22: Top SDR - Florin Tatulea - Actionable Prospecting Tips to Get More Meetings

0:08 Scott Ingram: You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram.

0:24 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Florin Tatulea, who was the number one BDR or business development rep at Loopio, where he just made the transition to an account executive role in the last couple of months. Uh, welcome to the show, Florin.

0:37 Florin Tatulea: Hey Scott, pleasure to be here.

0:39 Scott Ingram: So we connected, um, much the same way that I connected with Kyle Gutzler, because you had written some really great articles about what it takes to be a top SDR on LinkedIn. But there's, you had an interesting background behind what prompted you to write, uh, those, those things. Why don't you give us that background and then we'll dig in like we always do with kind of the top 3 things.

1:00 Florin Tatulea: For sure, Scott. So, uh, you know, essentially the reason I started, uh, writing this article was because I recently got promoted, uh, to an AE position. Previously I was in an SDR role, then I'd had a team lead role as well. Um, and I looked back at the last 1.5 years, um, and one thing we do internally is, uh, whenever we get an outreach from another company, uh, either the, the co-founders or the management level you know, directors or VPs will actually send those outreach emails or talk about the cold calls that they got as an example for us as SDRs to see, you know, what we can do to improve our own outreach. And one thing I realized that in the last 1.5 years, there was probably 3 outreaches that were actually customized and good, which really surprised me. So I wanted to take some time to really break this down at a tactical perspective and see what I've learned in the last 1.5 years, uh, and then, uh, write the article to help people, uh, starting out in their career.

2:09 Scott Ingram: And, and 3, 3 good ones out of how many? What do you, what do you think the sample size was there?

2:14 Florin Tatulea: It's hard to estimate, but it must've been hundreds. Yeah.

2:17 Scott Ingram: So that's huge. And, and that's why I think that there's a couple of things I'm really excited about this conversation. Obviously we've, we've had a number of SDR conversations. In the past, SDR, BDR type of roles. And what you said that I love is forget about the fluffy stuff about work harder or be more confident or this, like in this type of role, it really comes down to a lot about the tactics. And that's where we're gonna spend our time today. I will also link up all of the articles that you've written because there is some good background there. So I'm not quite sure what episode number this is gonna be, but as always, if you're listening to this, if you just go to top1.fm, Uh, you'll, you'll find that you can search for Florin on there. Also, if you're in the continental US, you can text top1 to 444999 and getting on, get on our mailing list and we'll send you details that way as well. So Florin, let's, let's talk about, I know you did some work to consolidate these a little bit. So let's start with kind of your 3 most impactful tips for basically being, having a lot of success as an SDR.

3:24 Florin Tatulea: So in my articles, I had 10 tips, but I really broke them down to the 3 most powerful ones, I think. So the first one is gonna be knowing when to actually reach out to your contacts, whether that's, you know, via cold calling, whether that's on social or email. The second one we can quickly talk about is around having cadences, you know, that don't only include calls and emails, but also things like video and different types of social touches, you know, via LinkedIn, for example, and making sure that you have a decent amount of steps within that cadence to make sure that you're gonna get a response most of the time. And the final one that I had was around constantly A/B testing your different cold calling scripts, subject lines, and actual content within emails and, you know, weeding out the bad ones. And then as time goes by, hopefully you're going to just get better and better numbers for your outreach. Perfect.

4:24 Scott Ingram: And now let's, let's just dig into those. And one thing I just thought that I had, even though I don't know what the episode number is, if you go to top1.fm/florin, F-L-O-R-I-N, that's, that's how we'll get you directly to this. So now I don't have to know the number. Just a quick interjection here to thank our new sponsor, Vuetit. It was actually this conversation with Florin that set things in motion for Vidyard, the company behind Vuetit, to come on as our exclusive underwriting sponsor of the show through at least the end of the year. I'll tell you a little bit more about ViewedIt in a few minutes, but for now, you can boost your email response rates and book more meetings with video by downloading ViewedIt by Vidyard at top1.fm/v, or go to any page on top1.fm and click on their ad. Now back to my conversation with Florin. So Florin, let's first talk about the timing. How do you think about the timing and knowing when it's best to reach out?

5:18 Florin Tatulea: The first thing I actually did was look internally at our company. So for example, we're selling an RFP and security questionnaire response platform, usually into sales or sales engineering. So I took a look inside. I looked at our VP of sales, our director, and just kind of observed their day. And I was like, when are they usually gonna be free to take calls and when are they not? So one thing I realized, for example, was that usually between the hours of 9 to 5 PM, they were booked solid in client meetings or internal meetings. So there was essentially no point of somebody to call our director or VP during that time because they would, they would not have picked up. So that's the first thing that I did. And then the second thing is obviously doing different types of A/B testing with different, you know, phone calls and emails to see when the highest open and reply rates were as well.

6:17 Scott Ingram: Perfect. And let's just shortcut to the A/B testing piece since you mentioned it here. How are you doing that? How are you conducting those tests and determining what works best in your approach?

6:29 Florin Tatulea: Yeah, so the main tool that we use for A/B testing is a platform called SalesLoft. So it actually allows you to have different variations in the type of either, let's say, subject line for an email or the content within that. And then you also have analytics around call times and when the highest connect rates are.

6:48 Scott Ingram: Perfect. And then how do you use that information? So knowing that typically a busy executive, it's nearly pointless to call them from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, that's most of the workday. How does that determine what your behavior is and how does that go into action?

7:04 Florin Tatulea: Yeah, so I looked at the analytics and then there's a few things I realized. So one was it's probably best to call them before the workday actually started. And then another thing that I realized was that there's certain days that work better than other days. So as an example, and this is just something that I thought of logically, so Mondays, it seems like people, especially Monday mornings, are usually going to be in meetings, you know, not necessarily feeling the best going into a Monday. So it probably doesn't make sense to call Monday morning. As an example, but then also towards the end of the day when things are winding down after 5 PM, I could potentially give them a call then. So I kind of structured it like this. So in terms of calling, Monday usually between 4 and 6 PM. The most impactful days were Tuesday to Thursdays, which were more midweek, between 8 and 9 AM, and then again at the end of the day between 4 and 6 PM. As well.

8:01 Scott Ingram: And so how does that impact the way that you structure the rest of your day? So it sounds like, my guess is that you just have those blocked out, that those are the times that you're calling and that's probably all you're doing. What are you doing from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM?

8:17 Florin Tatulea: So I have a little bit of an interesting use case just because I was, so I'm in the East Coast, but I was actually prospecting heavily into the West Coast. So that kind of shifted my workday a little bit. So for me, 8 AM Pacific time was around 11 AM. So I knew that between 11 AM and 12 on any specific day, I was making calls. So in terms of how I structure my day, before that, between let's say 8:30 to 11, I spent a lot of time actually doing all the different follow-ups and emails Uh, that I've received from the previous day. Uh, and then I also segmented specific time just for prospecting and researching new accounts, uh, later on in my day after lunch, as an example. And then another big thing that I did was because I'm incorporating video in my outreach, I actually spent about an hour to an hour and a half each day just recording videos and scheduling them to send the next morning.

9:17 Scott Ingram: Awesome. So that you're setting up my transitions here beautifully. I love it. You talked about kind of the cadence piece and fully surrounding So what is all of that? What are, what are the different touchpoints that you're utilizing and, and given your, given your testing, I mean, what, what do you see breaks through most often?

9:34 Florin Tatulea: Yep. So there's really 4 things I used. So it was phone, uh, obviously cold calling, uh, in essence, emailing, uh, video outreach, uh, through a tool that is called ViewedIt, which is actually free, uh, as of right now. And I also used LinkedIn Touches as well. Something else that I've seen being used quite heavily is Twitter. That's not something that I really got into personally, but it's definitely something that I've seen work for other people. So those are really the 4 different aspects of them. In terms of what I think is best, and this is actually something that I wish I realized earlier, the phone is extremely powerful because you have instant feedback. If you get somebody on a call and they tell you no right then, you don't have to waste another 2 weeks trying to follow up with them on email. It's cut. You move on to the next person. So I think phone is really powerful.

10:30 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And are you typically… let's talk about the phone a little bit because I know you've talked a little bit about using voicemail as a tool. So let's touch on voicemail. But I'm also interested in if somebody just says outright no, Are you working to manage that objection? Is that the end of the conversation or how else are you working around that?

10:53 Florin Tatulea: You definitely have to manage the objections. And it's actually funny that you mentioned this now because there was actually a post on LinkedIn last week, which I kind of got into a heated debate with a couple of so-called sales gurus who were telling me that no means no. And I told them honestly, like, if I took a no right away upfront and said, okay, and hung up the phone, I would never be able to, one, hit quota, and two, they potentially could actually really find a lot of value in the platform. So it's really important to have that objection handling and really ask them more questions and dig into why they're really saying no.

11:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. And I totally agree with you, right? If, if, if we in sales took, took no at face value every time, boy, not a lot of stuff would, would get sold. And, you know, I've, I've always heard, you know, there's, there's many nos that happen between starting an opportunity and between close. And each one is just telling you that something's not complete and you've got a little bit more work to do. So I love that. And I think I did see that, that thread that was, that was going on just to provide a little bit of context. For folks. I guess we should call out, this is… we're having this conversation towards the end of May. I've got a bit of a backlog here, so it may be a while before this comes out. So, we'll again work to find links to some of those conversations if we can, if they still exist, and just to provide that context. And then what about the voicemail piece? So, obviously, a more common result when calling somebody is maybe not getting them live. How do you utilize the voicemail as a tool?

12:36 Florin Tatulea: So one thing that is inevitable and every single SDR salesperson has to realize is that most people are not gonna respond to your voicemail. And I think there's a statistic out there that it's actually under 1%. And if I even ever receive a message back from a voicemail, that's pretty shocking. So the way that I see voicemail is that the main purpose of it is to direct the prospect to your email. You only really have 5 or 10 seconds within that voicemail to capture their attention. So, uh, I have a specific script that I use which makes sure that they know who I am and where I'm calling from so that they can go back to their, uh, inbox and then search it up.

13:21 Scott Ingram: Perfect. And, and do you wanna give us an example of, of that script? I think this is a, a good point to kind of insert, like, who is, who is Loopio? Cuz you actually serve the, the sales market, so that's actually fairly relevant here.

13:33 Florin Tatulea: Yeah, for sure. So just like something I would say as an example. So I'd be like, uh, hi, uh, or hi, let's say first name. I'll say, hi Scott. Uh, this is Florin calling from Loopio. I sent you an email yesterday, uh, regarding improving your RFP response process, but I have not heard back from you. Can you give it a quick glance and reply back? Again, it's Florin calling from Loopio.

13:56 Scott Ingram: Oh, nice, nice, nice. So just recognizing nobody's ever gonna call back. So let's, let's create a call to action that is a channel that, that they can use.

14:05 Florin Tatulea: Exactly.

14:06 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's, that's excellent. So, and, and tell us just a little bit more about Loopio and, and what you do around RFPs. How does that work?

14:13 Florin Tatulea: Yeah, so we're a platform that primarily helps different types of sales teams. So whether it's proposal managers, different sales leaders, or also specifically sales engineering departments, more quickly and accurately respond to these different types of requests. That are coming in throughout the sales cycle.

14:31 Scott Ingram: So Florin, tell, tell us just a little bit about your role and your history with Loopio and how you got to be number 1.

14:39 Florin Tatulea: So it's definitely been an interesting journey. So I've been here now for a year and a half. I actually started off as the first salesperson in the whole company. So I came in when there was 6 full-time employees. And the main purpose for hiring that first SDR, even before there actually was an AE, was because one of the co-founders was doing a lot of the sales. And due to the nature of our business, we actually get in a lot of demo requests. So they actually needed an SDR to qualify opportunities because there was actually too many for him to handle, which is, I guess, a pretty good problem to have. And then from there, you know, spent some time as an SDR. And apart from just being that SDR, being the first salesperson, I really worked a lot on you know, different types of onboarding material for future SDRs, setting up the processes, evaluating and purchasing a ton of different tools as well. So it was really a really interesting journey of not just only, you know, being an individual contributor, but actually focusing on strategy and process.

15:48 Scott Ingram: So very much a player-coach kind of approach as the organization grew around you.

15:53 Florin Tatulea: Yeah. And I guess there's a little…

15:55 Scott Ingram: sorry, I've got it. I've got a joke. I just, I have to say, I want to say, you know, just given the space you're in, the ultimate irony is probably that you don't really participate in very many RFPs.

16:05 Florin Tatulea: Actually, as a company, we do get a lot of RFPs and security questionnaires issued to us as well.

16:11 Scott Ingram: Oh, you do? Okay. That's, that's interesting. Well, and I guess I was, I was only thinking about the more traditional RFP process, but I forgot that you also apply the the security questionnaire process. So that's pretty interesting.

16:22 Florin Tatulea: Yeah. Yeah. It, it depends what industries you're selling into. So for example, uh, if you're selling into, let's say financial services or a lot of enterprise type of companies, they're usually gonna issue some form of a due diligence questionnaire or an RFP, whatever that may be throughout the sales cycle.

16:39 Scott Ingram: Awesome.

16:40 Florin Tatulea: So we, we do come across them a lot.

16:41 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, I'm not being funny then. So Florin, you've recently kind of moved into this AE role. How's that going and how's that transition for you?

16:53 Florin Tatulea: Yeah, it's a very interesting transition. I'll be honest, the AE role in itself is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. And I think one thing a lot of SDRs don't realize, just because the SDR role in its nature is, it's a very high level. Role where you're talking about the value proposition of the platform, and you could actually, you know, say that value prop within a couple of sentences and then do a discovery. The thing about the AE role is that that's when a lot of objection handling comes into play. How do you navigate through different types of organizations? How do you deal with an RFP? How do you deal with procurement? How do you deal with lawyers? So there's a lot more strategy involved there. But it's definitely a lot of learning. So I've only been in the role for about a month and a half now, but trying to ramp up as quick as possible.

17:49 Scott Ingram: Yeah, awesome. And how did you… let's look at the other end. How did you get into sales in the first place?

17:55 Florin Tatulea: So I would say my sales career started back when I was 14. I actually started selling newspapers door-to-door, and it's something I really enjoyed, just going up to different people, seeing that as a challenge, and then trying to get them to really purchase something based on the value that I'm showing them. And then from there, I also did a lot of door-to-door selling of paint jobs as well. And the cool thing is that from a very early age, I got through that really tough part of sales because the hardest thing I think is being face-to-face with somebody and getting rejected. Uh, and then once you're able to do that, things like cold calling and getting rejected on email and over the phone, it's not something that, you know, really, um, hurts anymore. Nice.

18:44 Scott Ingram: Good, good background. So let's talk about some of your routines and stuff. You started to talk a little bit about how you're structuring your day. How does it start? You know, what is, what is the morning routine? When is, when does that process start? What does all that look like?

18:59 Florin Tatulea: So again, just in nature, because I was selling to the West Coast for the last year, my morning routine is a little bit different. I am naturally more of a night owl in the sense that I get really focused and work well in the evenings. So I'm not somebody that wakes up extremely early. Scott, I know you usually wake up around 4:00 or 4:30 AM, but for me, my day starts at around 7:30 AM and then getting into work. Uh, you know, within that hour. So commuting, I just ride my bike to get a little bit of exercise in the morning and then starting that day around 8:30. And then from there, really starting my day in terms of structuring my follow-ups, then my calls to the West Coast, then my prospecting time, my video time, and then more calling, uh, in the evening.

19:45 Scott Ingram: So then, then let's, let's dig into the evening then, since obviously that's a productive time for you. How, what does that look like? How late are you in the office? When do you leave? What happens after that?

19:56 Florin Tatulea: So I actually typically, I would leave around 6 or 7 and I'd go home and work. Um, it's just a routine that I personally have, but I just lock myself in a room at home and then I, I grind out calls, uh, for, uh, you know, let's say an hour or 2 within that time period where it becomes 4 to 6, 6:30 in the West Coast.

20:18 Scott Ingram: Got it. And once those calls are done, then what happens?

20:21 Florin Tatulea: Uh, I don't have any other specific routine. So the last thing I really do before I make the calls and go home is I make sure that I'm preparing myself for the day ahead. So I'm scheduling all my emails to, uh, go out early morning. That's usually when I find that they're best. Uh, and then once I finish my calls, uh, and I'm done my prep, then it's about either hitting the gym, uh, and going to sleep.

20:44 Scott Ingram: Nice. And, and when you say the emails are best early morning, like what, what's your definition of early morning for that? For that uptick?

20:53 Florin Tatulea: Uh, so it's usually between 5, uh, and 7:00 AM just because, uh, a lot of people are getting, uh, different emails coming in in the morning as well. So you wanna make sure that you're in before the influx of emails come.

21:07 Scott Ingram: Got it. Yep. That's, that's much of my strategy with, not that I, not that I send a lot with the, uh, with the newsletter for this show, but we try and, we try and get folks kind of early in their, in their day and also hoping we kind of catch them when they're in that morning part of their routine, maybe they've got to commute into the office and they've got a chance to kind of listen. So I think, you know, it's just really good awareness in general, just understanding this is who my, my, in your case, prospect is. And this is the schedule that they likely lead and the life that they live. So how do we fit into that in kind of a more natural way where the timing fits for them? Now, in terms of the day-to-day, you said that you know, Monday wasn't as effective as a, as a call day and maybe Friday morning isn't. So do those days look a little bit different in the way that you structure them, or are they all still pretty consistent and you'll still, still put in the time on the phone?

22:03 Florin Tatulea: So I tend not to call on Monday mornings. So Mondays and Fridays, I usually leave more for internal types of meetings. Uh, and especially I was, as I was building out a lot of the onboarding and different types of processes. I would try to do more of those administrative tasks within those 2 days.

22:22 Scott Ingram: Got it.

22:23 Florin Tatulea: Okay.

22:23 Scott Ingram: That makes sense. And then as far as your information diet goes and what you're reading and listening to and watching, what is that and when are you consuming that type of content?

22:34 Florin Tatulea: Yeah. So especially being the first salesperson here, not having as much guidance as maybe some other sales people would have. Information is really important to me in terms of reading and having different resources. So I do quite a lot. The first thing we do at Loopio, we actually have a book club. So we try to do one book every single month, and that's not only necessarily focused on sales, but all aspects of the business. Apart from that, when I do have some break time or before I go to bed, I usually read a lot of LinkedIn articles. So just scrolling through the feed, going from there. And apart from that, a lot of stuff from John Barrows, who's a well-known sales leader, and also Morgan Ingram, who focuses specifically on SDR stuff with his SDR Chronicles. So those are the main ones that I have. And then obviously some other sales books, which I've recently read. The Challenger Sale is obviously the classic. Uh, right now I'm reading a book called The One Thing, um, which is really good as well.

23:41 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's funny that you call The Challenger Sale a classic. I'm like, come on, it's not that old. But I guess it has, I mean, it really did become sort of foundational and reset the way a lot of things have been thought about in the, in the last number of years. And then The One Thing has definitely come up on the show a number of times, written by Gary Keller, who founded Keller Williams, which is an Austin-based company. So we know those guys. We know those guys well. Um, in terms of, so you've talked about SalesLoft and you've talked about ViewedIt, and actually I think I want to come back to ViewedIt, uh, in a little bit more detail, but are there other kind of tools and apps that are really critical to your process and approach?

24:22 Florin Tatulea: Yeah. Uh, so from a productivity standpoint, uh, I don't use too many things. I use Momentum, which is an app or a Google Chrome extension specifically for having, uh, your to-do lists. And speaking of the one thing, it actually, it comes up and you get to input that one thing each day that you want to accomplish. So that's something that I strive towards. In terms of other sales productivity tools that we use. So another big one for us is ZoomInfo. And this goes back to cold calling. So getting direct dials is really important to us. So ZoomInfo is another big one. Obviously Salesforce and Salesforce IQ, um, but that's, that's mainly it.

25:04 Scott Ingram: Got it. Talk and talk a little bit more about how you're using ViewedIt. I think it's, it's the pretty standard way, but for folks who aren't familiar with, with ViewedIt, I think it's, it's an incredible tool. And like you said, it's still, still free at this point. So we'll, we'll say, we'll see when Vidyard changes their mind on that one. But how, how do you personally, uh, use ViewedIt in your process?

25:26 Florin Tatulea: So it's nothing revolutionary. I think at the end of the day, the main thing that you're trying to do as an SDR is capture someone's attention and stand out from the crowd. So as of today, videos are not something that are prevalent in a lot of outreach. So I use that to my advantage so that people can get these videos and then they realize that I spend time to customize outreach for them. In the actual video, what I do is you can put a subject line within that video, and then I have a thumbnail that usually holds up their name so that they're more likely to click it. And then within the video, it's really just me pitching the product in 1 or 2 sentences and then asking them if they would like to set up a call. But it's nothing revolutionary. It's just the fact that I'm doing it and most people aren't.

26:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, and I think that goes back to, I mean, I'm curious, you said that your executive team is forwarding all these different outreaches and there were only 3 good ones. What was it about those 3 where, where they stood out and what did you kind of take away from that in, in your own process?

26:34 Florin Tatulea: I think one of the main things I realized is, uh, a lot of them were customized in the sense that maybe one of our VPs or co-founders, uh, were mentioned in an article or wrote a piece of content and then specifically gave some form of, uh, an insight or compliment on that specific piece and then really tied in the value prop somehow. Into how they can help improve the actual business as opposed to having just a template which too many people send. And it's also funny just to see how many people, one, send emails versus actually call, and two, I totally forgot the second one. Sorry, Scott.

27:15 Scott Ingram: That's okay. Well, and do you have a sense of what is that percentage? I mean, what is In the wild of the outreaches that are coming to your leadership, how many emails are they getting compared to the number of phone calls?

27:30 Florin Tatulea: I would probably say like 20 times more emails. Yeah, at least. Yeah.

27:37 Scott Ingram: And that's interesting, right? I think that the real opportunity is just think about how do you break free of what everybody else is doing? And I think what everybody is doing right now is they've got an overly templatized approach. They're not taking the time to personalize and make this real. They're probably not using enough channels. So it's just a matter of doing the research, coming up with something that's personalized and relevant, finding some more different creative channels. So, you know, ViewedIt and video being one of those, it's a little bit more creative. One last interjection here on behalf of our new sponsor, ViewedIt. I'll only ever have sponsors on this show that I absolutely believe in, and you've already heard from Florin to some degree just how powerful video in email can be. In many cases, sellers are seeing 5 times better engagement rates with these videos that are super easy to create and will help you break through so much of the templated noise that seems to be out there. In fact, Florin sent me a note just a few days ago that said, we just closed one of our biggest deals ever, which, which was initiated because of a ViewedIt I sent. Check it out for yourself. Go to top1.fm/v and get this free Chrome plugin for yourself. And if you want to practice, create a ViewedIt and send it to me. I can't think of a better way for you to share your thoughts and feedback on the show. So go to top1.fm/v, get the ViewedIt plugin, and send your first ViewedIt to scott@top1.fm. And don't worry about making it perfect, just start. All right, let's get back to Florin. So how are you, what does your research process look like? How are you finding those unique insights so that you can make this more personalized and relevant for the person on the other end?

29:27 Florin Tatulea: That's a good question. So SalesLoft actually integrates with a couple of tools that really find information for you. So one of them that I use is Owler and the other one is also InsideView. So what this does is it really aggregates all the different news articles, Um, and different press releases that mentioned this specific company. And then what I'll do is I'll go through them and actually read them. And as opposed to just saying like, hey, I read your article, I make sure that I read it, I understand it, and then try to have some kind of an insight based on that article so that you're really going a step above or beyond what most people would do.

30:09 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Love that. And so once you've done that research, you, you've talked about, you know, you can't stop at 2 or 4 touches in, in your cadence. What does your typical approach look like? I mean, you just walk us through maybe a more common setup that you would have in terms of the timing and the specific touches. And when, when does all that happen? Give us, give us the playbook.

30:32 Florin Tatulea: So in one of my articles, I said that you must have at least 10 to 12 touches in your cadence. And the way that I've usually structured it is to make sure that that cadence follows out throughout about 35 to 40 business days. Because sometimes, you know, you send a first outreach or you give a call on a voicemail, but maybe the timing is off or, you know, they're really busy because it's end of quarter or whatever that might be. So you have to give yourself a chance to make sure that they see it and that the timing for them is right. So I usually structure things Again, and I do A/B testing, but it's either a call first or an email. Then you have another 3 or 4 calls, another 3 or 4 emails. I usually send one video. You can try playing around with sending the video first versus later on. And then usually I'll only have one or 2 touches on LinkedIn. I just find generally LinkedIn is not as good as calls and emails.

31:35 Scott Ingram: Got it. Got it. And, and of all of those, I mean, is, is there one that is the most consistent producer that you find opens up the most doors and leads to the largest number of meetings, or is it really just the, the sum of the parts?

31:51 Florin Tatulea: At the end of the day, it's, it is calls. So the powerful thing about having direct dials, and then there's also a feature on SalesLoft which allows you to local dial, which means that when you call a prospect, They're actually gonna see a number calling from their area code. So if you're calling them directly with a number from their area code, you're gonna get a really high response rate. So I'm talking like 10% plus, and usually this is something that's like under 1%. So at the end of the day, it's the phone.

32:25 Scott Ingram: Got it. Got it. Good insight. Florin, how would you describe your style as you're taking this approach?

32:32 Florin Tatulea: Their approach to calling?

32:34 Scott Ingram: Well, just your approach to all of it, right? Just to sales in general, right? What is the style? What's the unique flavor of Florin that you want to come across?

32:44 Florin Tatulea: So I think one of the main things that I want to make sure, especially coming from a business school background, is making sure that I'm using the type of language that they're using and I'm able to connect with them on that level and also challenge and provide insights to them. So I'm not just there to pitch a product, but I'm there to help you as a consultant and making sure that I'm framing it in a way that you understand and that resonates with you as a business owner, for example.

33:16 Scott Ingram: Nice. And then what motivates all of this? What's your why?

33:21 Florin Tatulea: This is more of a long-term why for me, but ultimately, One thing I realized, so my parents are from Romania, so I'm really the first generation that's come here into Canada. And, you know, they went through communism and some really tough times and they didn't get the opportunities that we got. So I feel blessed every single day. And my why is making sure that I didn't have my family sacrifice, you know, a lot of their lives so that I could come here and not do something great. So for me, I ultimately want to start my own business. Uh, and I think sales is a great stepping stone to starting your own business, just because even from an SDR perspective, every single day you're getting on the phone with, uh, you know, VPs and directors, and you should be understanding their businesses and asking questions that are going to help you along the way. So I think that's really why I do sales right now.

34:14 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Awesome. So Florin, is there something that you believe that the average SDR would think is crazy about you?

34:23 Florin Tatulea: That's a good question, Scott. Uh, there is one thing that does come to mind right now because it happened relatively recently, but, um, I had a prospect that, uh, I noticed was actually, uh, in Asia. So they were, they were 12 hours away and I started analyzing when they were actually opening my emails and I, uh, realized that it was in the middle of the night. So what I actually did, I made sure I stayed up until 2 AM one day just to give them a call, got the connect, and then got the meeting booked. So I think the main thing is the fact that I'm willing to do what it takes, whether it's, you know, staying up late to call somebody or even having, let's say, 50, 60 touch points throughout 8 to 10 months if I know that this solution is right for them, to make sure that I am going to get that meeting booked.

35:08 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And that, that's commitment. I, I think you said in one of your articles, I mean, you have, you have booked a meeting after, again, 40 to 50 touchpoints.

35:16 Florin Tatulea: Yeah. And it's the only reason I would actually do that many touchpoints over 8 to 10 months is if I see that there's some form of engagement. So if they're opening my emails, uh, but not responding, as an example, I'm gonna continue to reach out to them. But if I see that there's no engagement, at the end of the day, it is an efficiency play and you wanna make sure that you're not wasting your time on one specific opportunity.

35:38 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Now what about the flip side of the crazy question? So that's something that people might think that you're a little bit crazy for, for doing. I just think you're committed. That's awesome. Um, is there something that you think that, um, maybe I guess there's a few of these threads right now that you think is sort of gospel in the SDR space that you think is, no, this is total garbage.

36:01 Florin Tatulea: So one thing that I think is crazy within this industry is the amount of of time that people focus on the debate between social selling and cold calling. So that's something that you can find out yourself. You have analytics in whatever platform you use, like SalesLoft. Find out what works for you. I've personally found out that calling works great. So to me, that conversation doesn't even matter. And I don't know why so many people spend that much time debating this topic when they should be focusing on actually selling.

36:29 Scott Ingram: And I love that because your approach is like, theoretical is garbage. Like, who cares what the theory is? Let's just go do it and look at the data and whichever everyone works and wins, well, that's what I'm going to do.

36:40 Florin Tatulea: Exactly.

36:41 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Love that. So are there particular decisions you've made, um, through your career or lessons that you've had to learn that, that really made a significant impact in where you are today?

36:55 Florin Tatulea: Yeah, that's another good question. And I think this really circles back to making sure that you're doing all types of A/B testing. So for example, I've tested out, doing mass email outreach, um, with very little calls and just spending time trying to find more and more prospects, more and more emails, because I wanted to see for myself, uh, whether that worked. So I think one of the most important decisions that I've made is to make sure that I'm still treating this SDR process very much from an analytical perspective, and then not being afraid to try different, different things, even if they might burn.

37:31 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I love that. That's good stuff. And then from an advice perspective, if you were either going back and talking to yourself, um, as, as you were embarking on your own SDR journey, or you were talking to somebody today that's, that's just starting, uh, out in an SDR role, what advice would you give them?

37:52 Florin Tatulea: So I think I actually have 3 pieces of advice here because this is something that I have thought about, uh, when writing this article, but One thing is, and I think we've talked about this quite a lot, is don't underestimate the power of the phone, no matter what somebody's gonna tell you. Try it out yourself, try different methods, A/B test, and really make sure that you're finding what works for your industry, for your prospects. Another thing that I wish I did was trying to build a brand for myself earlier on. And this is something that Morgan Ingram actually does really well with his SDR Chronicles. So he provides so much value into that community. And then I'm sure that he's gonna get a lot of people reaching out to him because they're curious about what he does in his platform. And I'm sure that's helped him in terms of booking different types of, you know, opportunities. So those are really the 2 things there. And the last one that I had was around spending a lot of time testing different things.

38:55 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great stuff. Now, is… I'm guessing you want to think about this from maybe the AE perspective, but what would you want to know of, of other top sellers? What's the question that you would want to ask them?

39:10 Florin Tatulea: Hmm. I think this is something that overall as an organization we're trying to do right now as well, being relatively young. But understanding how to navigate enterprise deals is something that's really interesting to me because this is where it's, it's not necessarily about analytics, but more about how are you strategically, you know, positioning, you know, your calls and how are you finding who the decision makers are. And this is also something that I've been wondering from an SDR perspective, because one challenge that I've realized is I've done outreach. I've gotten responses first from certain people at enterprises, but what do you do when those people don't even know who the right person is to contact? So how do you actually navigate through that whole enterprise deal?

40:01 Scott Ingram: Yeah, good question. Good. I may, uh, I may use that. That's a, that's an ongoing challenge for those of us in the, in the enterprise space and dealing with, uh, ever, ever moving, ever changing, ever bureaucratic large, large enterprise organizations for, for sure. So, Florin, this has been, this has been great. I mean, we've talked about a lot of stuff. Um, we'll get to kind of creating some type of, of challenge here as our, as our last question, but I'm wondering if there's anything that, uh, we haven't talked about yet that you were hoping to talk about.

40:34 Florin Tatulea: And this is, I just, one of the main things that I'm trying to do, uh, you know, with my different articles and talking to different people is make sure that, you know, we have very tactical ways of doing things and not focusing on high-level things like we were talking about with social selling versus cold calling. So another, you know, piece of advice or something that we can talk about is just how do you actually structure your time to make sure that you're effective, right? So it's easy to say that in your calendar you're gonna block out 2 hours to do this, 2 hours to call. But you have to make sure and stay disciplined every single day. And that, you know, when it's calling time, you're going to be calling. When you're doing prospecting and researching, you're going to put your headphones in. No one's going to be able to bother you. You're not on Facebook, you're not on LinkedIn. You're doing that one thing. And this goes back to that book that is going to get you ahead. So if you need to write that one thing down on, you know, in your desk and look at whenever you feel like you're about to be distracted. And I challenge you guys to really stay disciplined, especially when you feel like you've hit quota and now you're just going to coast for the rest of the month. One thing you have to realize with sales is that that pipeline, you know, it's lagged in some sense. The work that you're going to do today is going to come further down the road. So really stay disciplined. And focus on that one task that you have at hand.

42:03 Scott Ingram: And that's an interesting take on, on the one thing, right? Because I think the, the premise of that book is kind of the bigger picture focus, but it sounds like you're, you're taking it all the way down to the, this hour I have blocked, it's for calling. That's my one thing, which I think is really interesting. Are there different strategies that you're adopting to to block out all the, all the other stuff?

42:29 Florin Tatulea: So one big thing that we have, for example, at our company is that if someone has their headphones on, uh, everybody knows that you do not come up to them and bother them because they're in a specific mindset. Um, so that's really one thing. Another thing is making sure from the beginning that people know that you're disciplined about your calendar. So if you have a meeting that's running over, you're able to cut it off. So you set that precedent for next time that people know that you value your time and that half an hour means half an hour so that you don't get distracted.

42:59 Scott Ingram: Oh, great, great stuff. And I think there's also some technology tools that you can use in that. You know, it's, it's hard to avoid the distractions when they're popping up on your phone and you've got 14 different browser tabs open. I think when you're really truly focusing, I use a kind of the Pomodoro-type technique, right, where all… when I'm doing that type of focus, I'll work in 25-minute chunks. And when I'm in one of those those, whatever that thing is that I'm doing, that's the only thing, right? There's no notifications on the phone. Um, ideally the phone's not even near me, right? There's no other tabs. There's nothing else that's going to pop up. There's also a, there's a tool if you use Gmail, uh, called Inbox Pause, uh, that will just keep any incoming emails from coming in. Um, and you know, you can deal with those at the end of the next hour. I don't think anybody has an expectation that you're going to respond that, that quickly, because if you were in a, in a client meeting or a prospect meeting, you wouldn't be able to respond. So it's really, it's really no different. So just being mindful of that and getting rid of all the multitasking that doesn't work, right?

44:04 Florin Tatulea: Yeah. Those are some great suggestions. I'm actually going to look into those tools.

44:08 Scott Ingram: There you go. Cool. Well, it's a, it's a 2-way exchange of value and hopefully everybody listening is benefiting. So Florin, as we wrap things up, I always like to see if… and I can tell that you are super wired around the, the tactical, actionable type of thing. And I always like to give our listeners something that's very actionable that they can take away sort of in the form of a challenge. And I've refined this now. Um, since we do release new episodes every 2 weeks, it seems like the right interval, uh, for a challenge should be 2 weeks. So, uh, somebody who's listened all the way through to this, um, they've got some, some, hopefully not just some, but lots of good ideas. I sure did. What would you have them do? What's, what can they challenge themselves with to improve their own results in the next 2 weeks?

44:54 Florin Tatulea: Yeah. So I think this is a theme we've talked about a lot and I've obviously touched on, but I think it's extremely important because people don't do it when they see, for example, that one type of email or one type of call is working. They stop and they focus just on that because they see that they're getting some results, but then you're never going to be able to improve because you're not willing to try out different things and fail. So I'm saying fail, fail fast and learn and really A/B test every single thing that you do. And I actually do have a small story here that I have to tell around A/B testing. So there was actually a point where I started playing around with email subject lines and using lowercase letters to start off the subject line sentence. And there was one particular case where I was doing an A/B test that was statistically significant. And I found that just by actually putting a lowercase in the first word, my open rates for that email went up 9%. So it's really powerful to test different things and making sure that you fail and fail fast.

46:02 Scott Ingram: Oh, and such little things. I mean, again, we're absolutely going to link up all your articles because there's some really good stuff in there. Because I think you also talked about just the power of 1 to 2 word subject lines.

46:14 Florin Tatulea: Yep. Less is more in sales. People think that, and you even said like the way I described Loopio and what we do is very succinct, but at the end of the day, people have a short attention span. I just want to take 2 sentences to give you my value prop. That's all there is. So I don't need to bombard you with information. All I'm trying to do is intrigue you. And then if you're intrigued as an SDR, my job is to get you on that demo. And then hopefully that turns into an opportunity.

46:43 Scott Ingram: Love it. Florin, this again has been fantastic. If you listening to this are intrigued, please come to top1.fm/florin and we'll have links because we talked about a lot of stuff. So we'll have all of those different tools that we talked about all linked up so you don't have to worry about… well, I guess it's too late if you were already taking notes. I'm sorry, we did that for you, but it's all there. We'll have those, those set up. You can also make sure you get on that, on that mailing list so we can give you a heads up. We can get you into the Sales Success Community. And again, if you're in the US, you can also text TOP1 to 444999. Florin, thanks so much for your time and sharing with this audience.

47:22 Florin Tatulea: Yeah, thanks so much for your time, Scott. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.