Ed Rusch | The Missing Link to More Revenue: Standing up a SDR Department - Part 2 - 039

May 24, 2022

Today’s episode of the Aligned podcast continues into part two of our three-part series featuring Ed Rusch. Ed has served as Chief Marketing Officer for several different companies, and his efforts yielded significant parts of their success. In this series, he and Sean discuss the importance of finding a happy medium between sales and marketing alignment. 

Generating leads to fuel company growth:

• Growing a pipeline can be accomplished through multiple strategies. In general, aiming for a consistent and reliable method might be a better long-term strategy than others.
• If you have an ambitious 30-50% growth rate, driving growth relies on the sales development reps establishing an effective strategy to move mid-market prospects through the funnel.

Developing the SDR team:

• Senior sellers don’t necessarily want to spend their time managing early-stage buyers - no should they. An early-stage seller uses the opportunity as a starting experience.
• SDRs shouldn’t complete sales development work throughout the funnel in a broad capacity. 
• Instead, an SDR team should be segmented into different areas of specialization and accountability.
• Inbound SDRs encounter prospects who know what can properly affect their problem and need guided content based on how they enter the conversion.
• As an outbound, we’re reaching out to the people, generating interest based on competitive analyses and market research. 
• A recent study found that, for the first time, prospects wanted a seller to enter the conversation earlier in the process than in previous years.

Be disruptive and spark imagination (professionally.)

• Ensure your SDR team understands the buyer from their own perspective. You must have the external voice of the customer to be influential.
• It’s essential to see and contemplate the buyer's needs and take action based on those established needs. 
• There is no shortage of content. So, positioning your brand to put important, need-based content in front of a prospect will make the most headway.
• Don’t speak broadly about “SaaS” content as a SaaS company. Instead, make meaningful specific content that addresses prospects’ needs. 

Tune in to our next episode for the conclusion of Sean’s discussion with Ed. For more great content from Ed, connect with him on LinkedIn.

This episode is sponsored in part by FitzMartin’s Sales and Marketing Alignment:

Why does proper sales and marketing alignment result in a 32% average lift in revenue? Because a unified company centered around its prospects can’t help but thrive.

FitzMartin’s Sales and Marketing Alignment program will analyze your current sales and marketing structure to deliver a plan based on the needs of your prospects, bringing you increased revenue, expansion opportunities, and (above all) a unified front when communicating with prospects. 

To set your company up for success, visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to discover how to unify your sales and marketing for the best results. 

This episode is sponsored in part by Fitzmartin’s Organization and Culture Alignment:

Company culture and retention are directly connected. After all, if you fail to build good company culture, you fail to retain top talent. At FitzMartin, we help leaders like you raise their NPS scores from the low 60s to the high 80s (and, more importantly, present a plan to help you do the same.)

Create your company culture based on a shared mission to attract and retain top talent. Visit fitzmartin.com/solutions to learn more.