99: Beast Mode – How Sendoso's Top Enterprise SDR, David Dember, Channeled Focus & Intention to Exceed Expectations

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, my guest is David Dember. David was the top sales development rep at Sendoso until just very recently when he was promoted to team lead of enterprise sales development. Welcome to the show, David, and congratulations.

0:39 David Dember: Hey, what's going on, Scott? Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you.

0:43 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. And if you're new to this show, it's worth noting that I only interview top-performing individual contributors like David who are responsible for their own quota. The rule is they have to be the number one top performer, but in some cases, for those who work in very large sales organizations, I'm willing to settle for the top 1%. So with that important little disclaimer out of the way, David, why don't we start like we always do with some immediate value? And what are the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your consistent success as an SDR?

1:19 David Dember: Absolutely. That's a, that's a great question. So Scott, I'd say that the first thing is really paying close attention to detail.

1:26 Scott Ingram: And give me an example of that. What do you mean by paying close attention to detail?

1:31 David Dember: Yes. When talking about hyper-personalized emails, really trying to find some fun, fun facts about the reps, either if it's going to be their birthday, how many days left until their birthday. If you go on LinkedIn, sometimes you can find that out. So if you can back count, so today with it being in July, Try to figure out how many days till September 27th. It could be easy as a quick Google. And then from there you could end up tailoring a fun little message around that.

1:59 Scott Ingram: Beautiful. Beautiful. So what's the second thing? So the first one is that paying close attention to detail. What's number 2?

2:04 David Dember: Number 2, I would say would be daily affirmations. For me, every morning I look in the mirror and talk to myself and, and say positive affirmations like, you know, hey David, today I'm gonna get 3 demos. I'm gonna make sure that I am kind, compassionate, and very detailed when speaking to my prospects today. So, I really get a framework and a mindset that is going to allow me to have a successful day.

2:30 Scott Ingram: Beautiful. And I know you sent me some information about your bagels, which are an important part of your affirmations and kind of the morning routine. So, we'll come back to that. That was pretty fascinating. I hadn't seen that before. But what's number 3?

2:42 David Dember: No, it's really setting up those strong cadences and sequences to make sure that I'm touching the prospect enough. I think a lot of reps feel that, hey, if they send 1 email or 2 emails, that they're going to get some response rates from that. And that's simply not the case. I mean, on average, I've had to touch 7 or 8 folks before even getting a response. So I really focus on the creative outreach and then also the positive affirmation followed up by strong follow-up. I think that those are the 3 keys to success there, Scott.

3:14 Scott Ingram: Well, why don't we start with the cadences and the sequences? I mean, what is your typical approach? I mean, how, how do you think about it? What are the numbers you think about? What is the typical structure of, of that cadence that you're building?

3:27 David Dember: Sure, sure. That's, that's great. So the things that I think about are dials to connects, right? So if it takes 13.75 dials to get a connect when calling a list, that's simply those numbers that I want to be thinking about and then dial to conversion. 22.5 dials to meaningful conversations. I mean, that's simply the industry average. And then 3, the conversation to appointment. Is it going to take 3 meaningful conversations to get that 1 appointment or demo? I mean, those are, those are the 3 things that I'm thinking about. To sum it all up, it can roughly take 60 to 90 dials to get that appointment with the prospect, which is not the most efficient with a quota-carrying rep. So we have to think about things such as LinkedIn and social media to be able to, to hit that number that your manager is looking for.

4:19 Scott Ingram: So what are you doing differently then, right? If it's not efficient to just be banging out dials and trying to get all the way to the number and backing into it, what are you doing to make the odds work in your favor? And obviously what you're doing is working because you're performing really well.

4:34 David Dember: Well, thank you for that. Very kind of you. So for me, it's always going to be about personalized outreach. And I really, I continue to keep hitting on that because the first step that I take is going on LinkedIn, pulling up LinkedIn every single day, Facebook, Instagram. I'm pulling up those 3 things and really finding out if one of the prospects that I'm following is on one of those platforms. Obviously they're more than likely going to be on LinkedIn, but do they have a Facebook? What do they stand for? Are they a family person? Do they like the Seattle Mariners? Are they big into music? Do they like coffee? Dissecting those things are so important, which will allow me to tailor my messaging around to who they are as a person and possibly even make them laugh. I mean, those are so crucial to outreach.

5:25 Scott Ingram: That's really interesting. So you focus more on Would you say personalizing to the human versus to the role or the business challenge or things of that nature?

5:36 David Dember: Exactly. And I think that's where people get confused, is they try to spill the Skittles of, hey, look at this, this is what we do, look at our, our shiny tool, this is better than anybody else. I mean, anytime that someone's prospected you there, Scott, I mean, don't they tell you how great their tool is?

5:55 Scott Ingram: All the time.

5:55 David Dember: Exactly my point. And so how would you like to be approached? It's one of those things where it's like, would you rather have someone have a casual conversation with you, build that relationship, and then slowly for you to say, hey, you know what, David, what do you guys do at Sendoso? I keep on seeing posts where it's that more soft approach where I get your curiosity rather than pushing you hard. And there's a fine line of doing a one-two punch of being able to use your emotional intelligence and get to know somebody as a person. And then also sprinkling in, I like to call the actual secret sauce of what our platform does and how we can help you solve some problems.

6:36 Scott Ingram: So how long do you find that that takes? Because I think one of the challenges with that approach is just having enough patience and having enough of those conversations sort of going on. I think most people, I mean, certainly what I see In my own experience is, I mean, these days I can't tell you how many connection requests I ignore because I can see, I can just tell, like, as soon as I accept this, I'm gonna get a pitch. And so I've gotten to the point where, yeah, this, the way that you've quote unquote personalized this connection request that's talking about you and your company, I know what follows that. So if you're doing that more human let's connect person-to-person type of outreach, how long does it typically take you before you're able to transition into that business conversation? And how do you do that without sort of violating the relationship that you're really trying to build?

7:31 David Dember: Absolutely. It's very… it's a very seasoned approach. It's definitely not for some beginners, I should say the least, folks that are just transitioning into sales. But I'll say this, it's more going to be Starting the relationship. So if I want to connect with you, I might just have something short in the subject line that says, hey Scott, hopefully you and your family are staying safe in Austin, Texas. Look forward to connecting in the future. Write something very short, genuine. And at that point, if I don't see that you connect with me, I'm like, okay, you know what? Either he ignored it or 2, he hasn't gotten to it yet. So I roughly take a 7-day period where I'll kind of just let that season and let that be. If I don't hear from you, I'll then follow up, probably leave a voicemail, something that's a short concise, to the point. From there, I'll let that go for about 48 hours. Then I will end up sending an InMail. And some companies don't allow their reps to have something, a tech stack such as Sales Navigator, but if you have InMail credits, being able to send a nice InMail message stating that you've tried to connect with yourself on LinkedIn, that you've tried to make a phone call, that you're sending out, that you sent out a personalized message. So like you need to follow like a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 steps. But overall, it's trying to get the prospect to laugh. If I notice that you have a really funny sense of humor, I'm looking for those things on LinkedIn. I'm seeing what you laughed at specifically. It's almost like the saying, 2 friends at a bar. Somebody goes to a bar and they see 5 friends there that are laughing, and I'm sitting on the other side of the bar. I want to understand what joke did they just make? How can I engage with them? Because I can promise you. Some of the folks at the other end of the bar are VPs of marketing, VPs of sales. Those are some of the guys that are getting together, making some deals happen, and I want to figure out what makes them laugh so I can get them, get on their level where they say, you know what, David, that made me laugh, man. I'll give you 15, 20 minutes. I'm not quite sure what you guys do, but I want to learn more.

9:32 Scott Ingram: Nice. Well, let's contextualize this just a little bit. Talk about what your role, I guess what your role was and what the new role is.

9:40 David Dember: Yeah. So I was one of the senior sales development representatives. I was quota carrying. So to kind of break things down, when I first started back in March 2019, as I kind of ramped up, I was about 134% attainment, kind of rolled into Q3, 172%, which then I ended up receiving my first promotion. Rolling into October '19, all the way through that quarter for Q4 is 145%. To the next Q1, 156. So I just continued to keep on progressing, making sure that not only folks ended up showing up to meetings, but I took very qualified notes to make sure that this could actually make it to push it sales velocity-wise, like push it up into the funnel, of course.

10:27 Scott Ingram: Now, are you measured on the meetings or the value of the pipeline that you're generating?

10:32 David Dember: A little mix of both. And it just really, it depends on what level you're at within the company. But yeah, it's a mixture of both.

10:38 Scott Ingram: Gotcha. Now, let's also contextualize just this in terms of Sendoso. I mean, who is Sendoso for those who aren't familiar or haven't experienced your solution?

10:48 David Dember: Absolutely. So we really help sales teams win, retain, and grow customer accounts with our automated sending platform. So we can send anything from direct mail, customized gifts, Handwritten notes, e-gifts, champagne, wine, you name it, we can send it with a click of the button.

11:07 Scott Ingram: Perfect. And then what's your origin story? How did you get into sales in the first place?

11:12 David Dember: Sales? Wow, that's an interesting question. So for me, I've always been the kid that was selling Twinkies out of my locker growing up. I was the person that looked for… I looked to solve problems, and I noticed that kids at school were getting out of class late and they ran to the snack bar and they just couldn't get their favorite snacks. And so one day right across the street, we had a Hostess wholesale shop. And I said, you know what? I wonder if I buy these in bulk, I think I can sell these out of my locker and make a little extra cash. Because my dad took me to the wholesale shop, the Hostess wholesale shop. And I always saw that there was specials, 7 for a dollar, something like that. So I said, you know what? I'm going to buy some of these and I'm going to stick them in my backpack and see what happens. So from that point, I just had a passion, passion for sales. I started actually moving some of the Twinkies out of my locker, started making a little bit of money. People started knowing me as, hey, you know what? You have the, you got the money. He's got the goods. It started becoming a known thing in middle school. And I really just piggyback off that. I love the transaction. I love people. I love trying to convince somebody and say, hey, you know what? I know that the locker. The snack bar just ended up closing, but I have some Twinkies. And then creating the, the creating the demand aspect of people trying to negotiate, saying, hey, I'll sell this to you for $3. And someone said, hey, well, you sold it to Johnny for $1.50. They said, yeah, well, that was right before it ended up closing. Like right now, our period, our class is about to start. So this is going to be premium price. And being able to kind of do that negotiation was really fun for me growing up as a kid.

12:52 Scott Ingram: So you had surge pricing on Twinkies?

12:54 David Dember: Yeah, that's a true story. I promise you, you can call my mom or dad right now and that's, yes, I did. That's yes. Yes, sir.

13:01 Scott Ingram: That's hilarious. So how did that turn into a transition into your first true professional sales role? What, what was that and what led you there?

13:09 David Dember: That's a great question. And for me, taking one step back is I started, I started making a little bit of money doing some odd jobs at the house, which later I always wanted to go on Google and find out, hey, how can I make money like this with Twinkies, but at scale? And I'm like, okay, David, what am I passionate about? And it was ultimately tickets at sporting events. So our family was season ticket holders back in 2001, and that was the year the Seattle Mariners won 116 games. I don't know if you recall that season by chance, do you there, Scott?

13:42 Scott Ingram: I can't say that I do. I'm not a very close follower of baseball.

13:45 David Dember: No, no, no problem at all. But yeah, the Seattle Mariners in 2001 won 116 games. And our family had season tickets. We were living in Bellingham, Washington, which is 90 miles north of Seattle. So we had to simply make that drive and we couldn't really commit to that on the weekdays. And my mom wasn't really a big fan of us going. So she wanted us to try to ultimately sell the games. And I said, hey, Mom, let me try to… let me take a swing at this. I think I can do it. So as the Seattle Mariners continued to keep winning, I continued to keep selling. I still remember our average ticket. Or the price of the tickets, I should say, the lease were $38. On average, I was selling them for $250, which, I mean, doing the math, it's simply a $212 profit per ticket. You had 4 seats. I did that for roughly 60 games. So I ended up getting a little bit of… making a little bit of money there, which then I found a mentor on eBay and he really showed me the ropes of really selling tickets. And that's really where I got my passion from was just overall that hustle. And my family are a bunch of executives that always pushed me. So like, that's really where it all comes from there, Scott.

14:57 Scott Ingram: So you caught the bug, you went from Twinkies to ticket sales and just found that like sales was the thing. So, so did you know at that point, this is what I want to do for a living?

15:06 David Dember: Yeah, I knew it was. And to this day, I mean, if we talk about stocks, if we talk about trying to find and buy electronics, iPhones, Can I buy the newest iPhone in bulk and do some quick flips? I mean, anything that I can do where there's a money opportunity, or if there's somewhere that I can make a few extra bucks, I'm dibbling into it even today. So yes, to answer your question, I just knew that this is the life that I wanted and really trying to help others along the way is something that I'm also passionate about.

15:34 Scott Ingram: Nice. So if you were starting over today, knowing what you know now, I mean, is there anything that you would have done differently from a career perspective?

15:43 David Dember: To answer that question truthfully, I wouldn't, I wouldn't change anything. I wish I learned a little bit more. I wish I would have reached out to other executive leaders and asked more questions. I had to do a lot of soul searching and try to figure this out on my own because I can be stubborn at times. So I think it's, if I could have let my ego down a little bit and asked for that help, that's something I probably would have done differently.

16:08 Scott Ingram: Ask for help in what way? I mean, what are the questions that you would have wanted to ask? What would you have wanted to know? And what types of folks would you have reached out to?

16:16 David Dember: I probably would have reached out to some, some of the executive leaders being like, it looks like you're finding success. What does that look like? How are you doing this? Is it more so going to be on the phone? What does your script sound like? And not to just get the answer like, hey, send me the script, but it's more like, hey, my script looks like this. Like, can you, can we kind of identify like where, what's going wrong in my script or in my emails? I'm writing it this way. Like, what would you do differently? Like those types of questions would have really helped me out early on.

16:49 Scott Ingram: So I'm almost more like the mentoring relationships, like reaching out, giving them a starting point and saying, hey, here's the approach that I'm taking today. How can I improve this approach rather than give me your playbook?

16:59 David Dember: Exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying there.

17:02 Scott Ingram: Nice. Well, I call the show Sales Success Stories, and I feel like it's important that we include some stories about sales successes. So what's your favorite sales story?

17:14 David Dember: Yeah, my favorite sales story. I have a lot of them, but the one that really sticks out the most was when I was at Parchment. Does that ring a bell? Parchment Inc.?

17:24 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it sounds like paper, but no.

17:27 David Dember: Nope, that's exactly it. So the CEO, Dr. Matthew Potinsky, who is one of the founders of Blackboard, and co-founder Jeff Harris, they really challenged me to get in a school district that I didn't think was possible. They actually tried to get me to say, hey David, let's, let's try to get to the New York City School District. It was a district that had many hoops to jump through and even get to the district to respond was going to be a difficult task. So I leveraged my contacts and really started sending out branded cookies to different prospects. And there's a, there's a fine line. Being in the school district, there's a fine line you have to be very careful of, of sending gifts to presidents, chancellors, guidance counselors, so on and so forth. But I sent personalized thank you cards, which actually received really good responses via email and phone. So to kind of piggyback off that story, I was able to finally break into the New York City school district. And for me, that was something I remember calling the co-founder, Jeff Harris, and he ended up saying, David, you got to be kidding me, man. I was simply kidding when saying we were going to get in the New York City School District. I thought you knew that was a joke. And I said, no. He said, yeah, I mean, eventually we want to get there, but are you telling me you were able to get a vendor number? And I said, yeah, I was able to get through that process. And he's like, you know what, hold on. Like, let me… I remember he ended up giving Dr. Matthew Potinsky a call, and they were blown away that I was able to get in the New York City School District in such a timely manner. That's awesome. That's a great story.

18:57 Scott Ingram: And It seems like you were, you were pretty much destined for Sendoso given that you were sending gifts at that earlier role in your career.

19:06 David Dember: Yeah, no, absolutely. I was Sendoso-ing before I think even Sendoso existed. When it comes to personalization, I was always trying to find the ways of like, hey, you know what? If I'm talking to Betty Sue, the guidance counselor, does she have a daughter? Did her daughter Beth just have swim lessons? Did she do okay in her swim lessons? Did she just have an anniversary? Should I send her a quick note and say congratulations? I know that 5 years, hopefully you and your husband had a great dinner. Did you guys have steak or pasta? Question mark, like keeping it short and concise. And the engagement rates that I would find from just like actually caring as a human being really found quick, quick wins for me on that side of the house.

19:49 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. What about from just an accomplishment perspective? I mean, there's, there's been… you've obviously been very, very consistent in your overachievement, but what are you most proud of?

19:59 David Dember: In all honesty, I'm proud of a lot of things. I've had to overcome a lot of obstacles in my life, but the most thing I'm proud of is that I've stayed true, true to my brand, what I believe in, and simply that I never took no for an answer. I never let people say, hey, David, I don't know if that's a good idea. I stayed true to myself, to what I believe, and I simply just executed.

20:23 Scott Ingram: Nice. Now, what about the flip side? What's the biggest challenge you've faced? Or maybe you want to place us at a time when you were really struggling.

20:31 David Dember: That's a tough question. And the best way for me to answer it is back in 2005, when I was 18 years old, I lost my brother in a tragic accident and he dove in a swimming pool, broke his neck and drowned. And that was That was a very tragic moment in my life. And, you know, I went through some very dark days and had to work through some serious PTSD. So my point being here is after going through some of the worst, the worst possible thing, losing your best friend in this lifetime, I knew I could handle anything else that came my way. As long as I didn't have to look at someone to say my goodbyes, looking inside the casket. I mean, that, that changes your perspective as a human being and burying someone underneath the ground that should not be being buried. And I live on for my brother, for our family, my last name, Dember. I wake up every single morning and want to keep that legacy going and want to make my brother proud. So I'd say that would probably be the most challenging thing for me.

21:33 Scott Ingram: Wow. I'm sorry to hear that. That is beyond what certainly what I expected. What did you do to get through that, right? Because you've obviously turned that into something very positive, but I can't imagine that was easy to get through.

21:48 David Dember: Yeah, no, that was very difficult for me to get through. And once again, I had to overcome a lot of barriers by getting professional help, speaking with counselors a few times a week to go through that pain. But you know what, I woke up one day and said, you know what, David, I'm not going to be a victim. I'm not going to be a victim. I need to keep pushing. Like, I'm not going to be the other side of that story where poor David, it's okay. He lost his brother. Give him a break. I didn't want that. I wanted people to look at me and say, you know what? No, I'm going to use this to my fire. I want to make a difference. I want to be able to speak as either a motivational speaker or try to inspire others. So I woke up early one day and said, I'm going to make this change. And I did. And simply for that, I really got obsessed. Obsessed with my work. And what I mean by that is learning about the sales craft. And for me, I think sales really reminds me a lot about baseball. It's all about statistics. You fail 7 out of 10 times in baseball, you go to the Hall of Fame. And when I think about baseball, I think about my brother. So I think it all kind of ties into that. And one of my favorite quotes that I really stand by, you know, it's by Will Smith. About the separation of talent and skill is one of the greatest misunderstood concepts for people who are trying to excel, who have dreams, who want things. Talent you naturally have, skill is only developed by hours and hours of beating your craft. And that's really what he says verbatim. And it's so true. There is no substitute for hard work. Some people internally see me on the shout-out channel or hear David Dember this is closing this and I stay humble. Yes, it does make my heart happy and it's nice to hear, but I always act as if I'm in last place because I never want to get cocky or say, hey, look at me. I just want to get better every single day. And that's a win there, Scott.

23:46 Scott Ingram: Nice. So let's talk about 2 things based on that. I want to talk about mindset and then I want to talk about statistics. So it's certainly not uncommon, I think a core component to success is having a really strong mindset. What, what is your mindset? How do you manage that in general?

24:04 David Dember: My mindset, it's simply… for people that don't understand what this is, or they might have heard it in a saying, but I live by a mindset called beast mode. And people might laugh, oh, beast mode, like, okay, like that guy from the Seattle Seahawks who went to the Oakland Raiders, beast mode. I'm like, No, like this inner beast inside of you has to wake up and really say, you know what, today I'm going to get after it. Like today, I'm going to leave it all on the field. I'm not going to let this person push me off the phone today. I'm going to stay in the pocket 5 seconds earlier. I am going to read 3 more books this month. Those are the things that I really focus on of outlining my day-to-day. To find the success that I'm looking for.

24:53 Scott Ingram: And is that, I mean, is beast mode for you, is that all the time? Are there times when you're really trying to turn it on throughout the day? How does that actually manifest for you?

25:03 David Dember: Yeah. So for beast mode, that is something that I need to continue to keep firing in my belly. That's one thing that you'll learn from our VP of sales. His name's Joe. I don't know. I think Joe mentioned that you, you and him have connected a few times.

25:18 Scott Ingram: We may have traded a couple of emails.

25:19 David Dember: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Joe doesn't have to really get on my case. He knows that I am going to get the job done. He doesn't have to have those difficult conversations with me because he knows that I'm like my own boss. I'm my own manager. I turn a switch on that says beast mode activated, turned on, meaning, okay, this is what I'm doing. I'm not taking no for an answer. I am making sure that I finish my day strong by setting 3 strong demos. I am saying that I'm getting them. I'm not saying I hope, I say I am. And when you change those phrases just a little bit in your mind or even say them out loud, you'll be surprised how you can really get the job done and actually hit those metrics.

26:02 Scott Ingram: Nice. What do you do to turn it on? What do you do to fuel the fire?

26:07 David Dember: I recycle my pain. I think for me, it's recycling the pain of people telling me I couldn't do something, or applying… remembering the time I applied for a job and didn't get it, or thinking about my brother, or thinking about kids making fun of me in school. Those are the things that allow me to say, you know what, I feel pain. I need to use that. I need to use that to fuel my fire. And you look at some of the greatest rappers, you look at some of the greatest artists, you'll find that they use a very similar tactic. I mean, I could specifically say Eminem, he's gone through hell and back, but the reason he keeps pushing out albums is he's able to use his pain, recycle his pain, and leverage that in his music, right? So like, it's the same type of a thing. I consider myself like an artist, and if I need to keep using that to be able to push out new music, meaning setting up new appointments or setting up new demos or trying to lead, lead a training class or an onboarding class. That for me is how I continue to keep beast mode on, is remembering the tough times, remembering where I came from, and also remembering where I am today.

27:25 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it's interesting. You, so you describe yourself as an artist. You use the word craft a couple times earlier, which is a kind of a recurring theme on the show. How are you honing the craft? What are you doing to improve your art?

27:40 David Dember: For me, it's waking up, it's having the same rituals every single day. So I wake up every single morning at 3:30, I bang out the weights, I do 4 sets of 25 of my 55-pound weights. I then end up doing 3 sets of 25 of push-ups, then I end up doing 3 sets of 50 of abs. After that, I jump in the shower, then I come to my desk, have a little bit of breakfast, and I listen to Dr. Eric Thomas. Dr. Eric Thomas has been someone that I've really leaned on in my life as I have had very similar experiences as him, and I really can relate to what he is saying, you know, followed by my bagels routine. I simply write out those different features within Bagels, and then I know it's go time.

28:28 Scott Ingram: So like we always do, we will have a great set of show notes if you go to top1.fm, and you can go to top1.fm/this episode number, which I'm pretty sure will be 99, or top1.fm/david-dember. And we'll have links to really all the, all the things that you've mentioned, the tools, the podcasts, anything else that, that comes up. Talk about the BAGELS thing. You did send me a video earlier before this conversation, so I'll certainly include that. But what is the BAGEL process for you?

28:59 David Dember: BAGELS process for me, so kind of spelling BAGELS out, it's behaviors, affirmations, goals, evaluation, lessons, and successes. Now each one of those means, to break it down in bullet points, bullet points here is what behaviors are you going to do today? Are you going to make 100 calls? Are you going to push to set 3 demos? Are you going to leave 25 voicemails? How many InMails are you going to leave? What behaviors are you going to be able to do today? Which it's all about control, what you can control. Those are the things that really focusing on of writing it out every single morning, like a journal. Right. And as we move down the list of affirmations, it's what I kind of leaned on and talked about a little bit this morning is those affirmations. You know what? I'm really good at leaving voicemails, or I'm really good at sending LinkedIn messages. Or, you know what? Overall, I motivate people. Saying things like talking about yourself. I think folks get that confused at being like, oh, they're arrogant or cocky. I'm not saying go out and tell people all your affirmations. This is a very private thing that you can keep to yourself. For that kind of reaching into your goals, what are your goals for the day? Is your goals to simply get one person to respond to one of your personalized emails? Is it leaving 5 voicemails and getting one response? It's all tailored to the individual, kind of swinging down to evaluation, evaluating yourself. How did you get better from the other day? The day before, like I put a zero on the board. I did all the right things. All my behaviors were right. I just need to continue to keep pushing. And I feel like this is going to allow me to pop today. So it's really evaluating yourself, looking at your actions from the day before and determining the achievements and failures that you've encountered and lessons learned. This is a chance to examine like your process, really determine what it means for you moving forward. So different lessons such as. Hey, when I was on the phone with this prospect, they said that they weren't interested and I just said, okay, thank you. Instead of staying in the pocket, showing and creating more value for them to understand what's in it for them. What's their… why would they end up spending 20, 30 minutes with you? Learning those lessons of, all right, I probably should have said this to get this result. Taking those lessons and journaling those lessons will allow you to prepare for your next day, and then really your successes, point those successes out, gauge the level of accomplishments to this point and determine if you can set your sights on even a higher goal going forward. It just really depends about your day, what those successes mean to you. There's no right or wrong answers when doing the full BAGELS, but it's found… I have found great success in doing it. And I continue to implement this day in and day out.

31:58 Scott Ingram: Nice. We're going to come back to a bunch more routine stuff. I want to jump back to a couple of things. The first was you mentioned voicemail a number of times, and I'm wondering if that was an accident or if you actually find that you have a lot of success leaving voicemails.

32:12 David Dember: Actually, believe it or not, a lot of folks don't think voicemails work. It's all dependent on how you use them. Conversion rate-wise, it's not the highest, but, you know, if you use email, with voicemail, with InMail. If you use the formula correctly, I think you'll be able to find a higher success rate. So what I mean by that is if I send a personalized email, right, right after that I'll leave a voicemail letting them know that I sent an email. And dependent on what their LinkedIn profile says, if If I can tell that they're a little quirky or if I've followed them on LinkedIn and I see that their engagement on different people's, like they're posting different things and they have a sense of humor, I might leave a little humor in the voicemail. So followed by InMail, let's say I'll send something where I have not got a response yet. I might even send just a small little InMail of a GIF of somebody just striking out, like no context behind it, just simply them striking out. And you'd be surprised, I actually get some pretty good response rates for like, you know what, David, that's, that's really funny. I'm in sales development myself, so I can really respect the way you're going about targeting and prospecting. So you know what, I'll take 15 minutes out of my day to connect with you.

33:38 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. So I also wanted to come back to… I said we were going to talk about mindset and then statistics. So given your love for baseball and the statistics, what statistics are you tracking for yourself? If you had a baseball card and I turned it over, what would it say on, on the back? What are the columns?

33:56 David Dember: The columns on the back is going to be… I mean, if there's something that says consistency, I want people to know that every single month, I don't care what it's going to take, I'm going not only to hit quota, but I'm going to smash my number out of the ballpark. Park. That's not an exception. 100% quota to me is good as 50% quota. I'm not satisfied with 100% quota. That, that's a loss in my mind.

34:20 Scott Ingram: So that's kind of the end result number. What about the inputs to that? So are, are there, are there conversion rates that you're tracking? Are there behaviors that you're tracking? What are you thinking about on a daily, weekly, monthly type of basis?

34:33 David Dember: Got you. Okay, so overall, I send out emails. I send out… I look at my top 15 15 accounts, and I'll call them the account-based marketing accounts, those top sender accounts that we've associated an ICP score. So I look at the ICP score and really see if they're going to be a good fit. So of the 15 accounts that I'm looking at day in and day out, I really try to do these things. So let's say I have a Tier 1A account. I'm not only following them on LinkedIn, I'm posting on their page where I'm liking a lot of their posts, but also engaging with them, learning, learning more about their company, learning about their webinars, trying to find ways to engage with the company so that I can break into the account. Those are the things I'm looking at. Of the 15 accounts that I've been targeting, let's say this specific week, this specific month, how many of those have turned into demos? Of the demos, right? How many have actually… how did I get that person to set? Was it email? Was it social? Was it, was it a voicemail? Was it a callback? So like, I specifically look at those types of metrics and look at those as, hey, this is how I was successful this month was by social, by my LinkedIn outreach. So I don't scorecard check it where I'm like, okay, it was 26.4%. Or go that far in the weeds because like I call that looking at the scoreboard and in baseball, it's when people are like scoreboard, hey, they're winning 9 to 1. That to me, if I focus on those numbers, those analytics, which, which is fine. Like there's people, business analysts, there's people that really dig into those reports, but that's taking me away from my prospecting and taking me away from really what I'm focused at hand of really building the relationship. Creating some value and essentially setting the time to pass it on over to the account executive, right? Where I'm qualifying, where I'm qualifying the prospect and getting the right notes in there for our account executives to achieve a great demo when they, when they connect.

36:43 Scott Ingram: Gotcha. So it's less about tracking kind of the individual stats. It sounds like you're looking more at kind of the macro trends. What generally seems to be working? What do I need to double down on? But otherwise it's just heads down and execute.

36:58 David Dember: That's exactly beast mode right there. You just described what beast mode was in a saying, keeping your head down, putting your blinders on, muting your Slack channel from time to time, blocking out your calendar of the specific thing that you're going to be focusing on. That is exactly what beast mode is.

37:15 Scott Ingram: Nice. So let's go back and walk through. I want more sort of blow-by-blow walking through a typical day for you. So you already started us off. So you're, you're getting up at 3:30, which is making my 4:40 AM wake up this morning look like I was lazy and slept in. You're doing your workout. I matched you there. You're eating your bagels or doing your bagel process. Walk us through kind of the rest of your day. How are you structuring that? Just, I like a pretty detailed blow-by-blow, and maybe you'll take us all the way to the point where your head hits the pillow.

37:47 David Dember: Yeah. So I really try to send myself and get myself really organized via calendar. So for us here at Sendoso, we use Outlook and I throw everything on there from follow-ups to folks that I have to follow up with to personalized sends for 2 prospects that I'm going to be sending to on my ABM accounts. Being able to structure, structure my day and putting everything on that calendar allows, allows me to get, find my success. So I'm not sure if that quite answers the question there, but for me, it's all about being able to stay as organized as possible to maximize my day.

38:24 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I mean, are you sort of time blocking in that approach? I mean, is there dedicated… this is times that I'm doing outbound calls or this is times that I'm working on InMails? I mean, what, what is… what drives what goes on your calendar?

38:37 David Dember: Sure, sure. So like, for example, on Mondays from 8 to 10, I do top sender model prospecting. So there's a certain segment that I'll prospect into. With, once again, I mentioned ICP scores. So I really follow those scores very closely to see if the potential company would be a great fit to go after. So in between that time, I'll do that. And then I'll block out other parts of my day saying, I'm going to do a power hour where I'm going to make calls for a strong hour and see if I can get some traction there. And being able to, I do dissect those numbers during my power hour this week I was able to get 2, 3 demos, really trying to like stay focused and be able to quantify those results and send them to my manager and be able to say, hey, this month during this power hour, I was able to accomplish X, Y, and Z. So to put things in an overall perspective, it's, yeah, it's putting everything on the calendar from sending out InMails to sending out LinkedIn to coming out with new creative plays where I'll work with my AE. And I will do a very creative email, CC him, CC my account executive, and then from there, my account executive will then piggyback and write a message to follow to see if we can get some more traction that way. And we found some results by doing plays together as a teamwork, as AEs and SDRs.

40:04 Scott Ingram: Nice. Love that. What about the back end of your day? What, what time are you typically winding things down? From a sales perspective and what does, what does it look like in the evening for you?

40:15 David Dember: In the evening, I mean, I'll be honest, my mind doesn't quite shut off. I'm always by my computer. Luckily, I have a beautiful and understanding wife that I've known since I was 16 years old. So she, she, she knows me, knows the ins and outs of who I am. So she's very patient. So, you know, with that, it's always just trying to stay on top. Of my book of business. If somebody writes me, an executive writes me at 6 PM, I write them back within the first 5 minutes that I get the note. And the reason I do it, it's 2 reasons. One, it tells the prospect that, man, if I were to do business with this guy or this company, they're very responsive. I want to do business with somebody that gets back to me ASAP. And I understand there's circumstances where some people like try to turn off, but for me, last night I had a vice president of a tier 1 company reach out to me at 10:30 PM and say that was a great time to connect that she, I suggested a few times just to show her like, wow, like this guy is the real deal. I responded to her right away just saying, hey, you know what? Hey, thank you so much for taking the time to chat. Hopefully you and your family are having a good evening. I got a follow-up response being like, wow, you're, you're still up. Right. And those are the things you look for, those small little things. She, by her response, it allows me to build that relationship by her last play by saying, wow, you're up. This is becoming less business. And so it becomes less, it'll be more formal where it's like, okay, here's my opportunity to make a joke because she said, wow, she had 3 exclamation points. All right. This might be another passionate person. Like, let me see if I can have some engagement back and forth. And Those are the signs that I look for throughout the day. So I always keep my phone on loud. I really try to get back to prospects and keep in mind that it's, uh, customer first. And that's really what our CEO really hits on as well as our VP sales. They always really say, hey, it's customer first. And we, we don't call customers customers at Sendoso. We call them family members because we really believe that they're part of the, the big family here.

42:21 Scott Ingram: Nice. Nice. So when do you sleep? If you're responding to, to an email at 10:30, you're getting up at 3:30. Is that normal?

42:26 David Dember: It's It's not, it's insanity. It's not for the faint of heart. And it's something I have not only sleep apnea, but I have insomnia. And really to get my mind to settle down, I do, when I can't sleep, I do some reading until my eyes get tired and might get a few hours of sleep and I'll do it all over again. I mean, is this the healthiest thing? I do take my downtime. I won't lie. Like, you know, Sendoso recently said, hey, Dember, you've been really working so hard, man. Take 2 weeks off. I took 2 weeks off, went to Laguna Beach, got to reset, got to relax, and it re-energized me to go back into… once again, this is like kind of like what we say on the show, but just going back into beast mode.

43:09 Scott Ingram: Nice. So you said you might do some reading in the evening. What does the rest of your information diet look like? What are you listening, reading to, and watching? And when does that typically happen?

43:19 David Dember: Yeah, so I kind of break it down in chunks, right? So the first thing that I really kind of try to make first, this is probably the most important thing that I do is I set some time aside for my son and I, and obviously my daughter, but more so my son. We watch a lot of Shark Tank together. It's one of his favorite shows. I love watching it with him and it's great father-son bonding. And he lives, breathes, and sleeps my passion. He hears it day in and day out and kind of seeing him take an interest in a show like Shark Tank. That really makes my, my heart warm and fuzzy as a father. And so that's one piece that I really like to keep my mind educated of learning the business and the creativity of the entrepreneurship. But on the podcast side, I say a couple shows here, like The Ziglar Show hosted by Kevin Miller. That's a professional development for working for something bigger than themselves. Like what's their why? The entrepreneurial thinking also, as well as Sell or Die. And that's bestselling author Jeffrey Gitomer and then expert Jennifer Lucklow. I don't want to botch your name, but really discussing the science of selling with top leaders and sales, business, marketing, and then also then professional development. So those are like the things that I really, I read upon. I mean, obviously I dig into the book, The Challenger Sale, as well as Sandler Training, which I mean, obviously a little bit, as we discussed, I should say the least about bagels that really comes from Sandler. So those are the things I'm always trying to find new things. I mean, obviously The Way of the Wolf from Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort, and trying to find different, like the straight line approach, like any type of sales move or sales play there are. I always like to put that on the back of my mind so I can really educate myself and try to be the best sales individual that I can be.

45:09 Scott Ingram: Nice. How old's your son?

45:10 David Dember: My son's 8 years old. He'll be 9 on August 27th.

45:13 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. Is he selling Twinkies yet?

45:16 David Dember: Well, you know what? He's actually, he's asked me, I've told, I've told him the stories, uh, several times and he's just, Daddy, I got, I gotta find my hustle. I'm like, he's like, I wanna be like you. And I'm like, it's just those, those are the type of things that really, as a person and, and someone that's a Greek man myself, really warms my heart up more than I could even explain.

45:36 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. So what about, actually, I wanna go back to something from before, as you were talking about kind of your target accounts and the things that you're going through and, and you're focusing on 50 How often are you sort of cycling those? How, how often does that top 15 targets change?

45:52 David Dember: So I really try to focus on the top 15 for a solid month or 2, and if I'm not getting traction, I will then cycle out one or 2, put some new ones in there. So it's almost like the NCAA bracket, right? Or some type of a standings. As I start getting responses, I've calculated and put together my own little spreadsheet That says, okay, I'm getting some engagement here. This is what I'm ultimately going to focus on. I'm not getting bites. I haven't set an opportunity or a meeting here, but I'm going to keep this in my top 15. So it just really depends. But I would say I like to cycle them in and out every month and a half, 2 months. But that's something that I talk with senior leadership, my AEs, and come up with strategic plans of how we're going to go about our plan of attack. So it's a lot, it's a lot of work to really understand, understand it. But like my mind moves so quickly. It's like I can process it in my mind and I already know my next plays. And sometimes it's hard to regurgitate that and really explain it, but it's finding the ways that work best for you. And I've figured out a science that works well for me. So I'm not sure if I explained that correctly.

47:02 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah, no, it makes a ton of sense. And what you said there, I think is probably one of the most important lessons that I've gleaned from the show, and gosh, getting really, really close to 100 of these interviews, is everybody has kind of found their own way, right? You've got to find and do the work and figure out what works for me, right? Hopefully there's lots of inspiration here in the show and these conversations, and you can hear what's worked for a lot of other people, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work for you. I think it's… you just have to go through the exercise and do the hard work and figure out, okay, this works for me. That approach works really great for that guy, but, but not so much for me. And continue to, continue to iterate and build. And it sounds like you've seen a lot of that as you've continued to develop and progress in your career.

47:47 David Dember: Yeah, no, absolutely. And you hit on a really good point there is there's a lot of folks that just want to either just see, get the, get the answer, right? Hey, I'm not saying this specifically at our company at Sendoso. I'm saying it more so throughout my career where people, colleagues have said, hey, Denver, send me over this script. And yeah, just send that on over to me. And they just think that it's like some type of magic. And that's, that's not the case. I think it's really what works well for, for you as an individual, because some of my jokes or some of my sarcasms or whatever the way I present it might not work for the other person, and it's going to come off as fake and phony and really not them. And so when folks come to me and say that they just want the script, I, I won't lie, that's probably my biggest pet peeve is I really want to help others, like self-development, where they said, hey, I'm looking at this script, can we kind of compare notes, see what's working? And those, those are the things that I really like, helping others really achieve their, achieve their goals when I see that they really want it, that they're really trying to grow as individuals. So I hear you loud and clear. Throughout my career, I've seen a little bit of everything. It takes a little time to really develop certain skills, but my thing is continue to keep working hard and, and good things will happen. Like my grandfather always told me, the harder you work, the luckier you get.

49:10 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. It's funny, a lot of people come to me and they ask, like, Scott, what's the secret, man? The secret is there is no secret, right? And, and if anything, what you'll, what you'll glean from all of these conversations is there's lots of Ingredients, right? I can point you in the direction of lots of different spices and seasonings and different ideas, but it's it's really kind of ultimately up to you to develop your own recipe. I mean, I've just not seen. I wish it were that easy. I wish there were. Here's the universal recipe. Just do this. Follow these steps. Bake at this temperature, and you'll be a top one percent performer. It's just not the way it works.

49:49 David Dember: No, it's it's not at all. And I think one of the things that I might say, and I I have a lot of gratitude, and I I. Will never… I won't forget these things, but I feel so blessed at Sendoso because I come… our management has really allowed me to… they've given me the tools to succeed. They allow me to be me. And sometimes with the certain way that I build relationships, it could really be like, you know what, that might not be as professional, David, that let's just kind of stick strictly to being professional. And maybe the gifts might not be the right approach to the ROI, get to the And that's the thing, that's not what it's about. I think that's the old school approach of just like not doing like, oh, I can't send that GIF because that's not professional. Those days are gone. Like today is the new, like it's a new era. And having the support of management has been everything to me and I owe everything to our senior leaders. And so I, I'm very, want to show everyone there my gratitude. I do every single day and it all comes from my heart.

50:48 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Love it. Let's, let's talk about your kind of personal tech stack a little bit. What are the, the tools and apps that you just can't live without that are a core part of your process?

51:00 David Dember: So I, I think that's an interesting question. I think overall it's, it's one of those things that it strictly has to be about what's comfortable for the other individual. For me, I'm comfortable with a lot of different tech stacks. I mean, if it's Outreach or SalesLoft, I mean, there's so many good tools out there, but it, it has to really resonate with the other folks. Different CRMs… other people could go on the Microsoft side, some to go on Salesforce. Like, it's not necessarily about the tools that I'm comfortable with. It's more so about how you can get really good at the tech stack that your company has, the tools that your company is giving you, from engagement tools to try to have a really good CRM, to try to find new technologies or new tech stacks that are going to be able to create some more efficiencies in your day. So like, I can't say like I have like a specific tech stack that I have to live with because I'm so personalized. I'm very slow when I do my prospecting because it's like very targeted and very strategic. But overall, the best advice I can give to sales professionals is to learn the ins and outs of their tech stack so they can be able to cover more ground throughout their day by marketing automation, by sending personalized emails. By putting them in the right sequence or cadence or whatever the wording is behind their marketing automation that'll allow them to do day 1 email, day 3 call, day 5 personalized email, day 7. So following those steps, but once again, it's really about what's comfortable for the individual.

52:40 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. Now, do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy?

52:45 David Dember: Overall, what we really believe in here at Sendoso is the Challenger Sale. That's something that we firmly believe in. Me personally, on the other side of that, the Challenger Sale is, it's newer to me, but by me going through the book, practicing it day in and day out with our senior leadership, it really allows our organization to work together hand in hand. But we can, like, if we're speaking one language, like saying we're going to be speaking Greek or French or whatever the case may be, whatever those things are that we're going to be able to be on the same page. But for me, it's more so the Sandler training is something that I'm very diverse in and know it quite well.

53:24 Scott Ingram: Nice, nice. And I think it's interesting that you talked about having that same language, right? If everybody is thinking from the same kind of core set of ideas and is talking about things that all mean the same, what's different, I think, in those is the way that you then approach it and what your style is. So as you think about Challenger and Sandler, what's the style that you bring to the table? How would you describe that?

53:50 David Dember: The style that I bring to the table is more so all about the upfront contract. So, you know, when reaching out to prospects, I'm grabbing them on the phone. I'll do, for example, this isn't my Sendoso pitch, but it's more so kind of being able to give somebody you like, such as a VP of sales, the out where they don't give you the, they don't give you the green light. And especially during COVID I think the words today, hey, hey Jim, this is David Dember calling from Sendoso. How are you doing? Pause. You know what? We're in COVID-19. We're going through some of the most difficult times that our world's ever seen. I can guarantee someone on the other end, they might be doing okay, but there's other people, their wife, their father, their mother. They lost their jobs. They're trying to pay their parents' rent. They're scrambling to meet deadlines, maybe not ask that question because we probably more than likely know the answer. It's going to be more negative than positive. So, hey Jim, this is David Dember calling from Sendoso. Can I take 15 seconds, tell you why I'm calling you and tell me, tell me if I'm in the right spot, right? Like that upfront contract. Obviously I would try to introduce them. I would introduce myself, tell them, tell them I'm from Sendoso. And if that rings a bell and if they say no, then being able to be like, hey, you know what? I was afraid of that. Can I take 15 seconds, tell you why I'm calling? Right. And so then if they give you the okay, you'll be able to then continue your pitch rather than you speaking over them. Like they could have been in the middle of the project. They could have tuned you out. And psychologically, if you get that upfront contract, statistics have shown that they're going to be more channeled into like the words that you're actually saying, where you'll be able to create that value. And so that's, that's really what I am a firm believer in… keeping short, concise, to the point. And then after you end up going in for the close, to keep your mouth shut, to be able to let them process everything you just said.

55:46 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Let's talk a second about COVID because one of the things I noticed is your Q2 numbers were better than your Q1 numbers. Did you change anything about your approach? In this last quarter?

56:00 David Dember: I did, I did. I took a step back, and I'm big into journaling. And for those of you on the show that are listening, the number one takeaway from the show today is get yourself a journal. Go down to OfficeMax or just get it, even if it's sticky notes, and being able to just write those thoughts down. But transitioning back to the initial question here with COVID-19, it's… I really just like said, you know what, I I'm going through a tough time, but there's been days where I'm seeing my wife cry or like things are kind of difficult because there's a lot of personal stuff that are going on and on my wife's side of the family. And I'm being sensitive to those areas and really like, all right, let's take a step back from what my job is. And I really am trying to figure out, are these people okay? I would take my day regardless of who I was calling. So if I'm reaching in and to, let's say, Austin, Texas, right? Before I would reach out to that specific individual, I would go to Google and Google COVID-19 and type in Austin. I can become, hey, you know what? Are they opening up in stages like New York? Is there a stage 1, stage 2? Can I try to develop some of that? Hey Scott, hopefully you and your family are staying safe in Austin. I heard that they closed X, Y, and Z back down. Hopefully, I know that working out is so important to you. Hopefully you're able to still get a few workouts in. Maybe your pool's open, but please stay safe. Sending much love and respect from Scottsdale, Arizona, David Dember. Right? Something as little as that, rather than sending them that pitch, because then later on when they end up responding to me saying, hey, they ran… they'll come back. People are smart enough to know that saying like, hey, I'm prospecting. I didn't ask for the close. Some people think, okay, is this salesperson a rookie? Are they, did they not think what's the, why is this person reaching out to me? And a lot of the time they let you off the hook and saying, hey, you know what? I know a lot about Sendoso. This week's not so good for me, but it'd be interesting to learn how others are leveraging Sendoso during COVID Right. Those are the plays. Sometimes it's better not necessarily play dumb, but the softer approach, especially during COVID-19, is going to be huge for your success.

58:13 Scott Ingram: Yeah, nice. So let me set you up with, with a little bit of a soapbox moment here. And I'll ask you a couple of questions. And the first is, is there something you believe that the average SDR would think is crazy?

58:26 David Dember: Yeah, I think they're the average SDR, what they would think was crazy. Okay. So they would think that I just am able to just find my success about Just doing my day in, day out. Like people just say, oh, Dember's just being Dember. He's just good. I think a lot of folks just think it's just some magic that I have. And that's, and that's not the case. And like kind of talking about what we spoke about earlier there, Scott, it's about hard work. It's about the hours that I put in. I mean, obviously we work out of Paylocity, so I only work 8-hour days, but at the same time, when that clock goes off. That doesn't mean my day's over. It's setting myself up for the next day. It's staying very organized within my notes. It's being able to beat down your craft until like you're actually sick. You really need to think like, is this just a paycheck? Is this just a job or is this your career? And a lot of times people get those 2 things mixed up between a job and a career. And if you want your sales, if you want to be, have a career in sales, You need to own this. You need to breathe this. It's a glass of water in 118 degrees. And let me tell you, being here in Scottsdale, Arizona, it actually hits that hot. So you really have to be able to put those hours in, find what's working, being able to reach out to those senior leaders of just being a sponge and being tenacious and reaching out to some of your VPs internally being like, you know what? This might be out of… some VPs don't like to be reached out to, and you go through your certain chain of commands internally. But once again, I've been blessed at Sendoso where I've been able to go straight up to our CEO anytime I want. VP, like, there's no thing like if I go to the CEO, our CEO is going to reach out to our VP, who then our VP is going to say, Denver, why are you reaching out to our CEO? So there's companies that don't like when their employees do that. But once again, completely blessed on that passion here at Sendoso.

1:00:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah, you've brought it up a couple of times. I think that that culture and having leadership that's going to allow you to be you and to find your own way and be great is such an important piece, right? Because if you don't have that, and you're sort of forced into a system that may not fit you, it's hard to find sort of that breakout level of success. Let me ask the opposite side of that question. So is there something that the typical SDR believes that you think is crazy?

1:00:58 David Dember: The typical SDR… that's a difficult question, but I think the typical SDR thinks it's about making their dials, letting the marketing automation tool run its course, and that they think that from the marketing automation that the inbounds will come in and That if somebody didn't pick up the phone for the day, that it just wasn't, you know, their day or there was, they just don't have the best leads. And to a certain point, if that's what your belief is, unfortunately, like I can't change that unless you want the change being like, you know what? I'm just maybe, I'm maybe not doing something right. I need to fix this. All right. It is a slow month, but this person or that person seeing high results, I need to tap into what they're doing. To find that success, because obviously what I'm doing is not working. So it's essentially putting the ego down and being able to look at yourself in the mirror and simply just say, hey, you know what? Maybe I'm not working hard enough and taking that responsibility and accountability. But to answer your question, it's something for me to think like, wow, if SDRs think it's going to be strictly just send a person one personal email here, not really follow up. Make your dials run through the dialer or whatever, whatever that you might have internally with your tech stack. But it's really a science when you do your sales development and really trying to reach out to the folks that you're, you're really trying to target. Yeah.

1:02:23 Scott Ingram: Now, now this next question, I think you're probably going to have an answer to, because I imagine you're going to be sharing this idea with a lot of the folks that you're working to onboard there at Sendoso. And that is, What advice do you give to somebody that's just starting out in their sales career today?

1:02:39 David Dember: Someone that's first getting into sales, I'd say, like we spoke about earlier, it's really reaching out to folks internally that have found success and really trying to collaborate with them. And I won't lie, there's been new hires in my past that have reached out to me without building any type of relationship with me and said, hey, Dember, I hear you're really good. And can you send me this? And can you send me that thing? And I'm thinking to myself, you know, I'm a pretty good guy, so I'm going to respond. But in the back of my head, I'm like, that, that doesn't work. You need to nourish a relationship. We haven't spoken before. Hey, maybe throw a compliment out there. Maybe be like, hey man, I'm new to the organization. I only hear great things. I hear you're a master at your craft. I would totally be up for collaborating sometime. I've got some pretty good ideas, obviously with you being a top performer. I would love to get on your radar and was hoping to put a few minutes on your calendar. I mean, so it's really about practicing those small things first for new people that are coming on board, either if you've been in sales your whole life or you're new to sales, that should be your very first pitch or your practice of trying to convince an executive at your company. When I say executive, it could be a director, it could be a team lead. It could be even a CEO, but having that no fear mentality. You know what? I challenge a person that's listening to this show today to reach out to their CEO. I know it's out of your comfort zone. And if that individual gets their hand slapped, they can say that David Dember sent them and I'll send them an e-gift and apologize that their CEO bit their head off. But it's really about being courageous because if you can be courageous internally at your organization, it will give you the confidence to start reaching out to high-level titles. And you'll be impressed with the type of results that you can get with practicing, practicing what you preach at your current company.

1:04:33 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's, that's a great suggestion. And again, to your point, it's great practice. And frankly, if you do get your head bit off because you reached out to your own CEO, man, are you working for the wrong company, right? They should care about your success and wanting to make sure that you've got an opportunity to develop and should be willing to, to share their perspective. So, if, if that's an issue, you probably have bigger issues and you're working for the wrong type of, of organization. And in a lot of ways, I mean, it sounds like so much the environment that we work to create at the Sales Success Summit, right? It's this opportunity to learn from each other and from the very best and to continue to hone our craft. And this year's event is sold out, but there are some pretty big, exciting announcements that we're getting ready to make on that front. So if you're not already on either the listener list, you can join at top1.fm. You can also learn more about the summit at top1summit.com. Either way, drop your email address in there because there is some great stuff coming and those that are on the listener list are always the first to hear. I'm sure we'll be sharing some of it through the podcast here, but that's the best way to stay in the know across the board. There's a lot of pretty interesting stuff that we're starting to work on here. It's, it's been… COVID is certainly challenging, but with challenge comes innovation, right? You find, you find new ways, and it's really been pushing us to deliver even more value to the community and get super creative in how we're going to do that and the things that we're doing. And it's been, it's really just a super exciting time. The other thing that I'll share from a resource perspective before we wrap up here with David is I'm going to include a link to this episode at top1.fm/sdr. So if you like these SDR episodes, I've made a list of just them. So it's probably, I don't know, 15 of the 99 interviews we've done at this point. So if you want to go deeper into this role, you want to go deeper into what the best prospectors and meeting setters on the planet are doing, lots of great, great resources for you there, David. Let's wrap this thing up and put a bow on it. I think you may have hinted at it earlier, but I always like to make these actionable at the end, right? Hopefully there's tons of inspiration, tons of ideas. Hopefully you're going to adopt your own beast mode and figure out what that means for you and, and try some of the techniques. Maybe you're going to be more hyper-personalized and you're going to be more personalized or personal in your outreach and less focused on the ROI and the solution and the me, me, me type of approach. But David, what would you challenge our listener to do right now over the course of the next maybe 1 to 2 weeks before the next interview comes out? What would you have them do to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:07:20 David Dember: I would really say to be able to listen. If you have a true understanding and you think that you're the smartest person in the room and you're just waiting for the next thing to say, I would just challenge you to, you know what, you might be the smartest person in the room. You may or may not be, but to be able to just learn and be a sponge and be like, you know what, I already knew that, but okay, let's, let's move on to the next thing. Maybe something might catch your attention that you can implement later on. But I would really just say being true to yourself, writing down those bullet points, right? What are you going to do in the next 14 days? So like day 1, I'm going to be keeping my ears open and mouth shut. Try to just absorb as much as possible. Maybe being like the more, like the quieter person in the room. Day 2, I'm going to engage a little bit more with the team, provide some insight, hear what other people are saying and be a little bit more engaged. Day 3, kind of go back and try to, all right, I'm going to be trying to, the VP or CEO is going to be speaking today. I'm going to take a step back and be quiet, write notes down. At the very end, I want to reach out to each of the executives, thanking them for sharing, sharing their insights for the day. But every process is different in 14 days. I can't stress this enough. You have to make it your own. There's no answer. 14 days. This is day 1, do this. Day 2, do this. Day 3. It's like, okay, I need to keep my ears open, be a sponge, learn as much as I can, try to get on the calendar. Of 3 senior leaders at the company, if that's like different aspects of sales, marketing, and let's say customer success. So you get the overall picture, kind of interview them in their own little way of their challenges. Right. And if you're like, have your direct report, let's say like you're reporting to the VP of sales, try to find out what's their pet peeves, what's their business pet peeves, and try to make sure that you tailor your yourself around that. Hey, this person is a pet peeve of somebody making a promise and a commitment, and then they bail last minute. Keep those things in the back of your head so that you know, all right, this is something I don't want to do, or this is going to upset this person if I do X, Y, and Z. So once again, making it your own and being able to just stay focused, keeping your head down. Don't try to make… yes, you want to make friends at the organization, but you're not there to make friends. You're there to make money. And as soon as people get that understanding, they're going to be a little bit more focused and throw the blinders on.

1:09:52 Scott Ingram: Awesome. David, this has been a blast. Thank you for sharing your story with us and inspiring all of us and looking forward to meeting you hopefully in the not too distant future.

1:10:01 David Dember: Hey, likewise there, Scott. Hopefully you and your family are staying safe out in Texas and truly appreciate being on the show. I'm a big fan of yours and for you to invite me on here today, I just want to show you my gratitude there, sir.

1:10:14 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.