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The Importance of SDRs
A team of SDRs is an asset to your company and your bottom line. The problem is, there are a LOT of things that need to be setup to make sure your SDR team can ever get to this point.
Without following this playbook, you will probably fall into the trap that I did hiring 40 sales reps in a few short months and burning almost all of them (spoiler, most of it was my fault).
So let's dive in!
Table of Contents
1 - Why Cold Outreach?
2 - Hyper-Personalization
3 - SOPs
4 - Hiring & Ramping
5 - KPIs & Troubleshooting
Why Cold Outreach?
Every marketing channel balances two things: Cost and Repeatability. Usually, these two things are proportional. The more expensive the channel, usually the more systematic. In the other direction, the more affordable the channel, usually the more random the results are.
Example 1: Youtube Ads Funnel with a VSL/Webinar. This Can get expensive, but it’s very repeatable.
Example 2: Partnerships with other businesses in the same space. The CPA is cheap but leads are very random and not repeatable.
But there is one marketing channel that swims against this current. Cold Outreach
Cold outreach is the only affordable acquisition channel that is also systematic.
It can literally cost you less than $200 to do it yourself with some software, and you can continue to put leads in one end, and sales will come out the other. It’s truly repeatable once it is dialed in.
“Awesome Joe! I’m going to start sending some cold pitches! Woohoo!
Hold on there cowboy.
I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing.
99% of businesses think cold outreach is this:
- Blast 100 automated emails/day
- Don’t book any calls
- Increase the Email Limit to 500 emails/day
- Keep repeating, because it’s a “numbers game”
- Their emails land in spam
- Google shuts down their emails
- Get a <1% booking rate at the best
This was never how it was supposed to be.
Proper cold outreach is meant to start and build a relationship with a complete stranger that might be a future client of yours.
100% automated messages can’t do this. Semi-personalized messages can’t do this.
The standard for high-converting cold outreach is so much higher than everyone thinks it is.
But what happens when you implement everything that is in this playbook?
It’s lights out. You’ll be closing $25K/pop off of a system that costs you $200/mo in software doing it yourself, or $600/mo if you delegate it.
Are you cool with a 41X ROI?
Hyper-Personalization
Before we unleash some rockstar SDRs and overflow our calendars, we need our outreach to actually be able to book calls (seems obvious enough).
So how do we craft our outbound emails/LinkedIn messages so they actually convert cold prospects into booked calls?
Hyper-Personalization.
Hyper personalization is the key to building a massive amount of trust with someone who has never heard of you and is slightly offended you’re in their inbox. If you want to have any CHANCE of this prospect becoming a client, you have to start it off right.
Before I explain the framework, I need to make one thing clear. You MUST have these other variables figured out for your specific company.
-Value proposition/message
-Follow-up sequences
-Targeting
With these in place, personalization absolutely lights up your outreach efforts, but without them, it’s a MASSIVE waste of your time.
So what does a hyper-personalized intro look like? A hyper-personalized intro is a custom note (usually 2-4 sentences) that you write for every single prospect. This is a basic framework we use to write a very detailed custom note:
I've become a fan of your [accomplishments/any work they have done/something special they said] just after [reading their story/how they accomplished something in their life or business].
I’ve [seen/read/listened to so many] [people/businesses/websites/blogs/podcasts] but nobody has anything near you, I can bet on that.
Also, I loved your progress…in just [time frame, you have [achievements]. I am just thinking how hard you work & how you manage your time. Respect!
THIS IS NOT A SCRIPT.
Read that again. Okay, now read it one more time.
This is simply a framework to get started, but you NEED to change up words, and how you say things to each prospect. It will not look genuine if you don't.
Here’s an example of what it could look like in practice:
"Like an INC 5000 award wasn't enough of an achievement, you 2Xd revenue for 10 of your clients too?
I mean, the chances are so small to 2X once, but to do it 10 times, AND be a father of 3, it just boggles my mind how you were able to accomplish all of that. I can barely drink my coffee and read at the same time.
Also, how were you able to jump from homeless to CEO without any formal education? I think we all know how you got to that Inc 5000 list, mad respect man!"
Proof
Below are the numbers for one of our new outbound SDRs. He uses our hyper-personalization process.
233 Emails Sent
25 Interested Leads
Summary
- Get your cold outreach to book calls at 5%-10% before you hire an SDR
- You must have your messaging, audience, and follow-ups figured out as well, otherwise, personalization is a waste of time
- Study and use the framework for hyper-personalization to achieve a 10% conversion rate on cold prospects.
SOPs & Playbooks
“Alright Joe, I’m ready, let’s hire an appointment SDR!”
Hold on there buddy.
You need to have your systems and processes dialed in before you hire someone. How is your SDR supposed to read your mind? We need to create SOPs/Playbooks
What is an SOP?
A Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is a step-by-step process documented so your employees can execute on it and perform the same tasks every time to ensure consistency.
No matter what task, SOPs HAVE GOT to be EXTREMELY detailed. You cannot slap together a loom video on a google doc and expect your task to be done…
You need to properly document every single step of the lead generation process for your SDR...if they need to "figure" anything out, you've already lost.
Usually (but not always), written instructions perform better than videos from a consistency standpoint. Written instructions allow you to show every frame of the process, use images with arrows to point visually to the sub-task, and allow any person to easily digest, and re-read the instruction without struggling to find it in a video.
Basically, it needs to pass the Mom Test. The 4-year old test. The Monkey Test. Whatever you want to call it...can someone with literally 0 experience in this process, who has no idea what they’re doing, follow your SOP and complete the task? If the answer is no (and it is most of the time), go back, and add more detail.
Think about it, what is the point of having an SOP that doesn’t actually show SDRs what to do? You spend hours and hours making your SOP only to still be asked BASIC questions from your team members.
This wastes your own time and halts your business growth. Below is an example of one of our SOPs.
It’s our SDR ramping playbook, which brings a new SDR, with 0 experience with out process, all the way to the point of sending their first multi-channel outbound campaign with hyper-personalized intro lines written for every prospect.
You can imagine, A LOT needs to be covered for us to bridge that knowledge gap. But it’s all written, concisely, step by step, with excruciating detail.
It took me 100s of hours, and many 4:30 a.m mornings, to make all of our SOPs, this is just one of them.
Structure
You want SOPs to not only be detailed, but also organized, and thoughtful in order. All of our SOPs have a similar labeling structure. Sections are broken up into numbers, and individual tasks are broken up into letters.
For example, in the SOP above, we have Section 4C highlighted. This allows you and your SDR to properly discuss any questions (if they even come up) about a task.
Example:
You: “Hey Tom, make sure to reread Section 3C when you’re writing these personal lines, we outline the entire process.”
SDR: “Got it! Quick question, did you want me to grab 90 leads or 100 leads? Section 4C says 90 but you told me on the call yesterday to do 100.”
Now we can point to a specific task instead of trying to scroll through 100 pages to find something.
Hosting SOPs
Many companies host their SOPs on Google docs. Some might even go further and try to put them in Asana, Trello, or maybe click up.
The Problem with Google Docs -Google docs are not meant for creating SOPs, they’re designed for writing words. You will quickly find that pasting images, formatting text, adding videos, asking for text input (which you’ll need for quizzing SDRs), email fields...will be pretty much impossible on Google docs.
On top of that, you can’t even manage the actual work being done on the SOPs. Basically, you’ll say “Hey Mr. SDR, here is the Doc SOP, go do it!”, and have NO idea what’s going on, where they are, or how they’re doing.
The Problem with Project Management Tools - Some people opt for project management tools to host SOPs, which is a little bit better, but it still falls short.
These tools are meant for managing tasks as their 100% center focus. Even tools like click up, which actually have a docs feature, still aren’t meant for hosting an SOP AND managing the tasks on it. You end up having the high-level tasks assigned to your SDR, but then have to use Google Docs or similar to show the “nitty-gritty” detail.
These tools are awesome for one-off projects, basic tasks, or business building tasks. They just fall short in the SOP creation and management department.
What We Use
We use Flowster.
Flowster was DESIGNED to create an SOP. It has a lot of fancy widgets available so you can actually create a premium SOP with deep functionality (see below).
On top of being a better SOP creation tool, it also manages the tasks for us. We literally create a “workflow” for our SDR, and then they have to complete every task in that workflow.
Below you can see an example of 2 workflows. Tim and Jason have 6/8 tasks completed, Ainese has not started her workflow yet.
This allows us to know what’s ACTUALLY going on, and plan ahead if we know work is not getting done.
You can check out Flowster here if you’re curious.
Summary
- Make your SOPs Monkey-Proof so your SDRs can properly complete their tasks without extensive experience.
- Organize your SOPs so it’s easy to follow, and easy to find specific information.
- Host your SOPs on Flowster so you can create them faster, and track the actual work done by your SDRs.
SDR Hiring & Ramping
“Alright Joe, now that I’m ready...I’m gonna go find my A-Player! I’m gonna find MY TOM BRADY!”
Pump the breaks pal.
Step 1: Hiring
Businesses spend way too much time hiring the perfect SDR. Obviously, we need to hire qualified people, but 95% of their performance will come from the training we give them (the SOPs).
You need to hire an SDR that writes and speaks your language fluently, and has some outbound experience. That’s it. When you focus on this and let your SOPs do the rest, you can hire faster, and then begin ramping faster, saving you time in the recruiting process.
Where to Find SDRs?
When it comes to finding these SDRs, here are the top 4 platforms based on value, quality, and speed.
#1 Facebook Groups
Facebook groups are a great place to find SDRs. You can find groups that these SDRs would be in (sales jobs opportunities, VA groups, etc.), post a job post, and book them in for an interview.
#2 LinkedIn
Similar to Facebook, you can find LI groups for sales opportunities to post in. You can also blast your LinkedIn network, or put up a formal job post. Usually you will have a large amount of applicants on LinkedIn, but MOST won't convert to an interview (volume is needed).
Both these platforms have a LARGE user base and allow you to find SDRs from all over the world. Just make sure if you are looking for an affordable SDR (base salary), that you focus on the lower cost-of-living countries that speak English (Philippines and Mexico are my top 2.)
Vetting Your SDRs
Once you find 2-3 good candidates from these sources, it’s time to put them to the test. We are hiring SDRs who have little to medium experience with outbound prospecting. We need to make sure they can write personalized intro lines to the hyper-personalized standard we talked about earlier in this playbook.
This is how we test them:
#1 Give them an SOP on writing Hyper-Personalized intros
#2 Provide some "Test Leads" for them to write for
#3 Examine their work & coach them on the mistakes they made
#4 Have them re-write the intros with the feedback you gave them
#5 Examine how they improved or didn't improve using your advice
Now, all you have to do is just pick the best candidate purely based on their second performance of creating those intro lines. If they can do this properly, the other outbound activities will be a lay-up.
Note: The intro lines do NOT have to be perfect. We are going to need to perform some ongoing coaching for them once they start working. This is a short-term test to examine if they can follow instructions, and get 80% of the way there.
Step 2: Ramping
Congrats! You’ve hired your SDR, and they just started. Now what?
Well, we can’t just tell them to start sending messages, there are two stages of an SDR’s employment journey.
Stage 1: Ramping
Stage 2: Daily Activities
The first thing we need to do is ramp them. This basically means we have to catch them up to speed on who we target, how to set everything up, how to get leads, how to import them, etc. To do this, we will create an SDR Ramping Playbook. Here’s the framework I would recommend when writing this out:
Section 1 - Introduction
This is where you want to explain how this SOP works, who it’s for, what it accomplishes, and how to use it (especially if you are using an SOP host like Flowster)
Section 2 - Targeting
In this section, you want to map out the target market you are going after. Company size, industry, location, keywords, price point, and other ICP related information. This will help your SDRs understand who is a “qualified” prospect so they don’t waste time personalizing a bad prospect.
Section 3 - Personalization
This is a crucial section. This is where you’re going to show your SDRs how to write proper, hyper-personalized intro lines. You gave them a little bit in their “Hiring Test”, but this is the whole shebang. You want to not only show the framework but examples of good personal lines as well. Videos of you writing them, or coaching past SDRs are a HUGE bonus.
Feel free to literally copy and paste our framework from section 1 of this playbook, it’s all there for you :D
Section 4 - Setting Up Live Campaigns
This is much more nuts and bolts. You want to show the EXACT, step-by-step process on how to take a cold list of qualified prospects and send them messages.
Here are the steps:
- Extract leads from the lead database (we love Apollo)
- Add personal intros for each prospect to the CSV
- Import the list into an outreach software (we love Uptics)
- Ensure leads import into the proper sequences correctly
- Send a test email & make sure everything looks good
- Turn the sequences on
- Collect $$$ (Okay I added that step for fun)
Section 5 - Next Steps
The final section of this Ramping SOP should be the next steps. You want to give your SDR clear next steps on what to do. For us, we show them how to get access to their next SOP, which is the “Daily Activities” SOP.
Step 3: Daily Activities
The ramping SOP should allow the SDR to launch their first campaign within a few days, and this is great. But there’s still work to be done. Once they launch their first campaign, they can now start their daily prospecting activities. We want to ensure that they are doing EVERYTHING possible to fill our pipeline on a daily basis.
Basically, every day they will write personal intros for new leads, import new leads into your outreach software, reply to prospects, update the CRM, and fill out an End of Day Report. You want to make an SOP strictly for these daily activities. Admittedly, about 30% of it will borrow information from your ramping SOP, so it should be faster to write.
Armed with the daily activities SOP, your SDR will be able to complete all the tasks and stay on track, and you will be able to track exactly what’s going on in your lead-gen process.
Summary
- Hire an SDR with little to medium outbound experience and vett them using a quiz
- Ramp the SDR by assigning them a Ramping SOP
- Ensure daily performance by assigning a Daily Activities SOP
KPIs & Troubleshooting
Alright, our SDR is unleashed and sending messages! But how do we know if they’re doing a good job?
That’s why we have KPIs to track. KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are crucial in determining whether or not your SDR is doing well. Sometimes, these KPIs being met are not the SDR’s fault, it could also be your fault. Things like a bad list, bad copy, or even an inefficient software stack. No matter whose fault it is, KPIs tell you the truth.
Before we dive in, let’s define a few terms:
Open Rate: The % of prospects who open your email
Reply Rate: The % of prospects who reply with any response (bad, neutral, or positive)
Interested Lead Rate: The % of prospects who opened your email & “raised their hand” but have not booked a call yet.
Booking Rate: The % of prospects that book a call with you
Campaign KPIs
The KPIs we want to hit for campaign-level performance are as follows:
Open Rate: At least 60%
Reply Rate: 10%-40%
Let me make one thing clear, these KPIs are soft KPIs. They do not determine ultimate success. We will discuss later what the order should be for measuring KPIs to determine performance.
We send emails that have no links in them (except the signature), so click rate is not a CTA for us, therefore we don’t track it as a KPI.
Interested Lead Rate & Booking Rate
The KPI we want to hit for Interested Lead Rate (ILR) is 5%-10%. This means that 5%-10% of prospects in a given campaign who opened your email replied back that they were interested but did not book a call yet.
If you are targeting the correct persona, and your email/LinkedIn message copy is solid, hyper-personalized outreach should yield you this ILR. Usually, it’s closer to 10% for us, but with some niches and verticals being different, the rate can vary.
The KPI we want to hit for Booking Rate (BR) is 50%-75% of ILR. So if we have 10 interested leads, we want to book in at least 5-7.5 people (although I wouldn’t want to talk to half a person).
Emails/Day
You should be sending a total of 35-45+ emails/day/SDR. The best way to do this is to separate the campaigns into 3-4 different emails (all on different domains), and distribute them out so no one email is overloaded.
With KPIs on the lower side, that’s 35 emails/day -> 21 emails opened -> 1 call booked/day/SDR.
On the best side it’s 45 emails/day -> 34 emails opened -> 3 calls booked/day/SDR
New Emails vs. Follow Ups
Every single outreach software that sends emails works the same way. You have an “emails sent per day” limit that you set, and the software only sends that many emails that day. Pretty simple.
However, that does not mean that every email you send has the most impact. By far, a majority of our prospects reply to the first 2-3 emails/LinkedIn messages. The reason is, that’s where personalization lives. After that, if they do reply, it’s unlikely its a nice reply :D
Because of this, you want a good majority of your daily outreach to be new prospects (aka First Emails).
So if you have a hyper-personalized first email, and 3 email follow ups, that means that we have 4 total emails to send to a prospect.
If we are sending 20 emails a day (just for easy numbers), that means that once prospects begin to fall under the 4th follow-up, we will only be sending 5 “1st” emails to new prospects (20 emails/4 messages = 5 “1st” emails/day).
To beef this up, you can either raise the daily email limit (usually not the best thing to do), or lower the number of email follow ups, and increase the number of LinkedIn follow ups.
Troubleshooting
Here is the flow of questions you want to ask yourself in order of priority:
- Did we book 1-3 calls today?
- Did we send at least 35-45 emails?
- Is my Open Rate at least 60%?
- Is my Reply Rate 10%-40%?
- Is my ILR at least 5%-10%
- Is my Booking Rate 50%-75% of ILR?
Please see the logic of these questions below:
If you flow through these questions using the flowchart above, you will save yourself a ton of time. If your SDR sent 5 emails today, why would you expect any calls booked?
If your open rate is 90% but you have a 0% reply rate, why would you expect any leads? These questions are given in the proper order so you can solve the basic things first.
Want a system that calculates all these KPI gaps for you so you know in <30 seconds what you need to fix? Try Novah :)
Summary
- Know your KPIs so you can use numbers to judge your SDR, not your feelings.
- Ensure your KPIs are in a good place before you start critiquing your SDR (email/LinkedIn copy, targeting, etc.)
- Troubleshoot your SDR performance with logical questions that are ordered from simplest to the most complex.
- Plug your KPIs into Novah and let our platform fo that work for you
Closing Thoughts
Look, I get it, this all sounds a bit overwhelming at first. “Hiring, training, SOP creation, tracking KPIs, I mean COME on Joe, this was supposed to be easy!” I never said that ;) However, building an in-house SDR team is definitely a bit of work, but it’s worth the dividends. Once you build this, you can add or subtract as many SDRs as you want, the SOPs and tracking systems will STILL be there.
It is 100% worth it to spend time on this kind of business activity because of the large upside it brings. As you start building out this SDR team, be careful to not fall into one of these common categories:
If you do everything outlined in this playbook properly, you will have a rockstar SDR team in place, just make sure you have everything else buttoned up too.
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