Assertion Not checkable as stated
In-office SDRs significantly outperform remote peers, says Ashley Kelly
“We pivoted about nine months ago, I want to say, and started hiring in office more. And you do see the in office SDRs perform much higher than the ones that are remote, especially for outbound, just because there's so many learnings sitting next to each other.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Brex tripled SDR revenue in six months by compensating reps on revenue
“When it worked at Brex, we were able to three X the referring revenue that SDR has brought in within six months.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Brex saw Stage 2 leads collapse after tying SDR compensation to revenue
“The other thing at Brex is once, once we started copying them on revenue, the S two is absolutely tanked.”
Insight
Inbound SDR teams perform best when reporting to marketing
“If you're a heavy inbound org for SDR there's a lot more science to it. And being really tightly aligned with the team that's driving the funnel Is where you have that feedback loop that is so important. And so when you think about an inbound funnel you're thi…”
Insight
Outbound SDR teams are more successful reporting into sales
“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. You need to be able to educate them on a product. They probably have no idea…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Sales development will become GTM's standalone third pillar
“I think I actually am very bullish on sales development if you can't tell. And I think it's the third pillar within the go to market function. And I think that it can stand alone.”
Insight
Startups should hire a junior AE as their first sales rep
“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 in the weeds and helping build out the process and scale.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
US sales candidates freely admit to being money motivated
“I think that's a UK or a European thing. I think in the States hiring, like, absolutely people have no problem saying that they are money motivated.”
Insight
SDR candidates using AI in writing tests demonstrates resourcefulness
“Maybe it doesn't matter and they're being resourceful and they're using tools that you know, that, that are gonna make them a better SDR.”
Opinion
Expecting SDRs to heavily qualify leads at target accounts is bad practice
“Actually, so there's one where AE's pushed back a lot saying that they, the SDR needs to go do more qualification and needs to go you know, warm the deal up more for them. And I think To me, that's BS because if I'm a good AD, I want to take any conversation t…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jun 2034
Ashley Kelly predicts sales development will reach C-suite status by 2034
“I will be a Chief Sales Development Officer. I think that sales development will sit at the executive level within 10 years.”
Insight
The best account executives and sales leaders start as SDRs
“I would say the top AEs and best leaders that I've ever worked with have started their careers as sales development reps.”
Disclosure
Rippling employs over 200 outbound SDRs
“Outbound is definitely still a thing. I have over 200 of them that would definitely prove otherwise or prove what I'm saying accurate”
Insight
Outbound sales fail when teams replace fundamentals with shiny tools
“To me, the most important thing to remember is that there's no silver bullet. And I think where companies make a lot of these mistakes is that they get excited about the new shiny object and they kind of follow it like sheep. And then they put all their eggs i…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
AI will eliminate SDR busywork to enable human personalization
“I do think where it will help SDRs though, is eliminate a bunch of the busy tasks. And so like the hardest part about being an SDR is the little details that you have to pay attention to all day, every day. And that could be. Cleaning and scrubbing your accoun…”
Insight
SDR teams need strategic autonomy, not order-taker status
“A lot of companies view SDR as more like order takers. And I think it's super important to give SDR orgs like the autonomy and the ability to really build their own strategy and execution.”
Insight
SDR Cross-Selling Works from a CAC Payback Perspective for Multi-Product SaaS
“And so when you have SDR resources that are able to go into the database and be able to find the customers that we are able to cross sell, I mean, we have so many different products. We have the luxury of being able to do that. And it works from, you know, a C…”
Insight
A company's first sales hire shouldn't be fresh out of college
“I do think your first hire should be someone like not fresh out of college and definitely not their first SDR role.”
Insight
Founders must be primary sellers and storytellers early on
“In my mind, a founder should always be the main seller. Definitely the main storyteller, right? And that's how you create the content that you need to build your sales playbook is what is the vision? Like, what are we solving here and what are we building and …”
Insight
Former recruiters make the best tech sales development representatives
“My favorite 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 marke…”
Insight
Cold calling is the hardest SDR skill
“I'd say the hardest part about SDR 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 th…”
Insight
SDR interviewing requires evaluating traits, not past sales performance
“When you're interviewing salespeople, you can actually ask like, what was your quota attainment? What's the biggest deal that you've ever sold? Right? Like there's like, you ask for experience and it's like the complete opposite for sales development because y…”
Opinion
Citing a parent's advice is the worst SDR interview answer
“I'll tell you the worst answer you can get is when someone tells you, well, because my dad or my mom was in sales and they think I'd be good at it. And I'm like, oh God, like you have no idea what you were signing up for.”
Insight
Repeating interview role-plays with feedback tests candidate coachability
“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?”
