I am not going to be popular saying this but not all sales propositions are created equal. If you are representing a business that has a proposition that is dated, the offering is commoditised, and the market is mature, then you are going to need a very creative prospecting approach that solicts interest and work super hard to sustain it. Whereas, if you are representing the latest technology, potential buyers are always interested with the latest thinking and innovations.
Also, the investment required to bring to life a world-class sales development program is often prohibitive. You are sadly mistaken if you think you can just hire someone skilled to prospect and expect to see results. For starters, you will need a Sales Development Leader, even with a small team of five Business Development Representatives (BDRs), who are attracting big salary packages at the moment given the high demand for the discipline. Most Sales Directors grossly underestimate the time and money required to establish and then sustain a sales development program.
Lastly, not all sales development programs are created equal. After running sales development programs at scale we have developed a delivery model which is highly sophisticated and includes making investments that folks often overlook. The investments that need to be made include:
- Being able to access “Career” world-class Business Development Representatives (BDRs)
- You need to build a high-performance sales culture.
- You need to build a strong operational cadence.
- Your prospecting approach needs to be intelligent. More of the wrong thing does not work.
- You need to make sure you are delivering on quality outcomes.
- You need to use your data to provide market insight but also inform how to improve your sales development program.
- You need to develop world class new business training to attract, grow and retain the best.
- You need the ability to scale, with access to a deep and rich talent pool, and have the business process and infrastructure in place that allows you to scale.