High Call Volumes
The Holy Grail of a Successful SDR Operation
Most CRM systems such as SalesForce or SalesLoft provide SDRs with various ways to access their que of names. Either the professional can scroll through their pipeline or even see it in a generated daily call list. In either case, the SDR has the complete control over which prospect to call and when, normally in their assigned territory.
Upon a detailed analysis, a couple of things become immediately clear.
SDRs spend an inordinate amount of time trying to decide who to call and when. They pick and peck through their pipeline trying to figure out who is more likely to answer the phone and give them a positive response.
They focus their attention and effort on the same names over and over again.
The names that are called are the better known prospects eg bigger companies.
They spend a significant amount of time researching each name before calling it using LinkedIn etc.
A great deal of time is spent trying to identify new names and companies to add to their queue.
The end result of this is that relatively few calls are actually made.In fact, Bridge Group did a study that showed the average number of dials that an outbound SDR operation makes is between 30-50 per day. In an 8 hour day, that is a call every 10-16 minutes or 4-5 per hour. As a dial takes less than a minute, and most doe not result in a conversation, the productivity of an SDR in this environment is very, very limited. Not only does this result is relatively few appointments being booked/performed it raises the CAC to unacceptable levels.
For example, if an SDR books two demos per week or ninety six per year, the cost of a performed appointment is approximately $1500 which is a ridiculous amount of money to pay and is unsustainable at scale. This assumes a 70k SDR and a 50% perform rate.
As call volume is the single greatest gating factor in determining how many appointments an SDR generates, sellers should strongly consider taking the following actions:
Do not let SDRs research names to call! A good SDR has a extremely valuable, rare skill – they can call and convince people to book an appointment over the phone. As such, they should do nothing that takes time away from this effort. Instead, professionals that are experienced in conducting research and are often cheaper should perform this effort.
While knowing something about the prospect that is being called can marginally help, in most cases, this knowledge is unnecessary as the chances of reaching the person and then getting the chance to have a detailed discussion is relatively low. As such, SDRs should consider simply just dialing the phone.
SDRs do not know and will never know which prospect will pick up the phone and certainly is more likely to book an appointment. As such, picking and pecking is a completely wasteful exercise. For SDRs using a traditional CRM system, it is strongly suggested that they simply go through their entire list without thinking about who is being called. Knowing that this is “hard” to do, strongly consider using a CRM system that intelligently provides the user with the next name to call.
An efficient and effective SDR should make approximately 150 dials per day. This will likely result in 15 appointments performed on a monthly basis or 180 per year. Not only is this approaching take-off velocity, the CAC goes down to approximately $400 which makes it affordable to scale around this method of lead generation.
