41: The Top SDR at DiscoverOrg - Josh Sutton - Grit & Doing What Others Aren't Willing To Do

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.

0:21 Scott Ingram: Here's your host, Scott Ingram. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, we've got another top SDR. Josh Sutton is here with me from DiscoverOrg. And of course, he wouldn't be here if he hadn't finished last year as DiscoverOrg's number 1 SDR. And he has since moved into a new role as a manager of strategic growth. And we'll be talking through his entire journey and how that happened. So thanks for joining me today, Josh.

0:47 Josh Sutton: Yeah, thanks, Scott. I appreciate it. Great to be here.

0:49 Scott Ingram: So let's get started like we always do with the top 3 things that you believe got you to that number 1 spot. And since you clearly did a lot of work on these based on the note you sent me prior, why don't we talk through these one at a time? So what's your first thing?

1:03 Josh Sutton: Yeah, so number one here, uh, personal competitive advantage is what I like to call it. It's, uh, it's essentially, you know, figuring out what sets you apart from, from everyone else out there, um, and coming up with, with systems and processes that, that really help you relinquish and exploit those advantages, um, to help you in your, in your day-to-day. And so, so mine being, uh, I like to call… I actually got this from, uh, one of our, our partners, uh, insidesales.com, the CEO Steve Hayes. He spoke at our at our SKO last year, and he said something that stuck pretty well with me. It's, it's, uh, grit is the new MBA. And so, and then that really stuck with me because I think about when I was growing up, um, through, through high school and college and throughout my career, um, I was never really the, the smartest person in the room. Um, and, and, and that might sound negative, um, you know, some people might think that that's a, that's a bad thing, but it really helped me focus on, on, on developing a really solid, strong work ethic, um, and, and being gritty. And so while I might not have been the smartest person in the room, I, I know that I would work harder than anyone else around me. Um, and so, and then that's what's really helped me throughout, throughout my, uh, my career.

2:19 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And you've got an example for each of these, so give us an example of how you sort of apply that grittiness.

2:25 Josh Sutton: Yeah, so what we do at DiscoverOrg is we have a 1-to-1 pairing, SDRs to AEs. And when I came in as an outbound SDR, I was paired with… I was the only one. We have an office in Vancouver, Washington, just outside of Portland, Oregon, and an office over in Bethesda, Maryland. And when I first came in, I was paired with a guy over on the East Coast, Josh Shaw. He's our Director of Sales over there. And it was, it was kind of tough to start with. I knew that when I, when I was coming in, if I was coming in on the East Coast Pacific time, if I was coming in, you know, normal time, 8 o'clock, well, he'd already been there for 3 hours. And, and then if I would have, if I would have left with him, it would have been, you know, 2 PM. And so I realized that I was coming in, you know, 6 AM in the morning Pacific time. And then when 2 o'clock came around the 8-hour day, it's like, You know, I could have left, uh, but I didn't. I couldn't see myself leaving. I couldn't see myself leaving with, you know, every, all my peers there. Um, it kind of made me feel like I was lazy. So I ended up staying. It was like 10, 12 hours a day. And, and, and I realized that that's what was needed to, to, to put myself ahead of everyone else. Um, and being able to, to work hard and really grind it out.

3:40 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And we'll come back. I'm interested in what you did with those extra hours, but we'll come back to that in a bit. So what was your second thing?

3:47 Josh Sutton: It's, uh, it's kind of following along the same lines, sort of. It's, it's doing the things that others aren't willing to do. Try to be as original and as new as possible. Uh, so if you feel like everyone else is doing the same thing that you're doing, change it. Do what others aren't willing to do and, and step outside of your comfort zone. Um, you know, be cognizant of, of the weak patterns of behavior or, you know, kind of the, the inundated with the, the outdated, uh, principles and then figure out how to change them. Um, and, and so, You know, the SDR role is one that really doesn't carry a whole lot of heavy consequences. And so don't be afraid to test your limits and think outside the box and take risks. And like I said, get uncomfortable. It's kind of one of the mantras with DiscoverOrg is do what makes you uncomfortable, 'cause within there you'll find the comfort in it. And one example that I had is, you know, with the proliferation of sales technologies out there that SDRs and really anybody in sales use, I mean, it sort of takes away the human element. I mean, nowadays you can pull a list, upload into, into your SDR tool and fire off 10,000 emails that are just generic and bland. And, and I recognized that. And, and so I started writing hyper-personalized emails. I'm sort of known as the email, email person or email expert among, among the sales team. And I wrote a couple of blogs about it, but really it's like, I noticed when I first started on the outbound team, I noticed so many people were doing those easy things. And if I could just take a few more minutes here and there to find something that I could connect with my prospect about, whether it's their interests, you know, what they do on their free time, if they like to go, you know, if they're an outdoorsy person, you know, when I'm up here in the Northwest, there's tons of things to do outside, you know, hiking, skiing, all kinds of stuff. Um, you know, if they're… I'm a big fan of sports, you know, sports are basically any, anytime I have free time, that's what I'm doing is watching sports. And so if I can connect with them on, on some, one of their favorite teams, things like that, it makes it a lot more receptive. And it's kind of one of those, it follows the saying that, you know, people want to do business with, with people they trust and their friends and, and being able to, to connect with somebody on a, on a personal level, it will make you successful.

6:04 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great stuff. You know, we will put links to those couple of blog posts you've written about the details around some of that process. So if you jump over to top1.fm/41, you'll find all of those links. And I think that that approach makes a lot of sense, right? Just not only doing what other people aren't willing to do, but taking your own approach. I feel like there's a lot of lemming-like behavior in the SDR world where everybody's copying everybody else and there's not a lot of original thought and people sort of applying their own personality and approach to really break through. And that's why it all sounds the same and everybody's ignoring all of it.

6:42 Josh Sutton: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, it's like you can, you could probably post something on LinkedIn nowadays that says, hey, I use this template that got me, you know, a 40% response rate. I'm sure you'd have within an hour like 50 comments of people like, oh, can you share with me? Can you share with me? Can you share with me? And then Next thing you know, the same thing's being, you know, regurgitated to thousands of people out there. So yeah, it's just, it's really doing the things that, like I said, others aren't willing to do or others don't see to do.

7:10 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. All right. So what was your third point?

7:13 Josh Sutton: So the third one here is, is, is I thought about, you know, what sets me apart from my peers and also the rest of the market out there. And it's, it's being the subject matter expert, the SME of the solution you're selling. So essentially knowing your product inside and out and figure out why each person you talk to will use your product. I like to say that I know DiscoverOrg so well that in a way, in a sense that I could sell it to my grandma. I can make it make sense to her to where she'd want to buy it. And being able to really understand how your product or your solution or whatever it is you're selling or whatever it is you're trying to attract people to understanding how they can see benefit in their day-to-day roles, the things that they care about. You know, we talk about a lot, we talk a lot about personas, you know, the buying personas. And one example is I helped when we launched our HR dataset, the DiscoverOrg HR dataset. We did this, we rolled it out, or prior to rolling it out, we decided to do an account-based sales development, account-based marketing approach. And then I was tasked with creating the sequences that would go out to the people that we were targeting. And I tried to make them as personalized as possible. And in order to do that, I had to understand or sort of guess, I guess you could say, guess what they cared about the most and be able to articulate the value to where it meant it made sense to them. And also to where they could see that it wasn't just a generic, hey, here's my product, this is what I'm selling if you want to buy it. Um, and, and so that took a lot of understanding of how we built this tool or this product and how they could see the value in it.

8:58 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Great, great stuff. So now let's provide just a little bit of context, and I think there's some interesting kind of story behind this. So let's kind of talk through your evolution through sales, starting with how did you get started in sales in the first place?

9:15 Josh Sutton: Well, so my first start in sales, I actually grew up on it from… grew up in a small town, almost didn't even go to college, randomly decided to go to college. While I was in school, my junior, my sophomore and junior year, I did, I did a paid internship through a company called College Works Painting. It's… they basically give you the tools you need to start your own painting branch from whatever city you wanted to work in. And so I was doing a lot of the door-to-door, uh, asking people if they wanted to get estimates. So it was a lot of face-to-face interactions. And then you would show up, schedule some time to do the demo, to do the, uh, to give them the estimate. And, and then from there you would, you would then close them to do the, to paint the house in the summer. And so that was my first actual sales, uh, gig. And then, um, throughout college, I didn't work. That was the only a job, sales job that I had. And then after college, I, I graduated kind of in a, in a, um, a weird time. I, I ended up finishing my, the fall term of my, my, my senior year. I realized that I, I learned a lot from that, from, from that internship, and I took what I learned from there and wanted to find something in, in the, in the Eugene area. Um, and I, I got a job at a company called Amex NutriSource. I was essentially a manufacturer's rep of botanical extracts. Um, it was kind of a mom-and-pop small, small company. I think they did like $4 million a year or something like that. And I was basically an account manager, also looking for new business and trying to stay agile in a, in a very, very crowded market. Um, and then I ended up deciding I wanted to move back to Portland and looked for, looked around, found this job at DiscoverOrg, applied, and the rest is history from there. Um, And then when I, so when I first started, we, I was one of the first inbound SDRs. So before I started, we had SDRs that were fielding both inbound and outbound leads. They were, they were taking inbound calls as well as going after new companies. And when I first started, it was our, the beginning of segmenting and splitting those 2 teams up to inbound and outbound. And so the inbound was kind of like your ramp period. And I was on that team for 5 months, did some… wasn't quite sure where I wanted to go, if I wanted to do the outbound thing or if I wanted to stay on the inbound team and be a leader on that team. And after 5 months, I moved to outbound and was doing… was paired on 1-to-1, 1-to-1 pairing with our AEs. And then from there, now I'm a manager of strategic growth.

11:54 Scott Ingram: Perfect. So let's dig into that just a little bit more, because I think you shared with me that it maybe wasn't all roses at the very beginning as you started in the SDR role.

12:03 Josh Sutton: Yeah, that's, that's a, that's a great way to put it. I was, I was very naive when I, when I came in. I came in with a lot. I mean, I could, I could say it now. I, I didn't really know what was going on. I mean, like I said, I was from a small town, didn't really have that big, you know, when I, when I did the, my first job, the painting internship, I was back home. I was, I was selling to people I knew. I had already established those relationships and, and I didn't really have a good idea of the corporate world. And so when I came in, I, like I said, I was, naive to everything, didn't really know how to maneuver the bureaucracies of a company. And then I struggled. I struggled a lot. And, you know, I honestly, I found out I almost was… I was about to get let go in my first 90 days, which after learning that, I kind of thought about, you know, where did I cross the chasm? And it was really just removing that entitlement and having an open mind, you know, reaching out for help and letting people know that, hey, I I need some help with this. I can't do this on my own. And so the beginning was, like I said, a little bumpy. And then just building on that momentum from the start to outbound, I started to, like I said, I was working longer days, so I was really able to understand what made me good and what I was good at and what I wasn't good at. Strengths and weaknesses played a large part and being able to to relinquish those, um, you know, my, my competitive advantage.

13:30 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And we'll talk a little bit more, uh, about kind of that, that next step, right? Because a lot of people use that SDR role as kind of the foot in the door. That's their start in sales, but they're looking to move in other directions. And I think your initial intent when we first talked many months ago, the, the idea was to move into an AE role. So definitely we'll want to explore that. But as it relates to the very beginning and, and just getting started, is there anything that you would have done differently as you got started knowing what you know now?

14:03 Josh Sutton: Yeah, it's funny you mentioned the, the, when I first started, I think that was, that was back in October when we first started. Um, I, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. And I think that the one thing I would have changed, or I mean, obviously hindsight's 20/20. I, I'm, I'm happy and thankful for, for, for where I'm at now, but I think it would have been a lot easier on me if I would have known if I would have had a clear path to succession trajectory path, uh, you know, where I was going next, if I wanted, if I really wanted to do that SDR to AE, uh, you know, path, or if I wanted to go, you know, into marketing, I, I wish I would have, you know, figured out those, those, that the competitive advantages that I have and, and, and my strengths and weaknesses and, and spend a little more time kind of self-reflecting on, on what those are. Um, and so that's, that's the one thing I would have done different is really just think about myself, kind of set my goals for the longer-term goals rather than just the shorter-term, uh, you know, a year when I, when I started on the outbound team. Usually the SDRs on the SDR to AE, uh, you know, path is, is about a year, year and a half, I think is, is, is average. And, and if I would have set that goal for myself, okay, I know I want to be an AE, I'm going to set this goal to be an AE, you know, 18 months from now, I think that that would have helped, helped me out a lot.

15:21 Scott Ingram: Got it. That makes a lot of sense. So before we talk a little bit more about Josh's results and his career progression and thoughts around that, let me talk just a little bit about the Sales Success Summit. This will be the last episode before the summit happens here in Austin on May 7th and 8th. So if you're listening to this after the fact, well, then you missed it. So you can still jump over to top1.fm and get on the mailing list because I'm sure we'll be making some of that content from the summit available, likely in video form. If you'd still like to join us at the event, because it's not too late, uh, where you'll get to hear from and meet at least 20 of the top 1% individual contributors that I've interviewed so far on the show, then jump over to top1.fm/250. That's top1.fm/250 for all the details and a special referral code. Now, if you haven't figured this out already, maybe this is your first episode. I'm a no BS kind of guy and I always try to under-promise and over-deliver. Here's the thing. I basically bit off a little more than I could chew with this event. Between my own sales jobs where I have rather lofty goals that I'm working to accomplish, and that's my number one priority, and releasing a new episode of the podcast every 2 weeks and all the other logistics around producing a great event, I really haven't had any time to actually sell the summit. So it's funny because it just goes to show that marketing will only take you so far. At some point, somebody actually has to sell something. But the way I see it is this is actually a huge opportunity. At this pace, the experience is going to be so intimate that if you attend, you'll likely be pretty close to one-to-one with these world-class sales professionals. So I'm not going to play the stupid scarcity games and tell you that there's only so many seats left. That's almost always BS anyway, especially when people do it with a webinar. Seriously? Anyway, if you are committed to your own personal growth, you want to take advantage of an opportunity to grow your network with a serious set of badasses, and you can sell yourself on the value, then come join us. Again, just jump over to top1.fm/250 to get all the details and that referral code. And if you do have any questions or need a little bit of a nudge over the edge, you're always welcome to email me at scott@top1.fm. Top1.fm. So Josh, let's talk about your results a little bit. What did it take to get to number 1 at DiscoverOrg last year?

17:59 Josh Sutton: To quantify it, I finished… let's see, I finished January of 2018. So I started January of 2017 to January of 2018, just over… just right under $2 million in closed revenue, TCV, over 300 completed meetings and opportunities created. Um, and I was essentially the, the subject matter expert of, of how we can position DiscoverOrg's product to where it makes sense, um, both written and, and, and, and verbally.

18:31 Scott Ingram: Fantastic. And then what about kind of that next step in the journey? So you didn't move into an AE role, you moved into a little bit of a different role. So talk us through what is the role that you're in right now and And what was the thought process as you, as you worked through that transition?

18:48 Josh Sutton: Yeah, so it's a little bit of an unorthodox position. It's, it's a, it's kind of a quasi-account manager slash expansion. We call it strategic growth team. It's myself and another guy that, that's, that's a part of it. My, actually my boss, Patrick Redinger. Um, we both, we, we help our customer success managers expand into their current accounts. So the largest companies in our target markets that are customers, we strategize with internal and external agents trying to figure out ways that we can position DiscoverOrg to, to make sense to roll out on a larger scale. We talk about how we can get stickier with the company nowadays with so many different technologies coming in and out. It's, it's all about getting stickier within these companies and and really maneuvering these large enterprise companies. And it's great because I can come to somebody, it's essentially an SDR role for current customers with the knowledge of, with a lot more knowledge of the account because they're a customer. And so I apply some of the skills that I learned from the SDR days. You know, I would be able to get meetings within, you know, 1 or 2 steps of a cadence because they were high-quality touches. I would get these meetings with high-level executives, the VPs, SVPs of sales and marketing. And so my position now is doing the same sort of thing, but on the customer side. We're kind of crossing that chasm now where we want to figure out how we can kind of structure DiscoverOrg and mold DiscoverOrg to where our custom… our large customers can see value more than any other company out there. And so that's, that's kind of our job. It's a lot of critical thinking, but also a lot of the, a lot of the grittiness that, that, that from the SDR days of, of, you know, a lot of the, the harder stuff that other people aren't willing to do. Um, you know, you think about like some of these large companies, like, like a Microsoft with, you know, 160,000 employees, somebody would look at that and, and be, you know, be kind of timid to it because it's such a large company, they don't know where to start. Um, and so a lot of that is, is my position now.

21:01 Scott Ingram: Beautiful. And talk us through just that decision process as, as you were contemplating, because again, I think you and I spoke late last year. You were still kind of finishing the year trying to figure out what that next step was. Why that versus a more traditional AE type of role?

21:17 Josh Sutton: The best way to put it is, is I, I, I can't remember when it was. I think it was, it was, uh, back in, back in September, early October actually. I, I went on a little vacation. It was a, it was 3-day trip to the Oregon coast. And I went by myself. People might think it was weird, but I went by myself and I kind of did a little bit of a soul searching. You know, I wanted to figure out, did I want to, did I want to live in Oregon? You know, did I, did I love what I was doing or do I love what I'm doing? And like I said, it was kind of a soul searching experience for me to figure out my purpose. And I realized that I love the company I work for. And my struggle was I just wanted to be a part of something big. And, you know, maybe it's a feeling of importance, I guess. I'm not sure what exactly it was, but I just knew that I wanted to be a part of something big. And I wanted to look back, whether I'm there or if I retire there, whatever it may be, I want to look back and say that I was a part of something and I helped something big at DiscoverOrg. And so that's kind of what helped me. I realized that we didn't have… there's not a whole lot of large companies out there that aren't already customers. And so I need to figure out how I can help our company, what I can do, how I can apply myself to be a part of something big. And I realized that after talking to Patrick Purvis, our CRO, he's been kind of a mentor to me throughout my time at DiscoverOrg. We talked and we realized that, yeah, it's kind of hard to find these large companies because they're already customers. So why don't you apply these skills that, you know, the things that you're really good at and help us expand into these customers? And so, you know, really just figuring out your… a lot of people say, you know, find it, figure out your why. And for me, it was like figuring out my what, what was it that I wanted to do and what is it that's going to motivate me? Um, and that, that's kind of where, what my decision-making process was.

23:11 Scott Ingram: Great process. And I also want to go back just, just a little bit more, uh, and then we'll get into some tactical stuff. Cause I know, I'm sure there's a lot of SDRs listening to this and they want to get to the meat of of like, what are you actually doing? But from a, you know, as you were in that place in your first few months and it just, it wasn't working, how did you, what was the most important kind of steps along that process and how you got yourself out of that? 'Cause many of us, somebody just emailed me not 2 days ago and said, Scott, have you interviewed anybody that's like really been struggling and they broke through and did this? So I thought it was ironic when you sent me the email and told me about this. So just talk, talk through that process a little bit, because this isn't always easy, and a lot of times we, we get stuck and we've got to break through.

23:58 Josh Sutton: For me, really, it was… I, I go back to it… it's, it's figuring out your, your personal competitive advantage. I mean, I, I'm motivated by doing what, what it… what, like, the results. The results are what motivates me. I envision a result and I figure out how I can apply my strengths to reach that desired goal. And for me, it was really just understanding what I can do to, or what is needed from me to reach that goal. And it was a lot of kind of like removing myself from the situation and seeing what others are doing and trying to position myself away from there. Now that doesn't mean that I just completely went rogue. It was just, what is it that people aren't willing to do? Are they not willing to spend the few minutes here and there to learn more about a prospect before they give them a call or before they email them? Um, are, are they, are they not spending the extra time maybe in the evening or, you know, in the early morning coming in an hour early and really being strategic about your day-to-day? And, and so it kind of, I, I reference it again, crossing the chasm for me was, was really understanding that it was kind of a panic for me. Um, and I was getting inside my own head a lot, but The best thing to do, or the best thing that I did, was remove myself from the situation and figure out where I can position my skills or my strengths to put myself ahead of everyone else and to fuel the systems and processes that I relied on.

25:31 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Well, we will come back to some of those systems and processes, but why don't we start with, can you tell us the story of maybe the most challenging meeting you ever got and how you got it?

25:46 Josh Sutton: Last year, last, actually this time last year, we had been going after, so this was pre-RainKing acquisition. Uh, I don't know if you're familiar, but RainKing and DiscoverOrg, uh, the years and years battle of the 2 companies over 10 years. Uh, we recently made an acquisition and brought them on. Um, and now we're one big happy family, but Back in February, I was working, I just came out to the outbound team and became close with one of our AEs, Travis Bishop. He and I, we clicked very well. We kind of tossed ideas back and forth and he wanted me to go after an account that was in his name. He knew they were using RainKing and we wanted to get DiscoverOrg, we wanted to displace RainKing and get them DiscoverOrg. And so I went, it's a large marketing automation company in San Francisco, huge SDR team. I ended up going after, I tried to leverage past users. That's kind of a big thing with SaaS companies is if you can follow your past users, they, you know, it's kind of an easier sell for them because they already know the value if they've used it before. And so actually the senior director of enterprise sales development, I started going after him and I do my 5 by 5 by 5, which is doing 5 minutes of research before I reach out to him and only 5 minutes writing an email or figuring out what I'm going to say to him. And so when I was doing some research on him, I realized, okay, he's a previous user. He's a big fan of the Warriors, little things here and there, how he structures his team. And I thought I came up with the perfect message to him, added him on LinkedIn. We were going back and forth, just completely blowing me off, didn't want to talk. And I was like, why? You know, what's going on? You know, I know you're using RainKing, but I don't want to reference that. And I just kept trying to provide value to him and just show him like, you might not be the decision maker on this, but this can benefit you. You know, we can help you and here's how. And then it's funny, I was frustrated. How he, he wasn't receptive to it at all. Um, and then one of his, one of his messages back to me when I called him, he said, hey, you know, we're, we're pretty happy with what we're using right now, and I, I don't think we're going to be changing anytime soon. And that was kind of like the final push-off. And, and then later that evening, I thought I need to send him something to follow up here, and I sent him a pretty funny, funny email. It's not really funny, it was more of like, some people might see it as aggressive, but, but I kind of saw it as me being you know, tenacious. I referenced that he was a Golden State Warriors fan. I said, you know, you mentioned that you were pretty happy with your current provider, which is a lot different than saying, you know, I'm never going to change, I love it, we're seeing so much value. And that's typically what I hear from DiscoverOrg customers. And I said, you know, hypothetically speaking, if Steph Curry was a free agent, do you think any companies would pass, or any NBA teams, would pass on him because they were pretty happy with their current point guard. And he ended up responding and he's like, you know, I love the tenacity here, ended up agreeing to a meeting and then entered into the sales cycle with us. So, you know, the biggest takeaway from that is, is, is that some people might be afraid to challenge somebody in a higher power, I guess, like, like an executive might be afraid to challenge them. And some people might be standoffish to, to, you know, sending something like that or talking to somebody like that. Um, but, but really, it's, it's, it's a, it's, it's like I said before, you know, doing the things that others aren't willing to do, you know. And, and, you know, if he, if it was, it was, if he would have accepted that as distasteful, you know, at the end of the day, it's like, hey, I'm, I'm just trying to, to, to show you how, you know, we can help. Um, and so it ended up being great. I mean, he actually ended up offering me a job as well, which is kind of funny.

29:39 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. Great, great story. So let's, let's dig into some of those processes you mentioned, kind of 5 by 5. Why don't we kind of start like really zoomed in and we'll zoom out. So maybe walk us through the process for a prospect. So you've, you've got a new account that you're working on reaching out to and getting a meeting with. What is that process? How do you tackle that?

30:03 Josh Sutton: Well, the first thing, luckily with DiscoverOrg, I can see who the executives are in the company. I can see who reports to who within that sales organization. And from there I can pinpoint, I kind of highlight this is a tier 1 or tier 2 contact. With the tier 2 contacts, those are the team leaders, the managers. Those are the people that my message doesn't necessarily have to be well articulated and this, you know, long thoughtful. It can be, you know, there's a little bit more room for error, I guess you could say. Um, and so with, and, but with the tier 1s, my process, you know, your, your, your VPs of sales, your VPs of marketing, um, the, our, is, is our target market for there. So the, the tier 1 contacts, what I do is it's called the, I call it the 5 by 5 method where it's, you spend no more than 5 minutes researching a prospect and no more than 5 minutes drafting an email or drafting a series of emails that are personalized. Um, and, and, and the way I do that is I leverage, you know, LinkedIn, whether what they say on LinkedIn, Twitter, social media, things like that, just kind of figuring out, okay, what is this? What does this person care about? Like, do we have something that, that we can connect with? Can I reference in my first, in my first sentence, hey, I noticed you're a Chicago Bears fan. So am I. Like, what do you think of the draft coming up? Who do you think they're gonna pick? And then it goes into, I was doing some research. I noticed you lead a team of, of you know, 50 SDRs? Have you thought about the data that they're using, you know, in their, in their day-to-day? And, and it's kind of positioning, you know, you're starting out in a, in a personal sense, and then it's the next part is like, okay, let's get down to the reason why I'm reaching out to you. And so the 5x5, and I hold myself very accountable to that because I know that somebody can spend hours and hours researching some, you know, people to go after. They can, you know, go down that rabbit hole and And then spend another hour trying to write the perfectly well-crafted email and get inside their own heads. And so I actually, I have set the timer on my phone and make sure that I only spend 5 minutes on each, on each step. And then, you know, with the one of the other ways that I do it is snippets. So if I know the value prop, like the, like how I can provide value to this person that I'm reaching out to, it's, and if it's repeatable for the tier 2 contacts, you can reference something and then add that in there as like the, you know, as like the template, I guess you could say. Uh, but also trying to be still be as, as, uh, personal, personalized as possible.

32:37 Scott Ingram: Nice. And within an organization, do you kind of take, take the contacts on one at a time? Do you reach out to multiple people kind of in parallel? What does that look like?

32:48 Josh Sutton: Uh, you know, there's, there's no real uniform way of doing it. Uh, it really depends on where the, where the company's at and really where the, where the, you know, Let's say if I find a, if I start going after a new company or, you know, in my SDR days, if I started going after a new company, I'd say, okay, where are these people located? My tier 1s and tier 2s are the East Coast or West Coast. So I want to be sending them messages at the right time and making sure that they stick out in their inbox. And so obviously, like, you know, 8 AM in the morning or in the morning, whatever day it is, That's usually the worst time to send somebody an email because everybody else is sending one at 8:00 AM. Um, and so I try to, I try to do it around certain times, like 11:00 AM is usually a good time or like 1:00 or 2:00, sometimes even like 6:30 or 7:00. Um, usually people go back and look at their inbox and also coupling calls around those same times as well. Like don't be calling at the same time everybody else is and trying to figure out, you know, where they spend most of their time or where they want to be communicated with as well. Um, so I actually couple all of my touches in per person, um, at once. So it's email, call, LinkedIn message, or something on LinkedIn. And every time I talk to someone or every time I touch them, it's, it's with value every single time. Uh, you'll, I'll never send a, hey, following up, what'd you think? It's like, you have to send value. You have to give them value every time you reach out to them, or it just, it, it, it kind of gives them a, a negative connotation with it.

34:19 Scott Ingram: So what, what is that? I mean, when you say send something of value every time, give us some examples of those.

34:25 Josh Sutton: Yeah. So whether it be a case study, um, referencing how, and referencing how it relates to them, um, showing, you know, providing stats, even just something like as a, as an org chart, it's like, hey, I see that you have like, you know, 10 companies and 10 financial services companies as customers or case study customers on your website. Here's, you know, DiscoverOrg's profile of, uh, you know, whatever, Ameriprise. Um, you know, I thought this would make… I thought this would be of value to you because, you know, you have these other customers. Um, this looks like some… a customer that you would probably be going after. And, you know, uh, here's how we can help your team go after or get in front of the decision makers within these companies. And so being personalized by, you know, so it shows that you're not just firing the same thing off to 1,000 people. Um, and then over LinkedIn, it's like, hey, I see that if they have something in their, in their, in their bio or, you know, something that, that you can reference and use to, to position your value prop to where it makes sense with them as well.

35:28 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And so, I mean, you're, you're obviously taking a very multichannel approach, right? You talked about using social and using email and using the phone. Does, does one of those channels tend to work best for you in terms of actually getting the meeting?

35:41 Josh Sutton: You know, I wish I had data around the best one. I do know that I'm good at being personalized over email. So for me, I think that email is great. I think that email works very well for me, but I don't rely solely on that. I think that as soon as you start relying on one single form of communication, you're kind of alienating yourself from the rest of the resources out there, the rest of the channels. And so I try to think about, I have a pretty good process in place where it's like, you know, email, call to follow up on the email, touch them on LinkedIn or social somewhere and really figure out where they spend most of their time. Like if, if, if it's been 2 weeks, I've been going after somebody, they're not picking up the phone, they're not returning my voicemails. Uh, they're not answering my emails, but they're posting all this content on LinkedIn. It's like, oh, maybe I should send them a message that's that's valuable to them, that would resonate with them and really just figuring out where they're spending their most time and where they wanna be engaged with. Some people hate the phone, some people love the phone, some people hate emails. It really depends. And really it's the best SDRs out there are the ones that are gonna use every channel to their disposal. I mean, for us at least, for DiscoverOrg, it's like we're selling to people who are, we're getting in front of the people who are doing exactly what we are doing. So, You know, you can also kind of, there's a silver lining to that. Some people say that it's hard, you know, it's tough to sell to people who are selling it themselves. Uh, but it's also, well, you know, if, if, if somebody that I'm going after spends all of their time going after their customers on LinkedIn, well, I think that if I was to reach out to them on LinkedIn, they'd probably be more receptive to me because that's where they spend all of their time or, you know, email, vice versa. Um, so really just trying to stay agile in that, uh, in the sense of getting in front of them.

37:32 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, I think the takeaway there is the best channel is the channel that that person prefers. So let's, let's zoom out a little bit. Right. So that's kind of the detail on how you're going after a specific contact and that approach. How are you structuring your day and your week?

37:48 Josh Sutton: You know, the, the main structure to it is, is, is really unstructured, I guess you could say. Uh, I mean, I like to say that as soon as I start focusing on specific things at each time of the day, I try to change it up just because I, I, I don't want to get in the same routine where it just seems like it's, you get inundated with the same exact process over and over again. Um, but on the same side, it's like, you want to come up with a repeatable, uh, a repeatable and scalable process as well. Uh, the one thing that I do structure it or that I try to stay true to is Monday mornings are my kind of, okay, I'm getting back in the, it's like me getting back into a work sense. Um, or, you know, a working, a working attitude, I guess you could say. I'm, I'm trying to read stuff that I missed over the weekend and also planning my, the meat of the week, which I call, I call it the meat of the week, which is Tuesday morning through Wednesday or Thursday evening. That's where I am like head down at my desk. Don't get up, eat at my desk. Like Tuesday through Thursday are my days. And so I spend the first half of Monday doing that and following up on stuff from the weekend. And then it's lining up all of my tasks and kind of preparing myself for the Monday afternoon. We have a couple meetings throughout the day on Monday, so it's kind of an up and down as far as what I do. And then Tuesday through Thursday, like I said, is, you know, head down, hammering through the tasks that I have and And, you know, developing the relationships that I, as many as I can. Um, and then Friday is also kind of spent preparing. Um, the early morning Friday usually is a little bit slower of a day, um, just because, you know, being on the West Coast, that's typically how it is. Um, but really Monday is like my way of setting up the rest of the week.

39:44 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And then what does the toolkit look like? Obviously you're using DiscoverOrg. What, what other tools are you using to help you kind of maximize your time and efficiency?

39:54 Josh Sutton: Yeah, so DiscoverOrg is number one. Um, you know, you got to have the data to go after people. Um, 2 is, is the phone, email. Um, we're, we're an outreach shop as well, so outreach plays a, a big part of what I do. Um, and, and, and outreach, LinkedIn. Um, I don't, I don't do a whole lot of spreadsheets. I, I actually, I take that back. I, I use a lot of spreadsheets now because we have to go through some of the metrics of the users and, and calling current users and expanding within that user base. So I do use a lot of Excel now, but, but back in SDR days, I tried to stay away from it, um, because I, I mean, it might be just because I'm good at, I'm good at manipulating Salesforce reports and stuff like that. Um, but, uh, those are, I mean, phone, email, LinkedIn, DiscoverOrg, Outreach, those are kind of the lifeblood of my, of my, uh, my business.

40:47 Scott Ingram: Beautiful. And then what about your information diet? What does that look like? What are you reading, listening to, and watching?

40:53 Josh Sutton: Yeah, it's, uh, it's kind of a combination of a lot of things. I mean, when I, when I, when I wake up, I try to, I try to go through my, my newsfeed. I mean, Twitter is like my, my go-to for any information I want to read about, uh, outside of work. And then, and then LinkedIn articles, um, you know, anything that's people, people are posting, the people I follow. I try to stay up to date with new systems and processes or the things that people are explaining and, you know, sharing their day-to-day and trying to get the value out of how they do things and incorporate some of the new things that are happening out there into my day-to-day. So it's really, it's between Twitter and LinkedIn is kind of my information diet. It's kind of where I get all my news.

41:41 Scott Ingram: Got it. And then what about, you know, outside of work? I heard that obviously you're watching a lot of sports. What else are you into?

41:48 Josh Sutton: I try to stay active, really. I mean, it's, I feel like I'm one of those people that has to be moving, constantly moving. And luckily we live in the Pacific Northwest where it's beautiful. I mean, uh, you know, going on hikes, meeting up with friends, doing whatever, catching happy hours, um, you know, movies, uh, it really, it, It really depends on what's going on. Like, I'll randomly see, you know, one of my friends say that they're going to the show and it's like, hey, I'm not doing anything, sure, I'll go with you. You know, it really depends. I mean, I really love to be outside for the most part, especially, you know, in the spring and summertime, it's beautiful. And so, you know, outside of work, it's a lot of just, you know, anything to keep me going, you know, being able to stay active and, you know, not spend a lot of time, a lot of downtime and keeping the engine going.

42:33 Scott Ingram: Is there a particular sales philosophy that you subscribe to?

42:38 Josh Sutton: Not necessarily. I, again, it's like, I feel like when one of these sales philosophies or one of these tactics become popular, that's when everybody starts using it. I mean, when we, when I first came into DiscoverOrg, we were a heavy challenger sales organization, just like any other, you know, tech company out there that, that, you know, challenger sale, but we were lucky enough to have Dave Sill. He's our SVP, actually now he's the head of sales enablement. He articulated this, the challenger sale in a way that made a lot of sense to us and how we can use it talking to our customers. And so I've been able to kind of replicate some of that, but also incorporate some of my own, some of my own style and some of my own swag, I guess. You know, the personalized approach. And really, I guess, just trying to figure out how to stay up to date with some of the new things that are happening, some of the new tactics and strategies that are out there and trying to figure out how I can implement them in. So, you know, Challenger Sales is big, but also figuring out what other people are doing and determining if it's something that we can also use as well.

43:56 Scott Ingram: So Josh, is there something you believe that the average SDR who's not at the top would think is crazy?

44:05 Josh Sutton: Yeah, I think that, you know, the, the SDR role, it's represented as somebody who's persistent, or at least the successful ones are the ones that are, that are persistent and tenacious and, and, you know, dedicated to, to calling you, uh, 100 times over a month and, and, you know, just showing that, that you really want to meet with them. And I think that some SDRs would, would think it's crazy when I would say that you don't actually have to call them 100 times a day if you're providing value every time you call them. Like when I, when I, when I make my calls and, and, and, or I guess every time I, I touch someone, it's, it's with value. So if I leave you a voicemail, I'm saying, Hey Scott, we have this, you know, BYOD project happening at company. Wanted to know if that was in your… it looks like it's in your wheelhouse. Would love to talk to you about it. And then the email is, hey, I understand your team targets, you know, IT decision makers in charge of BYOD. DiscoverOrg can help your sales reps or your SDRs get in front of the people who control or have the decision-making power. Within your target accounts. And it's like, if you're providing that kind of value, you don't need to call them 100 times because, you know, they're salespeople. They know what you're doing for one. And 2, they understand how like that resonates with them and you don't have to keep, you know, almost harassing them. It's like, if you're providing value, they're gonna eventually come around. And so that's kind of my way of positioning it is, is, is you don't have to do all these, you know, hundreds and hundreds of touches if you're providing value at every one of them. You can shorten it down. It's kind of the quality versus quantity argument.

45:52 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it's funny. I was, I was just going to summarize it that way because that's certainly what I heard there is, is quality kind of trumps quantity in that way. What about the flip side? Is there something that they believe that you think is crazy?

46:05 Josh Sutton: Yeah, I mean, I think it kind of goes along the same, the same lines there. It's like, I, I like, they, they believe that, that it's, that you, you, you have to do, you know, at least, at least the majority of them, it's like they, they believe they have to. Now I understand that, that there's a reason why, uh, some, some SDRs are just blowing everybody up. And it's because, hey, sometimes that works. You know, sometimes people are stubborn and just say, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make sure this guy's persistent or, you know, this person's persistent before, before I, I engage with them. And And so it's really the flip side of that is like, I think they're crazy too. You know, it's like insanity is… definition of it is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And so it's like, you don't have to keep doing all these monotonous things. It's like, you know, step outside of your, outside of your comfort zone or do something different for a change, you know, to change things up.

46:56 Scott Ingram: Yeah. That's, that's awesome. And you know what I just realized? I probably should have called this out way, way at the beginning of the episode, but I mean, clearly you're doing it right because it was David Dulany who initially connected us because I reached out to David. I was actually just on his show recently. He has the Sales Development Podcast and also produces his own event that he'll be doing late August this year. That's a sales development conference. Sorry, David, I forgot the name of your event, but look up David Dulany. And, you know, I asked him, I mean, here's a guy who's connected to all kinds of SDRs and is a real thought leader in that space and doing some great work. I said, you know, who's the best? And, and he connected us. And I think that's not because… I mean, obviously because you're number one, because that's my rule, but it's also because his experience with you. I think you were actually reaching out to him and he's like, man, this is how you're supposed to do it.

47:48 Josh Sutton: Yeah, yeah, that's true. Uh, you know, David Dulany, I'm, I'm a fan of, of what he does. Um, when I came in, I… he's kind of like… we have… when I first started, it was like kind of the, the sales resources, right? Like, who, who can our you know, our new hires, who can they learn from? And he was one of them. And I actually did a little bit of research, found that he was, he was, he's one of our referral partners as well. But I, he just started the Sales Development Podcast. And I was like listening to every single episode. I was reaching out to him, hey, I'm a big fan of your show. I know that we're, our companies work together, you know, just would love to, you know, connect and stay in touch. And we kind of haven't. And I've also Um, you know, helped him with things, getting his, his conferences out there, sharing some of his stuff. And, and in return, he's, he's opened the door to, to some of the people he knows. He's connected, connected me with sales development leaders at companies that, that I was working with. And, and so we, we worked together on certain things, um, you know, and, and actually what's crazy is I've never actually met him in person, but I'm hoping to when we go down to the Marketo conference. So yeah, he's, he's been, he's been a valuable asset and it goes back to You know, the whole relationship part of sales, it's, you know, although I was never selling to David, he's kind of someone who is well connected. A lot of the companies we talk to are in the, you know, the Bay Area. He lives down there. A lot of companies we work with have large SDR teams and they're also talking to him and working with him. So it's about having the… building the relationships even without trying to sell something. You know, I'm sure that if If we weren't already working together, he would probably… somebody would have tried to sell him DiscoverOrg, I'm sure. But never using somebody as a means to end, I guess, and just staying on top of maintaining relationships and, and, you know, figuring out how you can, you know, leverage the people in your network and also provide value to them as well.

49:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I'm really glad I accidentally prompted that story. That's a great example. And I'll have links to David's podcast and my interview and his event, that'll all be over at top1.fm/41. And I mean, you were also talking about, I mean, clearly that part of your approach is working in the way that you are genuinely connecting with people because you were talking about you getting ready to go to a conference and a lot of people reaching out wondering if you're going to be there and have an opportunity to connect in person. So, talk about that. Why does that happen?

50:20 Josh Sutton: Yeah, I mean, it goes down to creating the relationships. I mean, I, I, there have been people throughout the, during the conference season, I guess they have been reaching out like, hey, are you going to be there? I'm going to be there. Would love to finally meet you. And, and although this is my first one coming up, it's, it really shows that although whether or not somebody is going to buy from you or whether or not somebody is going to take a meeting for you or whatever reason, you know, if they do buy from you or if they don't, or if they do take a meeting from you, it's, it's all about having that, that, that personal, you know, connecting with somebody on a human level. And, and, and if you guys share the interests and, and building those relationships further than just the means to an end, like, I, I still talk to some of the, the people that, that have, you know, said that I've set meetings with that ended up, you know, buying. And, and I, I still keep in touch. Like, I, I feel like some, some people in, in my, in, in my in the SDR role would forget about them after the meeting or after the sale. And, you know, LinkedIn has been great, a big help with that by, you know, connecting with people and staying in touch. And so, you know, for me it's a benefit because I can see you also, like if they go to a different company, maybe I can help them there. But really just, you know, don't forget about them after, you know, they've taken that meeting or after they've bought from you. Like it's okay to continue to foster that relationship because, you know, down the road they might need you or you might need them. And it's just, you know, that, that's what makes the, the sales role so great is, is being able to have those relationships. And, and the ones that, that are fostering those and maintaining those relationships and keeping in touch are the ones that are going to be, you know, most successful. You know, I think about, uh, one of your, one of your previous interviews, Kevin Walkup from, from SalesLoft. Now I've never met him in person. I, I think we've messaged on LinkedIn once or twice, but I know he's like the subject matter expert of referrals. And that's a big part of his business. Well, he didn't get those referrals, you know, he doesn't get those referrals by just forgetting about people after, you know, they, you know, after he sells to them or whatever it may be like, you know, continue to grow those. He's always reaching out to some of our, some of the people I work with, you know, asking for referrals and they're asking him for referrals. And it's all about the reciprocity of it too. It goes a long ways to maintain those relationships.

52:37 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. You know what? I'm going to share a little hack that I accidentally discovered. I also have been part of many, many conferences and really believe in the relationships and the conversations that happen in those things and have sort of been refining a process over many years. I've slowly, slowly gotten better at this. One of the things that I do is I always will ask people that I'm trying to connect with at a conference, to meet at a specific place very, very early in the event, especially people you've never seen before, because it's really hard to be looking for somebody that you've never actually met. So, you know, if you can make that face-to-face connection early, it gets easier to kind of coordinate and have the conversations you want to have later. But I was listening to this, all got prompted to… I listen a lot to my friend Douglas Burdett, runs the Marketing Book Podcast. And despite its name, especially of late, I swear half of the book authors that he's been interviewing are sales books. And I was listening to him talk with Alex Goldfayn, who wrote a book called Selling Boldly. And something in that conversation, I don't know what it was that prompted this. Unfortunately, this is like the Friday before a giant conference in Chicago. So I didn't have very long to execute on this idea. But it dawned on me, the challenge of conferences, it's always so hard to do the follow-up afterwards, right? Like, you're so busy. Everybody… I mean, basically what happens is everybody's reaching out to them. They have… but they're a week behind, right? They were just out of the office for the better part of a week and, you know, work is still there. And I feel like, you know, the half-life of a conference is like 12 hours. It's all of the buzz and excitement has worn off by Wednesday the next week. So, that Friday, what I started doing was reaching out to some of the key contacts that I was working with and scheduling appointments for the following week to debrief together, where it's, hey, I know that you're gonna get slammed when you get back, but let's just carve out some time to talk through together what those kind of key ideas and takeaways and things were for you and, and how we can and, you know, act on and enable those things. I swear to God, I saved myself a whole day of work in doing that because I managed to schedule 5 or 6 meetings that following week, which happens to be this week that we're talking. And my meetings were already there. It was like, oh, great. Well, I need to follow up and touch base with this person. Oh, cool. I'm already scheduled to talk with them on Tuesday. Oh, God. I've got to make sure I schedule… I talk to Chris. Oh, okay. Well, we're set to talk on Thursday. So, for those of you that are involved in conferences, that was just a nice little hack that I stumbled on and will be using over and over and over again because it has proven to be, in this, in my one time using it, extraordinarily effective. So, Josh, I digress, but hopefully that was valuable for the folks listening. You can learn something from the stuff that I try to kind of learn and improve upon. What advice would you give to somebody that's just starting out in their sales career today?

55:44 Josh Sutton: There's a couple of different things that, you know, I think about when I first started, you know, where I could have, you know, kept myself par with the course, so to speak, and, you know, where I wouldn't have gotten, you know, turned kind of derailed. And I think that the biggest thing is kind of, you know, don't overthink it. You know, you're coming in, especially as an SDR, it's sometimes, or it's typically the the entry-level position into a company. And so, you know, and a lot of times those positions are, you know, those are with companies that are highly sought after. And so don't get too much into your own head about having to, you know, perform a certain way or having to do certain things. Just do what comes natural to you and align that with the systems and processes that are in place. Because, you know, when companies create SDR teams, You know, there's so many different models and hours and hours of modeling that goes in to say, okay, we need 10, you know, qualified opportunities a month from each person in this seat. And this is what we have to do to help them, or this is what we have to do to get there. And so it's not necessarily having to, or don't focus on, you know, always having to hit your number. Yes, you want to hit your number and you want to excel, but also you want to develop yourself along the way. And, and it's okay to make those mistakes, you know, along the way too. It's like, don't be afraid to break something because there's also like a silver lining that's, that's within that. So, you know, number one, don't get in your head. Uh, number two, be, be, do what comes natural and, and align it with the, the systems and, and processes in place as well. You know, if, if they tell you to hit 60 dials a day, Do 60 dials, but, you know, do those 60 dials with, with, with what comes natural to you. And, and don't be afraid to also reach out for help. I mean, that was one of the biggest things that I, that I struggled with was I was, I was naive and entitled and, and I was, I was new to everything. So I thought that I could, you know, I could do it all, you know, come in with confidence and, you know, rah, rah, rah. But, but really, it's, it's all the most, all of the learning that I got came from One, talking to people, uh, with, within the company, you know, the, the mentors that I have. And, and 2, also talking to our customers and figuring out, you know, how, like, like how we can, how I can get better at what I do. And so, you know, those are kind of the, the advice that I would have at least.

58:14 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Talk about the mentors a little bit more. How did you start those relationships? How did you develop those relationships? Because that often tends to be key to especially early career success.

58:24 Josh Sutton: Yeah, so I mean, one of the, one of the, one of my biggest mentors when I first started was Stephen Warnke. He's one of our directors of sales. He's been with the company for 7 years, I think 5 or 6 years. He's one of our top sales guys. And, and I noticed we were both from small towns. We both kind of have this sense of, you know, when we're in the office, we can have fun. You know, it's kind of the work hard, play hard type of mentality. And so I was able to kind of connect with him on those levels, kind of the personal levels and get to know him. And then also, and then I realized like, you know, this guy crushes it. I need to get… I need to learn how he does it. I need to figure out how he does it. And, you know, that… so to begin with, it kind of follows the same theme. It's like, you know, I wouldn't just go up to… I mean, I could, but I wouldn't just go up to somebody and be like, hey, I need help on this. Will you help me? I've never met you before. You know, it's like, Hey, let me get to know you first. You're obviously good at what you do. Now I need some help. I'm just a new guy here. You know, can you give me any advice? And actually, I've sat by him for the last, you know, actually since I think for like the last 15 out of my 18 months at DiscoverOrg, I've sat right next to his office and we go back and forth. But also, you know, finding the things that people do really well that you wanna replicate. And so our Patrick Purvis, our Chief Revenue Officer, he's another sort of mentor for me. I mean, I always come to him Um, you know, when he has the free time, obviously. But, you know, I come to him, I see how, how good he is at speaking to large groups and, and how, you know, he never panics. It seems like he never panics, like, when things go wrong. And, and, and, and I, I used to have a problem with, like, you know, if somebody… something goes wrong and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's the end of the world, you know, big feeling things. And, and also I, I had a fear of speaking in front of groups and, and just going to them like, hey, you're really good at this. Like, Do you mind just kind of sharing with me how, how you do this and what your process is? And, and, you know, leveraging the people inside of you or the people inside your organization that, that complement or that, that's their, their strengths are also your weaknesses and finding that connection. And then, you know, I guess being, uh, breaking the ice and initially reaching out to them about, you know, to help you through those problems. Yeah.

1:00:36 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. And sort of a perfect articulation of why I wanted to do the Sales Success Summit, right? Because if you can build those relationships and get to a point that you can ask those questions when you're stuck or you need help with a particularly interesting challenge, right? Having a resource for that. And it's often a two-way street. I had an amazing conversation with one of the individuals that's… I'm not going to disclose who it was, but with one of the individuals that I once interviewed, and they're way beyond me than where I am in my career and way more experienced and way more successful. But, you know, we have conversations and I was able to add a lot of value for them given the particular circumstance and situation that they found themselves in. So those relationships are so, so key. And Josh, let's look at the other side. So we talked about kind of the advice for somebody just getting started. What about somebody that's like in the thick of the SDR thing, right? They've been in it for whatever the time period is, you know, and typically it's not a really long time. So maybe they're 6 months or a year. A year, 14 months in, maybe they're, they're getting to the point where they're thinking about the next role. What's your advice for them, somebody that's just in it?

1:01:46 Josh Sutton: Um, you know, my… I do a lot of, a lot of, uh, self-evaluation and, and kind of reflection. Um, and so, and that was kind of my, my turning point, I guess, my, my kind of, uh, inflection point, you could say. And I think goes a long ways in this role and, and for somebody who's been in it is to never get complacent with where you're at and always be thinking about how you can make, how you can relinquish and exploit those competitive advantages that you have and relinquish those, the strengths to further complement, you know, your weaknesses, I guess. And so, you know, if you've been there for 6, 7, 8 months, a year, you know, you're kind of getting established or you've already been established, you're just kind of, working through the flow and thinking about your next step. You know, don't get caught up in thinking about the next step. Get thought… get, you know, get obsessed with getting even better at what you're doing now, um, and taking care of more of the little things. And so, you know, I think about some of the things that I did, uh, throughout my, you know, kind of the midway or the, you know, tenured, um, point in the SDR world is, is I kept thinking about how we can make everything better, like how I can make everything better. Sure, what I'm doing now is, you know, I'm seeing results, but how can I take it a step further? You know, what are the little things that I can do here and there to take it a step further?

1:03:12 Scott Ingram: Love it. No, that's, that's really, really good stuff. And it's just the focus on the here and now, right? Yes, maybe there's something you want to get to, but make what you're doing now great.

1:03:19 Josh Sutton: Yeah, exactly. And it's like, if you're, if you're, if you're doing well, like most companies are gonna recognize that you're doing well. Most people are gonna recognize that you're doing well. And they're gonna ask you, what is it that you're like, how are you, uh, you know, how did you get to this, get to the point you're at now? Or, hey, you know, you booked 15 meetings today. How did you do that? Like, you know, how is that happening for you? And, and, and, and being able to talk about those things will also help you uncover some things that you can do better too. I mean, I, I realized, you know, one day I actually ended up, uh, back in, I believe it was in March. It's kind of funny. I asked our, my manager, hey, what's the, what's the most outbound demos anybody's ever scheduled in one day? And he said, the most is 9. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do 10 today. And that was at like 8 AM in the morning, 8:30 in the morning. And by 3 PM, I had 10 scheduled. And I said, hey, I beat the record. And sure enough, everybody's like, how did you do this? How did you do this? And I was like, well, you know, I focused on Kind of laid out my process. And then I thought, I'm like, wait, I could have done this. And then I wouldn't have got a no from that person. And, and so just, you know, having an open mind and, and, and don't be afraid to share what you're doing with other people because, you know, the more you talk about it, the more you're going to uncover of how to get better as well.

1:04:36 Scott Ingram: Okay. Let's go back to that again. So you set 10 meetings in a day, which is often like what people are tasked to do in a month. Did I hear that right?

1:04:44 Josh Sutton: Yeah. Yeah. So it was, uh, it was 10 outbound meetings in one day. And, and, you know, I gotta say it just because it's, it's the, you know, recency bias here. Uh, it actually, that record was beat, um, last Friday. So it's funny, I was, I was preparing last week and I'm like, yeah, I could talk about my, the, the record that I set. And then it's like, wait, nope, it just got beat. Never mind. But yeah, so, uh, back in, it was in March, uh, we ended up setting, ended up basically calling my own shot and scheduling 10 outbound meetings. With, you know, they're manager level or higher, so they were qualified meetings. And yeah, it was pretty big. That was kind of my, I guess, coming out moment, you could say.

1:05:24 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. So, how did you structure that day? I mean, was it already a little bit set up where you knew, okay, I'm going into a pretty good day, I've got a shot here, and you kind of took it from there? Because it sounds like you definitely started with a belief, right? You're like, you freaking stated it. Like, this is okay. It's on. This is what I'm going to do.

1:05:43 Josh Sutton: Yeah. So I, uh, it was actually kind of my, I call it my, my coming out moment or whatever, as, as a way of, of kind of where I realized how I can kind of pivot, I guess, and, and, and be more successful. So I started, I came in, I actually couldn't sleep. I was really frustrated. It was a, it was a, it was a win. It was a Thursday that I did those 10 meetings, but the whole week I had just been getting nos, just being shot down. I mean, I was bummed out and I thought, you know what, I need to get ahead of this. And so I came in early and I started thinking more strategically. And it was, I was just off the heels of getting the meeting that, or getting the response from my top meeting, I guess, my most memorable meeting. And so I thought, how can I replicate that system? You know, and take advantage of that success and into my… and kind of incorporate some of those things. And so I lined out my, you know, top accounts, the companies that we had that I was going after, and I found each person that I wanted to reach out to with a personalized message and ended up doing… that's when I implemented my 5x5 and kind of showed that, you know, I can reach out to them via email and follow up with phone calls. So I did you know, 5 off… 5 meetings off of personalized emails and then 5 off of… off the phone following up on the emails.

1:07:06 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. What a great story. And I was just gonna ask, as we get ready to wrap up here, uh, it seems like your best stories have been, uh, not from the, the regular questions that I tend to ask. So is there a, a point that you were hoping to make or a story that you were hoping to tell that I somehow haven't pulled out of you yet?

1:07:28 Josh Sutton: Um, you know, not necessarily a story. Uh, I, I think that, I think that with the, with this, with the SDR role, it, it's one that is kind of the entry level and you have to go about it with the right attitude. You know, a lot of people say that you have to be able to, to get shot down. You have to, you have to, you know, roll with the punches and roll with the nos and, you know, you have to celebrate the small wins. And I think that that's, that's all true. However, if you, if you change your mindset, you can accomplish anything really. Like if you, if you think about what you're doing and remove yourself from your, you know, hypothetical, remove yourself from the environment or where you're at and kind of see yourself doing certain things and figure out how you can improve those systems and processes and have the right mindset of staying positive, it goes further than anything else. You know, so much of sales is success, or I'm sorry, is luck. And, and, and so much of your success is, is played off those, those, those lucky things that happen, you know? So it's like you, you reach out to somebody cold. Well, I think it's just a, it's a matter of luck that they, oh yeah, I was actually just thinking about you last night. You know, that a lot of that is luck. And, and you have to take that and, and channel it and put it towards, you know, rolling with those notes. That's, that really went a long ways for me. And, and, you know, it took me a while to figure that out, but, but here I am now.

1:09:01 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's awesome. Well, let's bring this all together and we always try and kind of summarize things with something very actionable that, that somebody can do. So let's, let's sort of put this in the terms of For an SDR or for somebody who is, uh, needs to really focus on their, on their pipeline and do a lot of prospecting, what would you challenge them to do over the course of the next 2 weeks to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:09:30 Josh Sutton: How about what they can do tomorrow is what I'm thinking, and, and roll it over to the rest of the week. So starting tomorrow, if you have a name, a list of accounts Find the 10 best accounts that you want to go after, that you know in your head, in your heart, that they should be using your tool or, or that you could be providing so much more value to their day-to-day. Think of those 10 accounts and identify your target buyers, your personas, who, you know, the last, the last 10 meetings you set, find those same 10 people at those companies. And figure out how you're going to stand out in their inbox when you email them, stand out on their phone when you call them, stand out on LinkedIn when you reach out to them on LinkedIn. And, you know, whatever other touches you have that you, that are part of your cadence, do the things that others aren't willing to do and see what happens. If you feel like with those, you know, 10 or 20 people that you reach out to, if you feel like you're doing the same thing you did previously, change it, pivot, and add more value in that way.

1:10:36 Scott Ingram: Love it. That is fantastic. Now, it wasn't intentional by any means, but I feel like I have neglected the SDR role a little bit. It's been a long time since I've done another SDR interview. Not for me though, because these will, these will actually be out of order a little bit. But assuming nothing crazy happens, we'll actually have back-to-back SDR episodes and you'll be able to hear another one Uh, when we release the next episode on, I believe that's May 8th, we'll be at the summit. Um, so you get a chance to hear from another SDR back to back. So if you enjoyed this, stay tuned for that. Make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast wherever you like to listen to your, your podcast. Um, go over to top1.fm, make sure you're on the mailing list. You can also text TOP1, T-O-P, the number 1, no spaces, to 444999. That'll also get you immediately onto the mailing list. Where I try and share all the best stuff and all the best referral codes and all that good stuff. So if you want to check out the summit, that's a good action to take there as well. Josh, thanks for spending the time with me. This has been fantastic.

1:11:43 Josh Sutton: Yeah, thanks, Scott. I appreciate, you know, coming on here and being able to share my story. I'm a, I'm a huge fan of the podcast and, you know, I'm thankful that, that David connected us and was able to join you on this. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast.

1:11:59 Scott Ingram: 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.