of the SDRs is per rep production and they are hitting the number of S twos that they need to. Because it has to make sense in the finance model. And so we look at, um, not only number of opportunities that are being assigned to the, to each AE, but, uh, win rates, ACVs, and then to your point, any sort of like product, um, attach rates that could be like, uh, in addition to those, which actually always, obviously helps the CAC.

AI assessment note: “It doesn't change stages of what would qualify. It would change Quotas”

Q When you think about like, actually, this is a hard one. When you think about like what you are today as a leader, how do you think you most need to improve?

A Probably time management. When it comes to all the different functions that I, that I run, I always laugh saying that my brain feels like a pinball machine, um, where it's bouncing from like, you know, my team, my SDR team that, uh, goes after the channel side of the business is totally different than my SDRs that are in the UK going after direct business or global over here. And it's like, so there's just a lot of different moving pieces. It's what I love about my job and about Rippling that we're able to, to, you know, build this type of, um, complex org. But I, I need to do a better job of managing my time so that I can effectively be present for all of those different things, um, and also hire the right leaders to take over those different things.

AI assessment note: “Probably time management. When it comes to all the different functions that I, that I run”

Q What are the biggest hiring mistakes that you've made when it comes to hiring SDRs?

A This is really bad. Um, when, uh, we were, when I was at Senate fits, I was a new manager. I think I had 35 reps reporting to me, which is already a terrible thing that was happening. Um, but we had huge hiring goals and I remember we hired people off of just 30 minute phone screens and that was it. So it was a true, like just needed to get butts in seats as fast as possible. And clearly like the, the takeaway was like, oh my gosh, Like, didn't spend enough time on the quality of interviews, um, making sure we had the right talent that was coming through, and really, like, the buy-in from the candidate, too, is they're probably like, really? I just got a job off of a 30 minute phone screen? Um, and so, it was a, that was probably my biggest mistake across the board. I know. I feel like I'm in therapy now telling you this.

AI assessment note: “we hired people off of just 30 minute phone screens and that was it”

Q Which company that you've worked at was best in SDL?

A Rippling. Where am I now? Of course. Um, no, seriously, the, um, a lot of the reason I came to Rippling was because of how, um, how incredible the inbound org was and what marketing had built. And then, uh, the ability to come in and help build and scale outbound, um, On, on this side and now bridging those two together, I truly feel like we have, you know, one of the best SDR orgs in the world. Uh, the volume that we're able to crank out while also supporting, um, not just new logo sales, but we also dive into, uh, product. We also are in, uh, the customer base helping with cross cross sell and upsell. And then you add all of our different regions internationally, um, in different segments too. It's probably the most complex SDR org, um, I've ever, I've ever Led. We support about 31 different functions across the business.

AI assessment note: “Rippling. Where am I now? Of course.”

Q I'm interested when we think about like SDR. Accountability, or where it sits. Should SDRs roll into marketing, or should they roll into sales, do we think?

A I have my, my honest answer, but I'll give you two of those two other ones first, because I think there is different schools of thoughts on this and really, it really could be either. I've actually done both. So I've been in orgs that have reported to marketing, um, currently in one that reports into sales, they have different use cases. So I think, um, if you're a heavy inbound org for SDR, um, there's a lot more science to it. Um, and being really tightly aligned with the team that's driving the funnel, um, Is where you have, um, that feedback loop that is so important. And so when you think about an inbound funnel, um, you're thinking about what we call leads, we call MQLs, right. That are coming through and then having to convert those into an SQL, which is essentially a demo set for, for an AE. And like the, like I said, the feedback loop for the quality and the volume of those leads is so important. And I think, um, if, if you get, if you have a big inbound org reporting into marketing, that makes it so much easier to do. Um, Now, if you have a big outbound org, there's more of like an art to sales development at that point, you have to be a lot more proactive in the way that you're engaging cold accounts. Um, you need to be able to educate them on a product. They probably have no idea even exists or pain points that they don't even know that they have. Um, so it's, it's …

AI assessment note: “if you have a big inbound org reporting into marketing... outbound... rolling into sales”

Q Yeah. I think that'd be great. Um, okay. That's super interesting. Do you find SDRs are like really wanting to engage with AI tools or not? Is that fair?

A I think a handful of them do. Yes. One thing about tools in general with, with my SDR is like, I usually rely very heavily on them because they are the ones that are in the weeds all day, every day. And like, they're trying to make their lives easier too. And so when they come to me with a tool that they think is going to help them with their job, I'm like, All right, let's check it out. I'm way less inclined to be the one that's going to go look at the tools. And so I rely very heavily on my reps and their, their inputs of what they think is going to help them. We just started using clay, uh, to help with personalization. So, uh, and that's been like very recent. So I'm excited to see, um, not only how it's like impacted our numbers, but how reps are liking it too.

AI assessment note: “I think a handful of them do. Yes.”

Q I want to move to like the onboarding side now. So we've got these amazing SDRs. As you mentioned, they, you said you often quite like the man of school. How on earth do we onboard SDRs effectively, Ashley?

A One thing that's very unique, I think, to the way I've always built teams is I have my reps on the phone by week two. So you've got, yeah, working their books and on the phone by work by week two. So kind of learning a lot of like trial and error, uh, maybe it's cause that's like my style of how I like to learn. I'm also very cognizant that not everyone learns the same way, but what I've found over, over the years, like, I think the old like Yelp model was they kept them with like a different team for a month or so, and then they would finally join the floor. They're not producing until month three and boom, boom. And so when I just look at my cohorts of when we're hiring people, it's like, how do I just get them, um, producing sooner? And a lot of that was like, let's give them their books sooner. And so when they're learning how to scrub accounts and identify the right contacts and use the different systems and tools to put them in sequences, they need their actual accounts to be able to do that.

AI assessment note: “I have my reps on the phone by week two.”

Q How do you manage morale when they're not hitting? When it's just, maybe it's a hard market, maybe people aren't buying, I don't know why, but people are just down. How do you manage morale?

A It's hard. Once morale hits, it's one of the hardest, um, holes to dig out of for sure. And, you know, with an org as big as ours, like not every team is, is humming at a hundred percent all the time. Like we, you know, there's ebbs and flows of different teams, different for different reasons. Um, but I think it's like. One, you have to like wrap your arms around them. You need to get like very close and like make them like, make them understand that like you are here to help them be successful. Um, and then really hyper-focus on the basics. So going back to those inputs, like let's celebrate the small wins. Did you get your 70 dials today? Great job. You connected with how many people? Awesome. You had a conversation with the CEO. How did that go? Let me hear the, let me hear the recording and I'll give you some feedback on it. So it's like, it's getting as close as you can to the business and close to you as you can to the To the people. Um, and just working on improvements day in and day out. Um, it's one of the hardest things to overcome though. Uh, we also try and do fun spiffs and offer like, you know, rewards and competitions and stuff where it might not be based off of like the S twos, which is like the monthly goal, but there's daily and weekly ones that you can win. Again, it's all compounding. Um,

AI assessment note: “hyper-focus on the basics. So going back to those inputs, like let's celebrate the small wins.”

Q How, how does the targets differ on ACV? And what I mean by that is like, if we're doing like, I don't know, PLG, kind of PLG, but with expansion, uh, but it's like small ACVs coming in five to 20 K ACVs versus big hundred K ACVs. Does that differ our expectations on stages and what should qualify?

A It doesn't change stages of what would qualify. It would change Quotas that we would set for people. So the lower the ACV, the higher number of S twos you actually need to be producing, right? Because it has to make sense from a CAC payback perspective. And so we do a lot of work. I mean, this is what my RevOps team focuses on all day, every day. And we make sure that the production of the SDRs is per rep production and they are hitting the number of S twos that they need to. Because it has to make sense in the finance model. And so we look at, um, not only number of opportunities that are being assigned to the, to each AE, but, uh, win rates, ACVs, and then to your point, any sort of like product, um, attach rates that could be like, uh, in addition to those, which actually always, obviously helps the CAC.

AI assessment note: “It doesn't change stages of what would qualify. It would change Quotas that we would set”

Q I love that. So when we look at the incredible different companies that you've worked at and all that you know now, what do you know now that you're like, you know what? It'd be really helpful if Ashley had known that going into the first Zenifits SDR role.

A What I know now is that sales is very unpredictable. Um, it can really test your patience, um, and your sanity. And so saying even keeled is really important. Um, and so what I think I learned was just focusing on the things that I can control day in and day out. And really two of those things are our attitude and effort. And I think too frequently do people allow noise and, um, excuses to, to Funnel in, um, into whether they're, you know, whether they're an individual contributor or a sales leader or anything, but you know, if you're going to be working for a startup that moves quickly, like you have to be able to, um, pivot to change and be adaptable to change. Um, and all of that really does come down to the things that you can control, which is your attitude and effort. And like, to me, those are what I've learned over the years as like the recipes of success.

AI assessment note: “What I know now is that sales is very unpredictable”

Q What are the signals of good and great very early? Is it just like in first and out last and just giving it the time and effort or are there other signals that really?

A For people in office. Yes. And people that are like, have a good prep, like presence on the floor and everything. Making their calls at their desk versus going and hiding in a, in a, uh, phone booth, you know, out of fear. Is one easy one. I personally love when, and I meet with all the new hires when they first started, do like a welcome, um, thing with them. In fact, I'm doing one today. And I always tell them my calendar's open, like come find time with me. Like let's, let's me talk. I'm happy to help. Um, and the ones that immediately put time on my calendar, I swear are the ones that end up being successful. And it's not because of anything I did like at all, it has to do with like their proactiveness and the fact that they actually give a shit about their career and they, and they want to, um, you know, meet with a VP and see. What they should be doing in order to stand out, and like, those are the ones that tend to be top performers.

AI assessment note: “Making their calls at their desk versus going and hiding in a, in a, uh, phone booth”

Q When you think about like, actually, this is a hard one. When you think about like what you are today as a leader, how do you think you most need to improve?

A Probably time management. When it comes to all the different functions that I, that I run, I always laugh saying that my brain feels like a pinball machine, um, where it's bouncing from like, you know, my team, my SDR team that, uh, goes after the channel side of the business is totally different than my SDRs that are in the UK going after direct business or global over here. And it's like, so there's just a lot of different moving pieces. It's what I love about my job and about Rippling that we're able to, to, you know, build this type of, um, complex org. But I, I need to do a better job of managing my time so that I can effectively be present for all of those different things, um, and also hire the right leaders to take over those different things.

AI assessment note: “Probably time management. When it comes to all the different functions that I, that I run”

Q When's the right time to hire your first SDR? If you have a founder coming to you, should they hire like an SDR first, or should they hire a head of sales first who can bring with them SDRs?

A I would probably hire a like junior AE, someone that has done the prospecting, but also knows how, how to close and someone that can be, um, in the weeds and helping build out the process and scale. I'll give an example when I, um, well, actually, I think I'm a bad example for it. Cause so this is like the opposite. When I was at, when I was hired at Brex, I came in at the director level, but I would not suggest doing that for your first hire because you need someone that is going to be able to Create the sequences, do the cold calls themselves. And I did all that stuff. I was willing to do that, but you got to find the right person. That's going to, you know, have that title, but it's also willing to do the grind that you said that it is. And then once you can start proving out that it works, um, you get a little bit of traction. That's when you can start hiring some, some additional SDRs and those SDRs can have less experience, but I do think your first hire should be someone, um, like not fresh out of college and definitely not their first SDR role. And I think that's, um, another, another. Place where, where companies fail is they think that they can just plug someone in and they're going to go know what to do. And it's, it's a lot, it's actually a little bit more complicated than that.

AI assessment note: “I would probably hire a like junior AE, someone that has done the prospecting”

Q Yeah. I think that'd be great. Um, okay. That's super interesting. Do you find SDRs are like really wanting to engage with AI tools or not? Is that fair?

A I think a handful of them do. Yes. One thing about tools in general with, with my SDR is like, I usually rely very heavily on them because they are the ones that are in the weeds all day, every day. And like, they're trying to make their lives easier too. And so when they come to me with a tool that they think is going to help them with their job, I'm like, All right, let's check it out. I'm way less inclined to be the one that's going to go look at the tools. And so I rely very heavily on my reps and their, their inputs of what they think is going to help them. We just started using clay, uh, to help with personalization. So, uh, and that's been like very recent. So I'm excited to see, um, not only how it's like impacted our numbers, but how reps are liking it too.

AI assessment note: “I think a handful of them do. Yes.”

Q What are the biggest hiring mistakes that you've made when it comes to hiring SDRs?

A This is really bad. Um, when, uh, we were, when I was at Senate fits, I was a new manager. I think I had 35 reps reporting to me, which is already a terrible thing that was happening. Um, but we had huge hiring goals and I remember we hired people off of just 30 minute phone screens and that was it. So it was a true, like just needed to get butts in seats as fast as possible. And clearly like the, the takeaway was like, oh my gosh, Like, didn't spend enough time on the quality of interviews, um, making sure we had the right talent that was coming through, and really, like, the buy-in from the candidate, too, is they're probably like, really? I just got a job off of a 30 minute phone screen? Um, and so, it was a, that was probably my biggest mistake across the board. I know. I feel like I'm in therapy now telling you this.

AI assessment note: “we hired people off of just 30 minute phone screens and that was it”

Q How do you manage morale when they're not hitting? When it's just, maybe it's a hard market, maybe people aren't buying, I don't know why, but people are just down. How do you manage morale?

A It's hard. Once morale hits, it's one of the hardest, um, holes to dig out of for sure. And, you know, with an org as big as ours, like not every team is, is humming at a hundred percent all the time. Like we, you know, there's ebbs and flows of different teams, different for different reasons. Um, but I think it's like. One, you have to like wrap your arms around them. You need to get like very close and like make them like, make them understand that like you are here to help them be successful. Um, and then really hyper-focus on the basics. So going back to those inputs, like let's celebrate the small wins. Did you get your 70 dials today? Great job. You connected with how many people? Awesome. You had a conversation with the CEO. How did that go? Let me hear the, let me hear the recording and I'll give you some feedback on it. So it's like, it's getting as close as you can to the business and close to you as you can to the To the people. Um, and just working on improvements day in and day out. Um, it's one of the hardest things to overcome though. Uh, we also try and do fun spiffs and offer like, you know, rewards and competitions and stuff where it might not be based off of like the S twos, which is like the monthly goal, but there's daily and weekly ones that you can win. Again, it's all compounding. Um,

AI assessment note: “hyper-focus on the basics. So going back to those inputs, like let's celebrate the small wins.”

Q angel in my hypothetical company and I'm like, great. We need to hire SDRs. Okay. I have no idea how to hire SDRs. I, I, I, this, this is not a hypothetical situation when I say I've never hired an SDR. So, uh, how do I structure the hiring process for an SDR? And what would you advise me as granular and as specific as possible? Because I don't know.

A I would, from a profile standpoint, I would start there. Again, this depends on like the state of your org, how much like enablement or manager support you have. But typically I would say you want to look for anyone that has about six months of experience, does not have to be in sales development. My favorite, um, hires that I've ever made are people that actually come from recruiting that want to make the transition into tech sales. And a lot of that is because They're super organized. They're making calls all day to people who are probably not in the market, just like a prospect is not in the market. Right. And they're having to sell. Now they're selling something different, but they have that rhythm and that's super important. I'd say, um, on an inbound side, if you found someone that's ever worked in a call center, again, that's, that's another, um, really good profile. I'd say the hardest part about SDR is the, is the cold calling. And there tends to be a lot of resistance with that. It's much easier to hide behind sending emails. Right. And so if you find people that have already built their confidence and found their voice over the phone, like you've, you've, you've launched miles ahead of like the first hurdles that you're going to run into when it comes to skills, um, for an SDR.

AI assessment note: “from a profile standpoint, I would start there. Again, this depends on like the state”

Q I love that. So when we look at the incredible different companies that you've worked at and all that you know now, what do you know now that you're like, you know what? It'd be really helpful if Ashley had known that going into the first Zenifits SDR role.

A What I know now is that sales is very unpredictable. Um, it can really test your patience, um, and your sanity. And so saying even keeled is really important. Um, and so what I think I learned was just focusing on the things that I can control day in and day out. And really two of those things are our attitude and effort. And I think too frequently do people allow noise and, um, excuses to, to Funnel in, um, into whether they're, you know, whether they're an individual contributor or a sales leader or anything, but you know, if you're going to be working for a startup that moves quickly, like you have to be able to, um, pivot to change and be adaptable to change. Um, and all of that really does come down to the things that you can control, which is your attitude and effort. And like, to me, those are what I've learned over the years as like the recipes of success.

AI assessment note: “What I know now is that sales is very unpredictable.”

Q How do you know that in an interview? Cause everyone says they're coachable.

A So the navigate change in coachability, like I've, I've, um, specifically had a question that said, tell me a time that you, that you failed at something and that you were given feedback and how did you react to that and how did you implement that feedback? So asking like some very straightforward, tough questions and expecting them to give examples. And sometimes the examples are silly, right? It's like, um, my teacher got mad at me because I didn't turn in my assignment at the right time or something, but as long as they can think on their feet and not be afraid to show that they have failed before, because I think that's the big thing. Is like, it's okay to fail. You're going to fail in sales. Like, absolutely. Especially in your first one. So no, like, give me an example of when that's happened and when you were coached and how you, how you, um, implemented that feedback.

AI assessment note: “specifically had a question that said, tell me a time that you, that you failed”

Q Again, how do I tell in an interview? I'm terribly unorganized. I have an EA. Thank God. Otherwise I wouldn't be at anything. Uh, but I would tell you that I'm very organized.

A I mean, I ask how, and one of the answers I expect is like they live and die by their calendar. Right. And again, a lot of these people could be coming out of, um, out of school or in a type of role that relies on organization, but answering like, you know, I have, I have calendar blocks. So that's a big thing for SDRs to be successful is they'll block off their calendar for different times that are dedicated to, to Calls dedicated to scrubbing their accounts, dedicated to personalizing emails. And so if someone is very type A in the sense that they are, you know, live and die by their calendar, they're, they're more likely to be successful.

AI assessment note: “I mean, I ask how, and one of the answers I expect is”