Jack Battersby

Tech SDRs - you have a bloody tough gig in comparison to commercial hires in other industries... Here's why... 🏦 Investment Banks - no entry-level hire is expected to create new relationships. 🏗️ Real Estate - Directors/Partners win the lion's share of new projects with no new business expectation placed on anyone with less than 2 years experience. 💸 Asset Managers - your portfolio is handed to you post-probation and you're allowed the time/opportunity to build your reputation and win business. 👨‍⚖️ Law - Partners win most of the business and hand clients to the wider team. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Recruitment - Junior hires ramp by speaking with candidates until they prove themselves competent to manage their first client which would have been won by a senior colleague. But then... 🤖 TECH - SDRS ARE EXPECTED TO BOOK MEETINGS FROM MONTH 2! You learn to do the hard bit first in tech. Next time you look at your pals in other fields - remind yourself of the above. #SDR #BDR #TechSales #Sales #Recruitment

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Expnd just finished a search and... We f*cking crushed it! They had been working with an agency since January but still hadn't found the right candidate. They needed a BDR, but since they're a fintech, the candidate had to be quite tech-savvy as well, which isn't always easy to find. Here's how long it took us: 2 weeks 😎 I believe business is a game of value - the player who delivers the most value over time wins, and this is just one of those cases. That's our 1 thing/ obsession as we're building Expnd: overdelivering on our promise. PS. A more detailed case study is in the making. PPS. All credit to Huub for leading this search. 

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Placing SDR’s and playing fetch….🎾 Aston thinks both should happen at the same time🙃 His eagerness reminds me of what it takes to succeed as an SDR🔥 💪🏼It’s about resilience - turning every ‘no’ into a ‘not yet.’ 🤔It’s about curiosity - asking the right questions and learning from every call. 👊🏼It’s about persistence - like Aston staring at me until I give in and throw his tennis ball… You don’t stop until you’ve got what you came to do!🫡 🚨Have you got that drive and hunger to succeed?🚨 Then an SDR role is your perfect launchpad into a sales career that goes the distance🚀 💌DM me to get the ball rolling

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SDR Life in 2024: The Hardest It’s Ever Been? During Episode 11 of Beyond The Profile Podcast , SDR Leader Graeme 👨🏼‍💻 Gilovitz 🎗️ shared what it’s like to be an SDR today and why the landscape has never been more challenging. With over a decade in the tech industry, Graeme explains the real competition facing SDRs: “Our biggest competitor isn’t necessarily in our industry—it’s everyone vying for the same attention span.” Here’s why SDRs today face a unique uphill battle: 👉 Crowded channels: Hundreds of people trying to reach the same persona 👉 Automated overload: New tech has increased outreach but also the “white noise” SDRs have to break through 👉 A tough role to start: It may be an entry point into SaaS, but it’s no easy job Graeme offers a reality check for anyone entering the SDR role and shares what it takes to make an impact. #SDR #SalesDevelopment #Sales #SaaS #Podcast

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Last week I saw Chris Ritson post something interesting Only 28% of BDR time is spent selling The thing you're paying your team most for I've spoken to over a 100 teams this year, and here's the painful reality I keep seeing: Your BDRs are drowning in admin work instead of having meaningful conversations . Here's what's eating up their time: • Hunting for accurate contact data • Cross-referencing territory assignments • Manual research that could be automated • Jumping between different tools and platforms • Double-checking if prospects are already being worked The result? Your expensive talent spends more time being data entry clerks than revenue generators . One VP of Sales told me: "We hired hunters but turned them into librarians." By having the right systems in place we're seeing BDR teams able to spend 70% of their time speaking with prospects instead Having the data & research already prepared What's been the biggest gamechanger for your team over the past year?

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How would £300,000 in funding help you as an early stage founder? I've recently been working with an early stage founder who set up on his own and now has a team of 8 (all done within 4 months). He come to a point where he needed to raise some initial funding. But this is time consuming and juggling raising funds and running your business is a lot. So I offered help. I went out and found some Angels for him and he's just closed £300,000 from an introduction I made. This is how I help early stage founders, not just bums on seats. I've got some time from December to help some early stage founders. If you fancy a virtual coffee for some advice or how I could help my DMs are open. #zygopeople #startupfunding #startups

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I met the no.1 SDR in the UK... Here's what he shared with me: [in a 15 min convo] 1. Calling is the easiest way to book meetings - Use a script - Practice your opener - Repeat 1000x until its perfect → No shying away from the phone. Practice daily until you achieve mastery. 2. Never underestimate a hard week - Do your calls - Do your emails - Build your lists Don't skip activities because it's been a hard week. → Small inputs, executed daily compound and make next week better. 3. Reps that don't quit win - No pickups? Keep dialling - No responses? Keep emailing - Getting ghosted? Keep DMing → The best reps keep going past what their colleagues think is ''normal''. 4. Never celebrate a meeting booked until you've asked for a referral. - Ask on calls - Ask over email - Ask in the DMs → If you don't ask, you don't get. Try to book 2 meetings on 1 call. 5. Reps who can identify nurture and convert ''maybes'' into meetings win. - Maybe does - Not mean - Never → Maybes ARE Money. The best reps know this. 6. Good, bad or ugly. Always review your performance. - 1 hour per week - What worked? - What didn't? → The best review how they performed and optimise for the next week to be better. 7. A ''low-level'' stakeholder at a good account is better than a ''high'' level stakeholder at a bad account. - ICP only - Ignore the rest → 99% of success is in the list you put your precious time and energy into. Make it great. 8. Prayer is powerful in sales - Reflection - Peace - Stillness → Prayer is a time for Saad to get away from the stress of KPIs and refocus himself when things get tough. [this was my fav learning] You see... Being a great SDR → HARD. Being stressed & missing quota → HARD. Choose your hard. LFG. PS. Connect with Saad Ghafoor on LinkedIn - he knows his sh*t.

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Doesn't matter if you are an SDR, AE or revenue leader. Knowing how to generate pipeline is key. Especially at early stage companies. Whenever I speak to candidates it's always really clear by the depth of their answers who is really strong at creating pipeline. It makes everything easier. It's what will be expected from anyone in a commercial role. There is more and more tech available in the BD function but good tech isn't good enough without the skillset. My advice would be to really double down and become an expert here!

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I'm honestly bored of all the latest clickbait SaaS sequences, hacks, AI, tricks & tooling to develop business as an outbound AE or BDR... Like there's some magical way to book a ton of meetings and win business without doing much. I have also fallen into that trap at times. But guess what? Cold calling was big in the 90's and it's still big today! It's still the most successful acquisition channel for booked demos across my client base. Spoiler alert. Most people just don't want to do it. The real work. Sure, running a modern operation is important and there are a ton of helpful tools and techniques to implement. But all of that fancy stuff should come after knowing: - Your customers and their pain - How your customers experience value form your product - Your ICP and pitch - Call list Once this is running well, sure, see what you can do to optimize your efforts and make them more efficient. But first, just do the basics to a high standard and do them a lot.

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Stop obsessing over OTE on its own. It's a vanity metric that doesn't really matter if loads of other factors aren't on point. I know a lot of AE's ''on €160k OTE'' who just earn their base salary. The achievability of the OTE and the impacting factors do matter: - Quality of leadership - Training & Coaching - Product Market Fit - % current team on target - Saturation of the sales team - Bonus Structure OTE is an important aspect of course, but all A players I speak with don't give much importance to the OTE figure on its own.

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SaaS Software sector has growth. Crunchbase published a 'good news' article I wanted to share The data was provided by Paddle which is a payments infrastructure provider for software companies Paddle analysed data of real-time subscriptions from more than 34,000 software companies in Q1 2024 There’s been a resurgence in B2C software growth in particular, with CAGR (compound annual growth) at 6.3% in Q1 — that's the best quarter since Q1 2022. New sales for B2B SaaS companies have also dramatically improved, up 20% from December’s two-year low point. Within the article it was noted that COVID times saw extraordinary growth in SaaS, things are not back to the crazy COVID growth times. I've spoken with countless Project Managers, BA's, Developers who worked on projects to migrate ON-Prem product to SaaS during the COVID times You always need to take into account that many Software Houses in that period might have had growth in SaaS but their On-Prem products took a nose dive. However, I've definitely seen less migration projects in the recent year and from that anecdotal piece of information, I'm feeling confidence that the overall SaaS growth is not coming at the expense of On-Prem Happy day's !!!!!

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2024 is no better than 2023. UK Tech investment landscape surely can't get any gloomier than this, could it? Up to date data from https://deallite.uk Please note we only cover UK Tech Companies. #techinvestment #venturecapital #vc #privateequity #equityinvestment #equity #tech #uktech #techcelerate #deallite #deals #techdeals #funding #techfunding #investment #seed #seriesA #preseed #growthcapital

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Pleo I've been using and recommending this firm to my customers since they first arrived in the UK, but no longer. Not only did they take funds from my account without informing me (as a partner, you get a free account but they cancel your "benefits" after 12 months unless you keep referring new customers), I asked to withdraw the rest of my funds over 3 weeks ago, and they still haven't credited them to my bank, yet they are unavailable in my Pleo wallet. They told me standard was 5-10 working days, but can't tell me where my money is. I have been emailing them, and they just give me vanilla responses about it being with "the support team". No person to contact in the support team, no timelines on when I will get a response, no responses unless I chase them (often more than once). Of course, there's no telephone line to call them on, which seems pretty standard these days - not acceptable, just standard. I thought I would look at the FCA to see how to start a complaint, and this came up - rather worrying. Anyone else had problems with them? Think I will be looking for a new solution for my customers now. More upheaval for them, and for us, but I don't like my customers to be exposed to issues like this.

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Salespeople can add millions to the valuation of a SaaS company. That’s why it’s so important to make commission plans attractive. I speak to sales people every day who are looking to leave their roles because of their commission plans. Not culture. Not progression. But commission. If you are creating commission plans, make sure they: - Are uncapped - Include accelerators - Are SUPER easy to work out And most importantly are achievable! It's ok to pay a bit more whilst you are finding traction. Get this right and you’ll end up with a sales team that stays motivated and helps you hit your growth plans. Invest the time getting this right and you’ll see the impact on the valuation of your business.

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As a new SDR I felt completely LOST I didn’t think tech sales was for me There were so many tasks with such little guidance I had worked in sales before but neevr in tech sales But these 2 steps are the foundation I used to get my shit together 1) Focused on the key tasks first Do the things that get me closer to my goals There are so many random tasks we do and convince ourselves we’re being productive POE = Pipeline over everything As an SDR my job was to book meetings So I ONLY focused on the activities that booked me meetings: - Finding new prospects - Enriching their details - Adding them in sequences - Reaching out That is what made me $$$ so that is what got my focus. Side note I wish I had a tool like Crono to do all 4 steps Make your life as easy as possible Cut the fluff 2) Hitting all my tasks Consistent input = consistent output Your tasks should be done every single day The only way to get any results is by putting in the necessary work: - Make the cold calls - Send the emails - Send the LinkedIn DMs Detach from the outcome Who cares if that one call is a yes or a no Make 100 more and you’ll get some meetings on the board. With so many tasks and things to steal our attention Just focus on the basics Double down on the actions that will get you closer to your goal

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Knock, and it shall be opened unto you Last couple weeks I’ve been thinking about it a lot, my SDR team is trying new approaches and testing hypotheses, but I’m still very anxious about the future of the industry and prospecting in next couple of years. Understanding how cold outreach may be annoying for recipients, how overwhelmed managers in business are, I’m advocating soft approach. Know your business, know your prospects’ businesses before you reach them out, identify potential areas of interest and areas where you have strong expertise. Be consistent, but don’t be pushy, read and listen to your customers, build personal relationships and connections, because people buy from people.

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Did you know that a staggering 67% of candidates that are placed were already in the database? Wild. If we've ever spoken about your database or if I've helped guide you as a start up you would have heard me say "data" about a thousand times every call and there is a reason why! Your business and livelihood is built on the foundation of that data! How easily can you search on it? How relevant is it? When was the last time you reviewed it? I speak with hundreds of start up and SMB agencies every year and when I ask about their database, so many proudly say they have "Over 60'000 candidates!" Incredible! But when we get into it, roughly 10% of those candidates are currently active and engaged (often even 5% or lower). Utilising tools like Bullhorn Automation, Bullhorn Analytics and our recently launched Bullhorn SourceBreaker are designed to reengage inactive candidates and can drastically improve the quality and hygiene of your data and overall help save you time and money. Take a look at our "Spring Cleaning Guide" and start getting back to the data! https://lnkd.in/gSvZsK5Z #recruitment #data #automation #ai #database

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SDRs & BDRs, this one is for you. Laura Shillibier recently placed an Enterprise SDR who booked 23 meetings in just 2.5 weeks. We’re looking for 2 more. Don't miss out. The role: Enterprise SDR x2 -Pure hunters with a strong track record -NYC-based (Office 2-3 days a week) Highlights: -Combining Cyber and Fintech with unbeatable product-market fit -5x ARR through numerous Fortune 500 partnerships -Backed by 3 tier 1 VCs This is the next big thing. We're also hiring 3 Sales Directors (NYC-based) for this vendor with founding stock. Every seller is currently over-target, I'm only just scratching the surface here. If you're ready to be part of this journey, you know what to do. #Cybersecurity #Fintech #Hiring #TechtonicTakeover

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💼 What should you be paying SaaS Salespeople in Germany in 2024? 🤔 Getting compensation right is critical when it comes to attracting and retaining top SaaS sales talent. If your packages aren’t competitive, you’re not just losing out on great people - you’re putting your growth at risk. That's why, on Tuesday next week, we’re releasing our salary benchmark report for SaaS sales roles across Germany. Stay tuned if you want to know how your compensation stacks up - or if you're losing talent to better offers. 👀 DM me or Robin Guth for priority access. 📅 8th October 2024 LP ✌️ Pack GTM | SaaS Sales Recruitment in Germany #sales #hiring #careers #startups #recruitment 

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