Insight certainty 3/5 debate potential 3/5

Startups should hire a junior AE as their first sales rep

Ashley Kelly · Ashley Kelly: The Playbook to Start and Scale Your SDR Team | E1162 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Jun 7, 2024 · at 13:35

Ashley Kelly, VP of Sales Development at Rippling, advises founders on whether to hire an SDR or Head of Sales first.

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“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.”

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More from Ashley Kelly

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.”
Ashley Kelly Jun 7, 2024 ▶ 49:40 Ashley Kelly: The Playbook to Start and Scale Your SDR Team | E1162 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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.”
Ashley Kelly Jun 7, 2024 ▶ 28:01 Ashley Kelly: The Playbook to Start and Scale Your SDR Team | E1162 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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.”
Ashley Kelly Jun 7, 2024 ▶ 28:35 Ashley Kelly: The Playbook to Start and Scale Your SDR Team | E1162 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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…”
Ashley Kelly Jun 7, 2024 ▶ 6:48 Ashley Kelly: The Playbook to Start and Scale Your SDR Team | E1162 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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…”
Ashley Kelly Jun 7, 2024 ▶ 7:29 Ashley Kelly: The Playbook to Start and Scale Your SDR Team | E1162 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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.”
Ashley Kelly Jun 7, 2024 ▶ 9:07 Ashley Kelly: The Playbook to Start and Scale Your SDR Team | E1162 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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