42: Sam Silverman - Top SDR at Outreach.io

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. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, I'm joined by Sam Silverman, who is the top sales development representative at Outreach.io. Outreach.io. Welcome to the show, Sam.

0:33 Sam Silverman: How's it going, Scott?

0:34 Scott Ingram: It's going great, and I love talking with SDRs like you, Sam, for a couple of reasons. For a lot of people, the most challenging part of sales is getting that first meeting, and who better to learn about what's working best in prospecting today than from a top SDR who spends all day every day setting up meetings and building pipeline? There are also a lot of SDRs and BDRs that listen to this show, and for obvious reasons, they love hearing what the very best are doing to be successful in the role. So let's jump right in. Talk me. Through the top 3 things that have allowed you to consistently put up the best numbers, both at Outreach.io and KiteDesk before that.

1:11 Sam Silverman: I think a big thing for me is being extremely personalized. So I actually work for Outreach, I work for KiteDesk. Both were sales engagement tools which allow you to work more efficiently and effectively, and a big use of that is through automation. And automation can be a very dirty word in the space or used, used the wrong way. So I think leveraging automation the right way is really crucial. And for me, leveraging automation the right way means spending significant time on a personalized email, whether that's through research via company page, via job postings, industry competitors, relevant references, and then using our automation to continually bump those emails so that a sales leader, marketing leader, an operations leader, any one of our primary targets can see that email multiple times because people are busy. It takes a lot of time to get a response. So just timing is crucial. So the more times they can see something you put a lot of work into, the more chance you have at getting a response.

2:07 Scott Ingram: Walk us through that. I mean, you called out kind of research and personalization. How are you doing that?

2:13 Sam Silverman: So a big way that I'm using research is we already have a good amount of customers. We're a more advanced startup, so we have customers in a lot of our target industries. That way you can bring relevant references to not only their industry, but their actual type of function. So we target sales leaders, and most sales companies you can kind of group them into 2 buckets. So companies like Outreach that have SDRs qualifying meetings, booking appointments, then pass those appointments off to account executives toward the back end of the deal. And then companies where reps are full cycle, where reps are booking their own appointments, closing deals, and then potentially managing that account. So if you can really segment your prospecting into a few buckets, it helps to be more personalized with far less time in that sense.

2:57 Scott Ingram: Nice. And then what is the… I mean, down to the how much time do you spend and what are the resources like? What are you doing to research before you outreach to a specific contact?

3:08 Sam Silverman: So a big thing for me, I will always check job postings first. So we primarily target sales leaders. Those are our number one targets. So Most sales companies are always actively hiring because I've heard very few VPs of sales say they're going to turn down a good sales rep if one falls on their doorstep. So there are always job postings up, and in that job posting, there's a good description of what they expect out of the role, how they operate. So they're giving you all this useful information to then leverage your product or service to help benefit them and what they're looking for.

3:42 Scott Ingram: Cool. And anything else from there? I mean, are you doing more research on that individual, or it's really just, okay, now that I've got a good sense. I've looked at the job posting, I understand how you're positioning this and what the role entails. And now you know which bucket to put them into, you know which reference to align with that, because now you've got a sense of kind of what industry they're in and those types of things.

4:03 Sam Silverman: Absolutely. So yeah, I'm also a huge LinkedIn person. Not everyone has this, but a lot of people will have personal achievements, what their role requires, certain technology they use, previous companies they've worked at, because especially in SaaS, average tenure for a VP of Sales is maybe a year and a half on the high end. So they could have worked for a previous customer. They could have been connected to an Outreach Hero, someone we have a case study on. So there's all these little tidbits of information you can continue to tie together to be more and more relevant, to help you cut through all the noise of the tons of emails they get throughout the day.

4:36 Scott Ingram: Perfect. So we'll come back. I want to dig in a lot deeper and get to the specifics around what your… what the outreach looks like, right? How does that sort of happen? But before we go there, I mean, talk a little bit about what is your origin story? How did you get into sales?

4:51 Sam Silverman: So I actually got into sales, um, both my parents were in sales. My dad is in wholesale, my mom's in real estate. Um, and I've always been a big advocate of being compensated and being noted for how well you do. So I think a commission-based job is very exciting because it's one of the few roles where you are exactly tied to your success or you're tied to your failure. So it's very black and white. It's a numbers type thing. Either you're doing well, you're not doing well, and it gives you something to improve and continue to strive for.

5:22 Scott Ingram: Nice. And you've certainly had success. I mean, quantify your results for us and just help us understand what does it take to be number 1 at Outreach?

5:30 Sam Silverman: The past few quarters have been around 180-190% of quota.

5:33 Scott Ingram: And what is that quota? Give us some perspective there.

5:36 Sam Silverman: Yeah. So we have a qualified meeting standpoint. So the meeting has to hit certain qualifications based on technology, opportunity size, hierarchy of the person being involved in the conversation, and then it also has to be a relevant timing. Like, there has to be a tangible opportunity at the time. And our quota just moved from 10 qualified meetings per month, so sales accepted leads, to 12.

5:59 Scott Ingram: Okay, awesome. And then you've, you've set some records along the way, I think, as well.

6:02 Sam Silverman: Yeah, I've definitely gone back and forth with a few people for the, for the monthly overall record of, uh, 23, and then the quarterly record of 56.

6:11 Scott Ingram: Very nice. So what is… what's the hardest part? Like, what do you struggle with the most in this role?

6:17 Sam Silverman: The biggest thing for someone like myself who is fairly email heavy, it's human nature. So you can do the same thing 100 times and get 100 different results. So it's being able to stay focused and continue to… there are days I write 100 personalized emails and get zero responses, but it's also the law of averages too. There are days I write 100 emails and get 15, 20 responses that same day. So it's all being able to stay focused and understanding that it'll all even out. And to be able to look at it from the bigger picture opposed to the day-to-day.

6:46 Scott Ingram: So how do you sort of maintain that? What, what do you measure yourself against? And is it, is it sort of a daily activity goal that you're trying to achieve? Like, what's, what's the drive?

6:56 Sam Silverman: I think we have a very high standard of SDRs in Outreach. So there are a lot of people who are in the same ballpark as I am, which definitely helps keep me motivated. There are a ton of good people around me, which really does help. Um, we hold our SDRs to a very high standard, which helps keep me motivated because someone's always, uh, nipping at our heels for first place.

7:15 Scott Ingram: Remind me how many SDRs there are right now, because you guys have a pretty significant SDR organization.

7:21 Sam Silverman: Um, I'd say we fluctuate between 30 and 40, usually in the mid-30s.

7:25 Scott Ingram: Is there turnover in that, or people moving into AE roles? What, what is that fluctuation?

7:30 Sam Silverman: There are people moving to management roles, people moved into inside sales roles, people moved into IT and operations roles as well.

7:37 Scott Ingram: So what about you? I mean, do you have an aspiration to make that kind of move, or are you doing just great in this spot and you're kind of maximizing? Where do you stand?

7:45 Sam Silverman: I'm not totally sure what I want to do yet ultimately. Yeah, that's definitely a conversation I'm having currently. And there aren't any tangible results yet, partially because of the company and partially because I'm not entirely sure the direction I want to go. So more of just feeling it out until something that's right pops up.

8:01 Scott Ingram: So what about the routines and habits that are sort of core to the way you operate? How do you structure your day and structure your week?

8:09 Sam Silverman: I'm very sequence, which is a sequence is our email automation. So it is putting someone into a structure, structures, the touchpoints that are designed to help get a response. So I will sequence very heavily on Sunday and Wednesday. This is assuming my whole week goes as planned. It doesn't always do that. So I don't wanna make it seem like it always does. But Sunday and Wednesday, in an ideal world, I will sequence very heavy. And then Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, I'll have tons of relevant engagement. Responses and conversations to be had. So I'll hit the phones harder on those days. Like, most of my emails don't get responses, but they lead to meetings via the phone. So the email is more to warm up the conversation, and then I really use that email as a script when I'm calling someone. Because if I spend 10, 15 minutes on an email, I have tons of relevant content for them right away, and you're really hitting home that the same point in a different way on the phone, and it really just helps secure that actual appointment.

9:07 Scott Ingram: Walk us through the details of what does a typical sequence look like, one that works well?

9:14 Sam Silverman: So for me, the typical sequence is a personalized first email, and then we'll have 2 or 3 bumps to it. So it will be like, hey Scott, just seen you get my last email, when would be best for us to connect? But it's a smaller email so that if you're opening on your phone, that first email, it's in a reply thread, still pops up there. So these are just all hypothetical numbers. So let's say my first email gets replied to at a 5% rate, and then each of the 3 emails after there are 3%. That's basically giving that same email a 14% reply rate instead of a 5% reply rate. Because people we're targeting are… they head up teams, they head up entire sales divisions, they're probably running around the office like crazy trying to get stuff done. So getting them at the exact time when they're opening their phone or they're opening their computer to respond to an email, it's extremely tough. And it's just a lot of that's luck as well. So if they can see it 3 or 4 times instead of just one, trickle them with a bunch of calls, it gives you a far better chance of getting that person at the right time.

10:13 Scott Ingram: And how are you spacing those out? What's, what's the interval between that first email and the follow-up bumps?

10:19 Sam Silverman: Good question. I can actually pull it up now and tell you.

10:22 Scott Ingram: Is, is there a visual that we might be able to include in, in the show notes with this?

10:26 Sam Silverman: Um, yeah, I, I can take some screenshots for you and, uh, send over what a typical sequence outline will look like for us.

10:32 Scott Ingram: That would be awesome. So if you're listening to this, if you jump over to top1.fm, um, or we'll have a link in the, in the show notes, if you just click into the episode, we'll get you right there and you'll be able to look at some of those screenshots so you can follow along with what Sam's gonna talk us through here.

10:46 Sam Silverman: Yeah, so for, for me, that the first day that, uh, that personalized email will go out. And then also within Outreach, if that… let's say that person opens it 2, 3, 4, 5+ times or gets forwarded around, call tasks will automatically pop up because of the engagement on that email. But if let's say they don't open it, it'll queue up a call the next day. 2 days later, it'll queue up a bump to that email. So like I was just saying for you, Scott, before, like, hey Scott, I see you got my last note, want to see when would be best for us to connect. But still resurfacing that first email in the personalized thread. The next day we have a LinkedIn view, which we really help things… helps people a lot to bring it into their subconscious because you keep seeing the face associated with the name. And the more times you can see something and see matches, the more likely you are to respond to it. 2 days later, we have another bump email, phone call, another bump email, phone call, phone call. Then we have a new thread, so we'll have some generalized outreach contents that industry going out, followed by a few more bumps as well in the same type of pattern. So mostly spread out by a day or 2 for each action, and then if there's a lot of engagement, that'll also queue up more activities based on that as well.

11:59 Scott Ingram: Got it. So how long is a typical sequence start to finish, and is there a point that you give up?

12:05 Sam Silverman: We found between about 14 to 18 steps we'll typically do. That usually goes over about a 3-week period. Some sequences are far… depending on the industry, some are longer sequences. We have ones that run about 3 months just because if they're a person we don't want to aggressively reach out to at the time, or if their industry may have a longer sales cycle, or we just know certain things about them that makes us still reach out to them but still act with a little bit of caution.

12:36 Scott Ingram: Certain things you decide to take a little bit more of a conservative approach.

12:40 Sam Silverman: Exactly. But this, the one, the one I just walked you through is probably the one I use the most.

12:44 Scott Ingram: Okay. And then when you say there's a phone call, do you, if you don't get somebody, do you leave a voicemail? What's, what's your process on that?

12:54 Sam Silverman: I'm not huge on voicemails. Um, I will once in a while if I know something super relevant or if I just got a referral to them. Um, like if I'm reaching out to you, Scott, and, and your partner just said, John said reach out to Scott. I'll get on the phone and say, hey Scott, just spoke with John. Looking to find time. Look, he mentioned we should talk. When would be the best time for us to connect? So I only really do it if I have referrals.

13:15 Scott Ingram: Okay, got it. And sounds like really 3 primary channels. So you're starting with email and they're kind of moving back and forth between calls and emails and then kind of the LinkedIn views. Any other channels that you're typically leveraging?

13:30 Sam Silverman: Mostly email, calling, and LinkedIn.

13:33 Scott Ingram: And you said what typically breaks through at the end of the day, it's, it's the call. The email is kind of warms it up and provides the context so that when you do get on the phone, you're, you're more likely to convert that conversation into a meeting.

13:45 Sam Silverman: Absolutely. So the email gives a lot of context just because we are selling into sales leaders. So it's a different type of sale than selling into IT or selling to 2 different industries. You're selling to people who are most likely far more experienced than you in sales. So it gives you The email allows them to actually see your value propositions and your messaging beforehand, and the call just really helps, hits it home.

14:08 Scott Ingram: Got it. Now, how much of that messaging are you coming up with yourself based on that research and other things, and how much of it is you've just sort of figured out good positioning and good messaging across the SDR team that you guys leverage from each other?

14:23 Sam Silverman: We… I have a lot of different industry templates I use to craft personalized emails. So it'll be more of an outline for myself and then maybe about 10 minutes. Then it's like I try and stay under 10 minutes for a personalized cold email.

14:37 Scott Ingram: Got it. And then at any given time, I mean, so if the average is kind of 3 or 4 weeks, how many people would you have in some stage of a sequence at any given time?

14:48 Sam Silverman: So I'm right about right around 400. We do have people in the company who are over 1,000. But sequencing takes me far longer due to the personalized messaging. So I don't have as much going on in the background as some other people do who are more volume-type people. We're using automated sequences or using high-touch sequences, which is queues of automated emails and call tasks. So that's not entirely my approach. There are people who do just as well as I am using that approach.

15:18 Scott Ingram: So is that just sort of a stylistic personal decision, or is that depending on the industry and the market size and things like that?

15:25 Sam Silverman: That's more of a style type thing. We've had people who do just as well as me who do entirely automated sequences and then just call people. So basically using the sequences as marketing content, hoping to get a couple replies, then mostly just hitting the phones pretty hard. So their volume numbers will be higher than mine will, so I have to convert higher to still do well.

15:47 Scott Ingram: So you mentioned it's a different style. How would you describe your style then?

15:51 Sam Silverman: Very, very targeted in the sense that most of the calls I get on with people, probably about 2/3, I know their face, I know where they work, I know some context about them. Like if you just mention their name, I can give you a little bit of a rundown about them and how I'd directly position Outreach to them. But people who are higher volume, they'll convert a little bit lower in terms of their conversations, in terms of their cold emails, but the volume counteracts the lower conversion rate due to that.

16:20 Scott Ingram: So how are you doing that targeting? Who, how are you deciding and where are you finding the folks that you're gonna put into a sequence?

16:28 Sam Silverman: For me, it's all LinkedIn. It's definitely more of a manual process for me. We have some great data tools. We use DiscoverOrg and ZoomInfo, um, both of which are excellent. So I am big on LinkedIn prospecting because that's the most relevant data you're gonna find. So I think they both update their data about every 2 months or 45, 60, 90 days, whatever that may be. So on LinkedIn, it'll give you really relevant people and making sure they're still in that role. As I said before, people change roles all the time. So just making sure they're still at the company, still in a relevant title that would make sense for us to prospect. People who do the more volume approach pull a lot of people in through DiscoverOrg or ZoomInfo without really referencing LinkedIn. So it's a much quicker process, but it could be some wasted effort as well on their end, but does allow you to have more chances due to the volume.

17:14 Scott Ingram: Gotcha. So curious about the LinkedIn thing, because you're clearly kind of a LinkedIn power user. Beyond the profile views, are you, are you requesting connections? Are you doing any messaging either, either through just the regular messaging within LinkedIn or InMails or anything else in your process?

17:32 Sam Silverman: I will connect with people at times, especially if I'm having trouble getting their number, like if they just switched companies, then if you write them a quick personalized LinkedIn connect request, then probably about half the time you get their phone number as well. And then it also helps too if I'm calling, if I was reaching out to you, Scott, I said, hey Scott, thanks for the connection on LinkedIn. I want to reach out because of A, B, and C, right? So that gives you more context. You've seen my face. It helps make it a little more personalized even if it's a total cold call or total cold outreach. So I will use it. Big on LinkedIn views. So for me, my monitors always have a LinkedIn page up if I'm calling someone.

18:09 Scott Ingram: And when you're doing the LinkedIn views, are you just sort of associating that with kind of most calls or most emails, or how do you kind of fit that in?

18:18 Sam Silverman: So on, in terms of how I have my screen set up, I'll always have Outreach, Salesforce, and then LinkedIn. So whenever I'm making a call to someone, I just click that, the LinkedIn button in Outreach, and it pulls their page for me. Um, and by doing that, you can always just find relevant tidbits on their LinkedIn to have warmer conversations. So a big thing for me, I'm sure we'll get into this more after as well, is we have a bunch of Outreach Heroes of all of our case studies. So I will add all those people who speak very highly of Outreach on LinkedIn. They're usually big social media users as well. And by doing that, a lot of people we're prospecting are connected to these people. So if I'm reaching out to you, Scott, I'm like, hey Scott, so you're connected to so-and-so of so-and-so company and they're using Outreach for this. Would you be open to having a conversation on how we can do the same for your team? Really hits home for a lot of people because these are usually heavy influencers in the industry or they've had big results and their name that they might not know, but they trust that name. And if this company is using it, it might as well be worth the conversation. So yeah, that's definitely a big way of how I use it, of how I use LinkedIn.

19:19 Scott Ingram: Nice. So along those lines with the references and referrals, how do you manage that? I mean, there's a lot of SDRs. Do you have any kind of process in place to make sure that you don't end up beating the heck out of somebody that's just overly connected to everybody?

19:34 Sam Silverman: We don't, uh, for me at least, I don't really ask for the references. It's more of just referencing their name. So it's, if I'm reaching out to you, it's like, hey, see you're connected to so-and-so, they're using Outreach for this. So I'm not really asking them for like to be a, to be a reference and hop on the phone with someone, just saying that their team is a power user of Outreach and they've had these results. Why doesn't your team at least give us a look?

19:55 Scott Ingram: Got it. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So you're not really asking for a lot of introductions and things like that. You're just referencing the fact that, hey, I see that you're connected with this person, here's the context. It's just building some credibility.

20:07 Sam Silverman: Exactly. It's building some credibility to a person they hopefully follow on LinkedIn. They may have some trust from reading some of their content. They may think, oh well, that's an awesome company, they're really doing well, maybe we should at least give them a look, right? So it helps give… it helps make cold emails and cold calls a little, just a little bit warmer.

20:25 Scott Ingram: Nice. So anything else that you're doing? I mean, I've been sort of digging into this in some pretty detail, right? Anything else that I didn't ask about or that you see others on your team do that looks to be really effective?

20:37 Sam Silverman: I think a big thing for us too internally is just using the engagement. So while people want to sequence, we always have stuff working in the background and then having that engagement going on and having people open your emails all the time and knowing who opened it most or if it was forwarded around or passed around to your team really just helps gauge if there's any kind of interest. So if I'm reaching out to you and I write you a cold email and you open it 116 times, I'm gonna have a good guess that you're a great person to keep calling until we speak.

21:07 Scott Ingram: That makes things obvious, but are you typically targeting one contact per organization or are you targeting multiple people simultaneously?

21:15 Sam Silverman: So I typically target, depending on the company size, if it's a smaller company, there might only be one or two good targets. If it's a Fortune 500 company, there may be 15 or 20. So I try to get one position for us within each office in the company. So for us, we target marketing leaders, primarily sales leaders, sales operations, sales enablement, and then executive leaders to try and get referrals down because a lot of them will delegate then down to their VP of Sales or Director of Sales because it's more relevant for them. They're usually the economic buyer for us. But yeah, in a bigger company, I'll probably target about 10 people just because you have many VPs of sales in different offices throughout the country. So if you're gonna spend some time writing a personalized email to that company, you can then customize that very quickly for different individuals within that company again as well. So it's more of hedging your bet within the same company because you have a few different targets and a lot of people of power who could get the conversation moving in the right direction.

22:16 Scott Ingram: That makes a lot of sense. And you're doing that simultaneously, so it might be 10 different VPs in different regions, or do you do it in sequence where, ah, I didn't connect with this one, now I move on to the next one?

22:27 Sam Silverman: Most of us do it at the same time just because we just want somewhere to start. And then between us and the account executive, we usually have a pretty good idea how to navigate the account after that initial conversation. So with sequences, or sequence, like if we book a meeting the sequences will automatically stop within that account. We're strictly account-based, so we're not going to have… if we book you, Scott, and then you have a partner as well in a different office, we're not going to keep reaching out to them once we have a conversation with you.

22:54 Scott Ingram: Got it. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And then at that point, you're kind of handing off to the AE. They're taking things forward, and they've probably got their own sequences and ways that they're communicating across the organization at that point. So let's switch gears a little bit. What tools or apps are you using in just your day-to-day?

23:11 Sam Silverman: So I am a big advocate of ZoomInfo. Direct dials are crucial for us. We use ZoomVideo as well for all of our conferences. DiscoverOrg to help navigate like company trees and really see who reports to who for bigger companies as we make a big push to go upstream the market. We also use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to help you really figure out the people you need to talk to in the account based on their titles and really helps you sort quickly. I recently used… I'm going to the RSA conference and we recently used Datafox to help us pull the attendees, pull all the people we need to speak to. We use Chorus internally as well to do call reviews, pick up tidbits of information during our conversations with account executives. I think that's about it for myself. I know you have a bunch of tech in Outreach that we most likely use that may not be totally relevant to me, but those are definitely the ones I use most in my day-to-day.

24:03 Scott Ingram: Got it. And I mean, a lot of what I'm hearing is you've got a smart approach, right? You're, you're consistent about it. You're doing the research, you're doing the personalization. What's keeping you at the top though? Why can't somebody else outdo you in the organization?

24:20 Sam Silverman: Oh, people definitely do on a month-to-month basis for sure. There's not always me at the top of the leaderboard every month. Um, but just the bigger picture, just being able to continually be consistent about it, that the averages always work out to staying at the top. If that makes sense. So people, it's a very easy role to get burned out in, or people, it's a very good role to see what you want to do, whether that's sales or not. So a lot of people will come into this role for a fresh job out of college or a new career change, or they want to get into tech. So they may not end up liking the role. They may end up figuring out what they want to do, whether it's here or somewhere else. So I think being able to stay focused all the time and the fact that I actually enjoy doing the role really helps. So if you kind of look at it as like a competitive game the whole time, it helps keep you focused and interested.

25:07 Scott Ingram: So it sounds like it's just, it's the consistency. It's always being on top of what you're doing and what you're delivering. I think clearly the fact that you enjoy the role, because I think one of the challenges with the SDR role that I see is it does tend to be a churn and burn kind of place, right? And you get somebody in there and maybe they don't love sales. That's, that's a challenge. You probably don't need to need to continue, but it's just hard, right? And, and being able to maintain that focus over the long term, if you're not able to do that, and, and then, I mean, you just got this great experience, right? You've gotten very, very proficient in it, and you're able to continue to deliver the, the results from that.

25:46 Sam Silverman: I think you also hit on before too, so in terms of people who do well in their careers are either very experienced, very educated, or they're really good at doing things people hate doing. So prospecting, like you said before, people hate it. Like, if you ask most senior accounting executives, what's the one thing you wish you never had to do? It's prospecting. So I think if you can get really, really good at it and actually find joy out of being good at something that people hate doing or aren't good at, the good things will start going your way.

26:15 Scott Ingram: Well, and how are you doing that? Because, you know, what I find, if you look at the statistics around the number of salespeople who are making their numbers, the percentages are depressing, like they're bad. And I think the difference is, especially in SaaS these days, the expectation is, oh, well, the SDR organization should be delivering enough pipeline meat for me to be successful. What I find is, you have to take ownership of that pipeline. And yes, the SDR team is making a contribution to that. But you need to continue to do your own prospecting and find ways to generate your own business. So, I mean, what would you tell them? How do you help people find joy in the art of prospecting? Because again, if you don't, if you hate it, that's going to come across and your results are going to be even worse.

27:09 Sam Silverman: Yeah. Well, if you hate it, you probably shouldn't be doing outbound sales. Outbound sales is the only predictable engine you can have for generating revenue. So if you want to be totally in control of your success and your earnings, you should figure out how to start liking it. Probably our… my 2 favorite AEs to work with internally of Outreach are people who will always help you on a follow-up email. They prospect themselves, they actually get it. So those people definitely get favored internally because of that. They're more empathetic to the role and understand that that initial conversation could be all you need to really help win yourself a giant deal and a great logo for the company. Also at Outreach, we really treat our SDRs very well relative to the industry average, right? Like there's tremendous upside in the commission earnings. It's a more respected role because we were grown on outbound sales. I believe, don't quote me on this, around 90% of our sales come from outbound generated or marketing, or no, for outbound generated leads. Marketing definitely helps us a lot, but we were built around outbound sales and that's what we sell is sales excellence. So it all ties back together in terms of really valuing the position far more than other companies, I believe.

28:22 Scott Ingram: Well, and I think that's huge, right? I think the idea that the SDR role has turned into this, oh, this is only for entry-level type people and the compensation is half what it is for an AE. Why on earth would you want to stay in that role?

28:36 Sam Silverman: Right.

28:36 Scott Ingram: And it's not respected. So it sounds like, one, there's just the culture and respect for the role and what the company was built on. But how do you find the love and find the enjoyment in prospecting?

28:49 Sam Silverman: Well, I feel like if I do stay in the sales field, which I'm definitely leaning towards something in the sales field, I'm not sure what yet, whether it's an enterprise role, whether it's sales development leader, whether it's sales leadership down the road, all those are viable options for myself. You're always gonna have to prospect. That's never gonna go away. So if you get good at doing the things people hate doing and you get good at things to really help drive business, then you'll always be valuable to the company and you'll always be able to write your own ticket in that sense. Because if you go somewhere and you're like, you're now a full cycle rep and you have to, you have still to go find your own business and you can't prospect, it doesn't matter how good of a closer you are if you don't have deals to work. So it's always the full life cycle of the deal.

29:30 Scott Ingram: Well said. And, you know, I've been forgetting to call this out and we need to draw more attention to it that the early part of that statement is certainly a clip that we will create. And, you know, a lot of these episodes tend to be pretty lengthy. So we've worked to pull out some of the nuggets and the most wise statements that get from folks like Sam. So if you go to top1.fm/youtube, you will find at this point probably over 400 of those, and they're sorted into playlists. So if you wanted to listen to just Sam's clips and his wisdom, you'll find those on there as well as all of the previous guests, or most of the previous guests. So great way to kind of tap into some of this content and find that inspiration in smaller doses or ways to review the show. So Sam, you've had a great experience and a really strong track record in the SDR role. What advice would you give to somebody that's just starting out in sales today and probably specifically in an SDR role? What would you suggest that they do to make the most of this position and produce the best results?

30:34 Sam Silverman: Find someone who's willing to be a really good mentor. I got extremely lucky at KiteDesk with our CEO was. It was a really small company, about 30-ish people, and our CEO was our VP of sales. And he was probably the most influential person I've had in my life so far in terms of business. So he was very hands-on with us, and I bothered that guy so much because he was someone who had so much to offer in terms of learning how to, number one, how to be a good person, and number two, how to act in the business world to be really successful. So he was someone I Definitely bothered way more than I should, but I've got a lot out of doing that.

31:12 Scott Ingram: Nice. And say his name. That's good recognition.

31:15 Sam Silverman: Sean Burke. Yeah, he was our former CEO of KiteDesk.

31:18 Scott Ingram: Fantastic. And what about from a mentoring perspective? What would you want to know about top SDRs in other organizations and what they're doing that might help you?

31:30 Sam Silverman: I think kind of like what you're doing here is interviewing someone for a longer period of time and then pulling out those, those few things that really help them. I feel like a lot of people are doing similar things, but I feel like there's definitely those couple key differentiators on a day-to-day basis or certain things people do to give them that little lift. It's not all about the big lifts, it's all about the little incremental lifts now. The big lift is fairly hard to get, but the little incremental lifts, you can definitely keep building on those.

31:57 Scott Ingram: Nice. And where have you seen from sort of the incremental lifts, where have you seen the biggest impact? Are there specific areas or specific things where, again, you're doing small things, but they add up and make a big difference?

32:09 Sam Silverman: Yeah, job postings really made a difference for me when I started actively looking at job postings because it just gives you how the company wants to be viewed because it's them putting out content to the universe saying, hey, this is why people want to work for us. These things lead to people committing to working for us and deciding to apply for our jobs. So that's how they want to be viewed. So if you can speak in their… and then speak in their language, that really, really helps. And you know what they want, you know how they want to be perceived. So then you can then tie in how you can benefit them to those views and perceptions.

32:40 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Well, you have given us a ton of really actionable stuff already, um, but we always try and create a challenge at the end of each of these episodes to sort of wrap it all together. So what would you challenge the person listening to this to do over the course of the next 2 weeks before the next episode comes out that is going to help them improve their prospecting results?

33:03 Sam Silverman: Definitely taking a step back and embracing the trial and error. Like, it's… you're dealing with human nature, so you can keep doing the same thing over and over again and keep getting different results, which is why a lot of people don't like sales. Um, but yeah, I think really take a step back and take some time to dig into your personal process because there's always room for inefficiencies. I'm sure I have a ton in mind that people internally always work with me on, just be like, hey, this, this little thing can make a big jump for you, just because if you're doing it every day yourself having someone else look at what you're doing can really give you some other perspective. And it might be totally different. You might agree with it, you might hate it, but it's just other perspective can always be a good thing depending on how you view it.

33:42 Scott Ingram: Excellent. Great suggestion. For those of you listening, if you want to jump over to top1.fm, that's the number. Although if you type it out, that'll work too. Top1.fm. We will have the screenshots that Sam provided so you can have a little bit more context. Around the sequences that he talked through earlier in the episode. While you're there, be sure to subscribe to the newsletter. That's where we share all the juicy hidden stuff. We reserve that stuff for those of you who are the most engaged and the most connected, and that's the best way to start in doing that. And we will talk to you on the next episode. Sam, thanks for joining me today.

34:17 Sam Silverman: Scott, great talking to you.

34:19 Scott Ingram: 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.