SDR Success Techniques

I almost fired our best SDR last year. It wasn’t personal. He was a good guy, worked hard, and always showed up on time. But month after month, his numbers weren’t improving. Emails went unanswered. Calls never connected. Demos? Non-existent. We were both frustrated. I started to wonder if he was the problem. Maybe sales wasn’t his thing? Then one afternoon, we grabbed coffee. Instead of talking numbers, we talked openly. I asked him straight-up: “Why isn’t it working?” He took a deep breath and replied: “I’m following our playbook. I send hundreds of emails, but honestly, I’m just guessing. I don’t really know who’s ready to talk, so I try everyone.” It hit me like a ton of bricks. We’d built a system based on volume and hope, not precision. It wasn’t him. it was us. We’d given him the wrong tools, the wrong strategy. So instead of letting him go, we completely changed how we did outbound. We stopped guessing. We started paying attention to signals: Who’s visiting our LinkedIn profiles? (Tracked via Teamfluence™) Who’s engaging silently with our posts? (Tracked via Clay) Who’s spending serious time on our website? (Tracked via RB2B) Suddenly, our SDR wasn’t sending cold messages. He was following signals that said, “Hey, I’m interested. Talk to me.” Within a month, his reply rate doubled. In two months, he became our top performer. Today, he leads our outbound team. It wasn’t about effort. It was about timing and having a system that showed him exactly when to reach out and who to reach out to. Outbound isn’t about sending more messages. It’s about knowing exactly when and how to engage. If your SDRs are struggling, ask yourself: Are they failing you or are you failing them? It might change your perspective. It certainly changed ours. #Outbound #SalesLeadership #SDRlife #RevOps #LinkedInSales #SalesLessons #GTMStrategy #B2BSaaS #SmartSelling #GTMEngineering #AIOutbound #Teamfluence #Clay

My take after cold calling 10 people an hour for 6 months. Getting better isn’t about finding the magic opener. It’s about fixing the reps between rep #1 and rep #100. Here’s what actually made me better (and got me more meetings PB: 21 qualified in one month as an SDR): 1. I recorded myself → Cringey at first. → Eye-opening after. → You’ll catch your filler words, weak tone, and awkward pauses immediately. 2. I optimized my first 10 seconds → “Caught you at a bad time?” = hang up. → What works: “Quick one—I saw something relevant and wanted to run it by you.” 3. I prepped 3 talk tracks—not 30 → One for finance. → One for operations. → One for “I don’t know what you do.” Master those. Forget the rest. 4. I followed up every same-day call with value → Call at 10:13 AM? Email by 11 with something relevant. → Not “just checking in.” Give them a reason to care. 5. I tracked my own data weekly → Pickup rates, objection patterns, conversion to meeting. → Patterns = power. The result? — More meetings — Better conversations — Confidence over perfection My take: You don’t get better at cold calling by thinking. You get better by fixing the 99 calls that don’t go well. What’s one change that improved your cold call game this year? #sdr #ae #coldcalling SDRs of Germany

I got ghosted by 127 LinkedIn prospects in 2017. Then I discovered the pattern. So there I am... Fresh SDR me refreshing my inbox every 10 minutes hoping for responses. Little Morgan clearly getting cooked in the DMs. My messages were painful. "Hope all is well. My name is Morgan. We have mutual connections and I'd love to connect. Here's what we do..." Just terrible. I am sick even telling you all this. But when you start in sales, there aren't really guidelines. You get thrown in like "hope this works" and pray something sticks. I thought I wasn't good enough. Then I realized something huge: They weren't ignoring ME. They were ignoring my APPROACH. That changed everything. Here's the framework I developed after studying hundreds of messages: The AMP Outbound Formula: ↳ Observation (show them you know them) ↳ Context (why this observation matters) ↳ Pain point (what they're likely facing) ↳ Value prop/Power Move(how you help) ↳ Call to action (next step) You don't need all 5 every time. Sometimes just observation + context + question works. Quick example" Before: "Hope all is well..." (Almost barfed writing this) " After: "Saw you just expanded your SDR team by 5 people. Most VPs tell me onboarding at that scale leads to (insert situation). Not sure if this is relevant but how are you currently doing (x)?" (Now we are getting somewhere) But every successful message I've seen follows this pattern. As Samantha McKenna says "Show Them You KNOW Them" before you show them what you DO. When I follow this framework, response rates jump. When teams I coach use this from our LinkedIn Revenue Engine™ they book more meetings from LinkedIn. Your prospects are waiting for someone who gets them. Be that someone.

I’ve been cold calling for 9 years. Here’s everything I know about it: (this is a longer post so bear with me) 𝟭. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝟭𝟬 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴: People don’t hang up because it’s a cold call. They hang up because you sound unsure, scripted, or boring. - Be calm. - Be confident. - Be clear. 𝟮. 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗽 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸: Don’t ask “𝘏𝘰𝘸’𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨?” Don’t ask “𝘐𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦?” Just try: “𝘏𝘦𝘺 (𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦), 𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯’𝘵 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴, 𝘐’𝘭𝘭 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧.” That opener alone will double your talk time. 𝟯. 𝗣𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁: No one cares that you’re the “𝘯𝘰.1 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘟.” Tell them what pain you solve, fast. 𝟰. 𝗢𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻’𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: “I’m not interested” just means they don’t understand you yet. Use the FFF method: Feel - Felt - Found. “𝘐 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵. 𝘖𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦… 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 (𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘵).” 𝟱. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗹, 𝗶𝘁’𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: If they’re talking, you’re winning. If they’re curious, you’re in. If you book the meeting, that’s the win. 𝟲. 𝗩𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁: You could have the best pitch in the world… But if you don’t make the dials, you won’t get the meetings. Consistency > perfection. 𝟳. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲: Don’t waste time trying to convince people who don’t have the problem you solve. Laser focus on your ICP, the ones who feel the pain. 𝟴. 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗴𝘆: Your tone > your script. People say yes to people who sound like they believe in what they’re saying. 𝟵. 𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄-𝘂𝗽 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘁: Most meetings I book happen after the call. Send a short LinkedIn DM or a value-driven email right after. 𝟭𝟬. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘁: They have a framework. They prep. They reflect after each call. And they improve daily. Cold calling still works if you do it right. Now let's book some meetings!!!! P.S. I've created a free cold calling cheat sheet where I share all of my do's & don'ts. You can access it for free here: https://lnkd.in/g9BrrDA6

The answer to your outbound problems isn't: ⛔️ AI ⛔️ More volume ⛔️ SDR agents ⛔️ More relevance ⛔️ Dialers It's your OFFER. Let me explain... Most reps reach out with something like: “Just want to introduce myself and our company…” “Let’s do a quick call so you know your options when budgeting season comes around...” The problem? You have NOTHING to offer. If there’s no immediate need, there's zero reason to take a meeting with you. So you need a way to entice buyers to meet when they have a problem, but are not actively shopping. Here are three types of offers you can use to entice buyers to meet with you: ✅ Offer #1: Good - Pitch The Blind Date Position who the buyer will be meeting with. Hype up the AE, sales engineer, or yourself. Show them that meeting with you will be worth their while. Example: A client of ours sells an automated welding solution. The manufacturing industry is facing a massive shortage of welding talent. Their SDRs pitched it like this: “I’d love to introduce you to Eric. He’s worked with a dozen manufacturers like Caterpillar, Karavan, and more, who are all facing similar challenges. He’ll walk you through how they’re automating the most difficult welds and dealing with the labor shortage. Even if nothing comes of it, you’ll walk away with a better understanding of how the industry is solving this.” Even if the buyer isn’t shopping, they gain value from the conversation itself. ✅ Offer #2: Better - 1:Many Offers These are high-quality, reusable insights that still feel tailored. Think: competitive benchmarks, industry research, or best practice guides. Example: We have a client that sells to ecomm brands. They conducted a mystery shop of 400 competitors to analyze response times, customer service channels, etc. Their reps used those insights to open cold calls with: “Hey Katie, I submitted a ticket on your site, and it took about 48 hours to get a response. It was about 3x longer than folks like Patagonia and the North Face. Again, it’s Jason. Mind if I share more about why I’m calling?” That’s an offer that feels immediately relevant and valuable. It gets a conversation started immediately. ✅ Offer #3: Best - 1:1 Offers These are custom-tailored experiences or resources created specifically for the prospect. It’s you and your organization putting in serious effort to customize the offer. This works best at the enterprise & strategic levels. Examples: - A cyber risk analysis - A benchmarking analysis - A workshop - A personalized audit of a website checkout flow. - Visiting and experiencing the brand firsthand, then sharing insights. - Offering free data, licenses, or pilots. These take more work, but they convert like crazy. ~~~ Which one's most applicable for you?

Here are 10 lessons I learned about outbound in 2025 (some the hard way): 1. AI is MUCH better utilized for building out target account lists, figuring out realistic TAM/SAMs and account research than for copywriting/writing emails. 2. The AI SDR that replaces humans is dead. The hype lasted for ~6 months. Not a single operator I know that has tried it, has had success. Automating list building and creating messaging based on commoditized 3rd party data on the web and blasting out “personalized” emails is not going to break through the noise. 3. Context switching is a killer in SDR land. One of the main things ops/leadership needs to do is to reduce the number of decisions that an SDR makes every day. This is one of the best use cases for AI today. A rep should be able to cold call somebody and the moment they connect, have all the necessary information pushed to them to have a relevant convo (easier said than done). 4. Your list is your message. Most people think about outbound wrong. They build a list, and then think about the messaging after. This should be reversed. Your list should be built with the message in mind. 5. The phone and cold calling is king. Especially selling into GTM leadership, the data for us was crystal clear. Even meetings booked from email usually had some form of phone conversation at some point. 6. The 80/20 rule applies to outbound as well. -80% of your results will come from 20% of your accounts -80% of your meetings will come from 20% of your plays 7. As a rep, you set the level of urgency your prospect has. And the best reps operate with extreme urgency. -Suggest booking that meeting for today or tomorrow … instead of next week  -Prospect asked for you to follow up via email on a call? ... Do it right after your call block. Not in the evening, not tomorrow. 8. It’s key for sales development leaders to forecast pipeline (not enough do it properly or early enough). AE leaders run forecasting weekly. SDR leaders should do the same. It’s vital to know what is being projected from your team so that you can correct course and adjust. Forecasting should be cohort-based and projected out weekly based on the following: -Meetings booked -Show Rate -Qualification rate  -Time to qualification (days) This will give you a good understanding of where you will land each week. And allows you to be proactive. 9. The pace of change in outbound is INSANE. What worked last quarter literally doesn't work the next. It's CONSTANT iteration. Be obsessed with experiments. 10. Managing people is hard. And managing SDRs is not for the faint of heart. It’s an absolute grind… day in and day out. Every individual is great & flawed in their own way - we just do the best that we can. You have to be a little sick in the head to do this for as long as I have 🤣. But I wouldn't have it any other way. I had the opportunity to build with an incredible SDR team all 2025. SO grateful for you all ❤️  ❤️ Happy New Year!!!

I interviewed an SDR hitting 140%+ for 3 straight quarters. Here’s what they’re doing differently: 𝟭. 𝗦𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 ↳ 6–8 steps, not 15+ ↳ No filler. Every touch delivers value ↳ Call + email always paired ↳ Last step = custom video or voice note 𝟮. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿𝘀 ↳ New fiscal year = budget convos ↳ Earnings calls = warm hooks ↳ Major events = better outreach windows ↳ They don’t just work the lead list—they work the calendar 𝟯. 𝗢𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗱 ↳ Weekly call roleplays ↳ Objection flashcards ↳ Builds 1–line rebuttals for each major persona ↳ “I don’t fight objections—I prepare for them” 𝟰. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 ↳ What worked? ↳ What didn’t? ↳ Which touches landed? ↳ Which CTAs converted? Success is repeatable—if you study it.

I am wrapping up our hiring process for our first two sales roles at Lawfully. We had over 700 applicants apply—standing out isn’t easy. For these roles I was the recruiter, hiring manager, and executive sponsor. Here’s my advice on how to stand out: Getting Through to the First Stage— 1. Reach out directly to the recruiter, hiring manager, or executive sponsor I gave priority to candidates who reached out personally. Some sent LinkedIn DMs, while others crafted thoughtful cold emails. Two memorable examples: one email had the subject line “Matt, I’m skiing my way into your inbox,” and another featured a personalized video introducing herself and addressing common interview questions. Make sure your outreach is thoughtful, creative, and mindful of people’s time. Done right, it sets you apart Done poorly, it can backfire. 2. Make your Linkedin look professional Many applicants had unprofessional profile photos, large employment gaps, or short stints at companies. While you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, with 700 applicants to review, these things can quickly lead to being passed over. You control your LinkedIn narrative and the professional story it tells. Demonstrate to recruiters that you can commit and follow through. 3. Use the right professional jargon. For this SDR role, candidates with SDR experience were fast-tracked to interviews. Ensure your job titles and descriptions align with industry standards to avoid being missed. Make it clear what you do, especially if your role mirrors the position you’re applying for. Getting Through the Interview Stage— 1. Research the company before your interview. Out of 60 people I interviewed, only one could identify our competitors, and few provided detailed responses about our products and services. One candidate couldn’t name a single thing about Lawfully, while another was clearly reading straight off our homepage. Take the time to learn about the company. It shows genuine interest and sets you apart. 2. Answer all the questions. I evaluated candidates on several criteria, including experience, passion, coach-ability, and their ability to learn. To gauge learning, I asked their favorite books—professional or otherwise. If someone admitted they didn’t read, it was a quick signal to move on. 3. Answer positively and tie it back to the role and your strengths. Strike the right balance between positivity and authenticity. Candidates who dwelled on negative experiences sent a clear sign they weren’t the right fit. 4. Align your answers with company & hiring manager goals When candidates nailed this, they were an automatic pass. One standout example was a candidate who asked about our goals right at the start of the interview. Throughout the conversation, he consistently explained how he would help us reach our milestone. I’ve got 20 more tips to share—including what it takes to crush the final round. Drop a comment, and I’ll send them your way!

Not everyone runs the math on this, but I do! When I had 5 SDRs I looked at how they spent their time… I wanted to know my costs. Their 8 hour days were on average: - 30 min: internal meetings (1:1’s, all hands) - 30 min: trainings - 150 min: prospecting data gathering - 150 min: calling - 90 min: custom emails / LinkedIn My cost of running my SDRs team was about $750K (includes tools, management, benefits, etc) That meant each fully supported SDR is $150K That meant $75/hr With that I looked at the SDR day again… WTF! $37 worth of training per day $187 worth of “Data gathering!?!” I wanted to flip it. Didn’t like the ratio I let go my least productive SDR, and hired 2 Data researchers who OBSESS with Clay, and other data tools. Hired offshore (no agency, direct hire!) Cost-wise we stayed the same. But time spent per day on my 4 SDRs flipped to: - 60 min meetings (more time w/ AEs & data team) - 60 min training (more w/ peers!) - 15 min checking / validating data in Outreach - 195 min calling - 120 min emails / LinkedIn Something crazy happened. SDRs became A LOT more strategic. SDRs enjoyed their work more SDRs collaborated with AEs more SDRs didn’t burn out as quickly SQLs (Held meetings) went from 22 per month for the team to 38 per month… SALs (AE takes ownership / flip it) went from 8 per month to 27 per month! Mid-funnel meetings to move opps down the funnel went from ZERO! To 7 per month. SDR tenure went from 14 to 31 months. All for a total cost of $0. Not an extra penny spent. Just re-organized the team, became more data driven, split responsibilities, gamified the calls, added SDR Revenue commissions and maximized SDR/AE collaboration. As you plan your 2025, consider this… there are ways to improve your team that take $0 budget. Especially if you don’t have a data team Especially if you use Orum/Nooks Especially if you’re not turning meetings into revenue Especially if you don’t have SDR-Rev-Ops Tag someone that needs to see this / think about this / consider this for the future. Heck! DM me if you want me to explain how to do it right. Happy to share some visuals and process documents via Zoom. Now get back to your 2025 planning and knock it out of the freaking park next year #SDRsMatter

I’ve built and led sales teams from scratch. And there’s ONE channel I see revenue leak over and over again... (and it’s not that £50k event you spent scanning badges at a stand…) It's here.. Yep.. surprise surprise it's LinkedIn. Every team I look at, it’s the same pattern. Strong outbound. Decent process. But then you open the team on LinkedIn… and there’s no surface area. The problem is your outbound is a single touchpoint. Your LinkedIn presence is the environment that touchpoint lands in. And most teams optimise the first and ignore the second. If you want this to actually move pipeline, it needs to be treated like part of sales execution: 1. Stop thinking “posting”. Start thinking “account exposure” Your reps shouldn’t just post into the void, they should be visible around the accounts they’re targeting. That means: • commenting on ICP posts consistently • engaging before outreach (not after) • showing up in the same feed as their prospects You’re building recognition before you ever send a message. 2. Tie content directly to live deals Most content is generic because it’s disconnected from reality. Your best content is already in your pipeline: • objections that keep coming up • questions prospects ask on calls • where deals get stuck f it’s happening 5+ times in conversations, it should exist on LinkedIn. 3. Build “minimum viable profiles” across the team You don’t need creators, you need profiles that answer, fast: • what do you understand? • who do you help? • how do you think? Recent activity matters more than old experience. If someone lands on the profile and sees nothing recent, you’re back to zero. 4. Align posting with outbound waves Most teams treat these separately. Better approach: • rep warms up a segment (engagement + content) • then outreach starts • then content reinforces during follow-ups You’re not relying on a single moment anymore. 5. Don’t isolate this to SDRs Here is the BIG mistake. Your AE gets checked before the call, your manager gets checked mid-deal, if visibility drops at any stage, trust drops with it. This needs to be across the WHOLE sales chain. 6. Measure leading indicators differently You won’t see this purely in “likes”. Look at: • connection acceptance rates • reply rates by rep • speed to first response • profile views from target accounts • conversion rate • and of course inbounds (yes DO add UTM links on each sales rep profile) 7. Prioritise comments over posts early on Everyone focuses on posting. But comments: • get you in front of the right people faster • attach you to existing conversations • build recognition without needing distribution Most teams are still trying to win inside the sequence. The edge right now sits outside of it. If your team has no presence on LinkedIn, every outbound starts from zero. If they’re visible in the right places, outbound becomes a conversion layer, not just an entry point. That’s where the difference is 👌🏼