Why cake and SDRs are basically the same

Cake VS SDRs
James T Fletcher
CEO, Principal Consultant

22/5/2020

With the global pandemic continuing to force us to spend more time at home, many of us have turned to a new hobby of cooking or baking. Whether it’s sourdough bread, a hot chocolate brownie, cupcakes for the kids, or even the trusty banana bread we’ve been forced back into the kitchen with a re-ignited passion.

Cake aside, many marketing leaders are pivoting their strategies, cutting ad spend, clawing back event budgets, diversifying events into webinars, and cranking up the heat in the marketing furnace to spit out more leads. That is all well and good but we can’t forget the great debate of sales and marketing that is the dreaded lead volume and quality.

Rotting apples to hot apple pie

Over the years I’ve had a number of failed attempts at baking from soggy bottoms, to imperfect baps and even not enough crimp! (More cake innuendos here) But in my re-kindled spirit I’m back to give it another go to see if I can get the right consistency.

Come to think of it, I’ve had similar challenges with Sales Development Reps (SDRs) over the years! And with one in five being successful, sometimes it feels like the ingredients are all wrong. On a more sympathetic note, business development has got increasingly harder over the years and depending on your business just getting air-time with savvy buyers is nigh-on-impossible.

So is it any surprise we’re down to 3 strikes and you’re out?

Third time lucky! Why persistence is key…

As Ilan Kasan, CEO of Exceed.ai reminded me Albert Einstein is known for the quote “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”

After two quarters of mediocre results, at the end of last year I was forced into the kitchen to whisk up a solution. The proof is in the pudding of course — “what does the data tell me”, quickly I identified two fundamental problems, likely shared by you guys too:

  1. The quality of the data requires continuous attention
  2. Sales don’t update CRM (with anything, let alone lead outcomes)

Digging deeper into the data I realised my SDRs were working to the 3 strike rule, and they were overwhelmed with daily call targets, lead follow ups, back from vacations, no longer on parental leave etc. Sifting through the evidence it was clear, my SDRs lacked the persistence and time required to give every prospective client enough attention, and hit the target!

Virtual SDRs to the rescue!

We all know the pain of organising a meeting and virtual personal assistants are doing the job for many of us by helping us book meetings. That is when I stumbled upon Exceed.ai virtual SDR technology designed to help marketing pass more qualified leads to sales, and importantly keep the SDRs focused on phone calls.

Within 3 months of implementing virtual sales assistant Exceed, we’ve been able to save 885 hours, we’ve generated 15 qualified appointments that has led to over £150,000 in opportunities.

For us marketers there is a tonne of other value beyond cost and time savings — improved data quality, faster qualification time, and a clearer feedback loop.

Wanna see it in action?

If the technology sounds of interest to you, then I’d love to walk you through the features and capabilities of the platform and what it takes to get the solution in place. Fill out the form below.

See Exceed.ai in action!

Disclosure: JTF Marketing are partnering with Exceed.ai in order to support the implementation of the tool alongside a broader marketing technology stack and therefore are incentivised to promote how great it is!