Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) have a hard job.  They are responsible for cold outreach, prospecting and channeling opportunities into the MSP's sales pipeline. While they play a crucial role in the sales process, many MSPs misundertand the support SDRs need. 

In this webinar we talk about the following needs

• Empowering SDRs to prospect 
• Giving them non-clunky "built for the SDR" sales technologies 
• Providing on-going coaching
  
  

Prospecting

Prospecting is the most important task that SDRs have to perform. It involves getting high-quality, early-stage leads to give effect to sales. Surprisingly, prospecting is also the biggest challenge faced by salespeople. According to a study by AutoClose, 42% of salespeople look at prospecting as their biggest challenge. This shouldn’t come as a surprise because many MSPs fail to provide clarity to their SDRs on whom to approach and how. This ultimately results in poor leads.

To address this challenge, a business owner should clearly define what company profiles the SDRs should target and the approach they should follow. Giving a clear set of guidelines to SDRs can enable them to filter out better leads. Educate them about:

• Geographic locations that your organization is willing to serve. There is no point in the SDRs hunting a company that is beyond your service area.
• The size of companies that your organization is ready to work with. If you are a small MSP who has just started, ideally you will not want to get overwhelmed by managing a company with a workforce of 1,000 employees. 
• Whom to target - For small companies, connecting with CFOs/CEOs should do the work but for a large company, the SDRs may have to reach out to the IT Manager.
• Breaking down monthly targets into specific daily or weekly milestones.

The above tools will help them enhance their prospecting methodologies. These should be communicated early on during the training stage as it will give them clarity about what they are supposed to do. Once the training is over they will be completely ready to generate leads for your business. 

Sales Technology

The survey by Autoclose, further stated that salespeople spend two-thirds of their time doing non-revenue generating activities. What this means is that they dedicate only 33% of their time prospecting and selling. This negatively impacts the number of leads they generate. Fewer leads mean less revenue for your organization.

Equipping your sales team with a set of sales tech can significantly reduce the time they spend on non-core activities. There are several sales techs available in the market that can help streamline the non-sales activities of your sales team. Using them will give your SDRs more time to engage with prospects and sell. 

The sales tech you select should perform some essential features like:

• Maintain lead accounts and monitoring progress 
• Should make it convenient to make calls 
• Automation of email, reports and social selling tasks
• Should have an option to integrate with CRM and marketing activities.

Hubspot, FreeCRM.com, Zurmo and inStream are some popular tools that you can use. They will make things significantly easier for your salespeople by organizing their work.

Remote Management of an SDR

SDRs are generally working in the field to generate leads and most of them are working remotely. As a business owner, it is your job to keep track of their progress even if they work remotely. Most MSP owners do this in a mechanical way by just evaluating their progress and passing on instructions to the SDRs. They like to control what SDRs should do and prefer managing their activities. This can overwhelm your SDRs and make it difficult to work for them. 

Lack of physical workspace also adds to the problem. In a physical workspace, SDRs can communicate with their colleagues and take care of their social needs. But when working remotely they don’t have this luxury. MSP owners should step in here and sit down with the SDRs to discuss the bottlenecks they are facing. Most SDRs are young and need your guidance to overcome the challenges they are facing. Developing a strong personal bond and being empathic towards them can go a long way to keep them motivated.

Instead of managing all their activities, give them some freedom and flexibility to experiment. This allows them to come up with newer ideas. They should also be educated about the growth opportunities that are available in the organization. This will keep enthusiasm high and have them engaged in performing efficiently. More than remote management it should be about remotely coaching your SDRs.