New SDRs are often confused regarding the parameters sales leaders use to hire. Many factors are involved in hiring the perfect individual for the SDR role. So, exploring all parameters and situations that affect hiring is important for beginners. We’ll detail all that goes through the mind of sales leaders when hiring SDRs in this article. We will cover all necessary information regarding sales leader personas, situations for hiring, and ideal candidate qualities here.
Understanding the parameters that affect hiring SDRs
Hiring is situational and involves several parameters. Here’s a list of all of them.
Size Of Organization
Organisation size affects how sales leaders hire. That’s because bigger organizations need to hire individuals with vastly different criteria than early-stage companies. The requirements will vary, and the perfect fit would also therefore change. We’ll detail the difference in hiring parameters later in the article.
Push Vs. Pull Funnel
Depending on the organisation’s size and growth level, one of its push or pull funnels would be more active than the other. Push funnel refers to sequencing processes and activity metrics based on an outbound approach. This is where the company intends to reach out to its prospects more than creating ways for them to reach out to the company.
Pull funnel takes a more inbound approach where content marketing, emails, backlinking, social media, or SEO take centre stage. This is typically active in an organisation that has experienced some scaling. Inbound and outbound approaches are totally different and hence require different skills. Sales leaders would be hiring SDRs based on the company’s current requirements. So, SDRS must find suitable roles by assessing the job roles that companies offer.
Product Maturity
Once a product is launched, there’s quite a long process for taking it to a stage where its market fit is established and the product matures. When a product launches, its benefits continue to rise due to the promotional activities undertaken in the introduction stage, and then it traverses the growth cycle. In this stage, consumers become active, and product popularity soars due to sales. In the next stage, the product matures, and saturation is attained. Pricing gets competitive, and margins grow thinner. Staying ahead of rivals and finding alternate markets is the focus at this stage. Hence, sales leaders start hiring SDRs to achieve these goals.
Business Objectives
Every company has a long-term vision, and it plans its business objectives in alignment with that vision. Business objectives are simple metrics to quantify a company’s growth or success. These objectives will vary based on product maturity and company size. Different objectives again demand different skillset and the process of hiring SDRs proceeds accordingly. Researching and familiarising yourself with a company’s business objectives is advisable for fresh SDRs to find a role they would fit perfectly in.
Situations Where Companies Hire
Companies typically hire under specific conditions. Hiring SDRs doesn’t happen randomly. It follows the timeline of a company and the workforce requirements it has. Here are some situations in which a company would hire.
- Opening a new market– A new market calls for hiring the right people who can lend their expertise to evaluate market emotions correctly and help crack the market.
- Opening a new product– A new product calls for a product team that can create selling points for the product. This is when people who can create solutions using product features are hired.
- Building a funnel for early-growth stage products– Building a funnel helps execute product branding and marketing correctly and brings in revenue.
- Seeking a new buyer persona– Due to a product updation or another valid reason, a company may unlock new suitable buyer personas. Connecting with these buyers, asking discovery questions, etc., needs hiring.
- Augmenting the inbound channel– Particular situations need inbound channel augmentation. For example, a shift in content strategy would need hiring someone who can help create an appropriate content strategy for the company.
Read More: Mapping The Mindset Of B2B Sales Guy
Understanding the 3 sales leader personas
For the sake of simplicity, we have divided sales leader personas into 3 types. Let’s go through each one and understand how these persons can affect the preferences of sales leaders while hiring SDRs.
Early-stage company or ‘Robin’ persona
In a small or early-stage company, there’s a lot to figure out and a lot of discovery to be done because the problems haven’t been identified yet. The product might have just launched or would be about to launch. So the product-market fit wouldn’t have been established. There’s a lot of planning required at this stage, and the funnel is heavily push-focused. The priorities are to build a funnel, generate revenue, and attain the growth stage in the product cycle.
In such a situation, the sales leader would look for people who are witty and charismatic enough to capture leads, convince people, and generate conversions. Creative aptitude will be a highly preferred trait in hiring SDRs at this stage. That’s because this stage demands a lot of ideation, creative email outreach, and meeting and convincing top business leaders. Therefore, someone who can talk to people, pitch a concept or a product, and be creative in everything they do would be a great fit for the company. Asking discovery questions, being proactive, and being curious enough to take up new tasks that don’t perfectly align with one’s typical work structure are required here.
Early to growth-stage company or ‘Batman’ persona
In an early-growth-stage company, the product-market fit would be already established. Problems are well-identified, and there’s not much room left for discovery. At this stage, the process needs to be optimised to bring in more sales and for the company to scale. There’s a healthy mix of push and pull here to make the product attain its peak popularity and progress in the growth stage.
Hence, sales leaders would look for process excellence when hiring SDRs at this stage. Someone who knows how to use tools, processes, and input metrics to attain growth will make the ideal candidate. Experience with finetuning the sales processes is essential here, so people with a personal brand are much preferred. SDRs aiming to enter a company at this stage should have some experience under their belt and be ready to go the extra mile. Making the most out of the existing data tools and talent takes centre stage here.
Large organisations or ‘Superman’ persona
In companies that have scaled and conquered several global markets, there’s practically little room for discovery, and almost all problems are well-identified and dealt with in set processes. At this stage, hiring SDRs only makes sense if the company wants to open a new market and its existing team lacks the expertise for the same. For example, language might create problems in a new market. So, getting someone on board who has tackled that market before will help ease the sales team’s burden.
The ideal candidate must have a lot of experience in the market they’re trying to open. People who can design and run campaigns and successfully execute the launch of a new product will be highly preferred. The downside to these environments is that there are a lot of well-defined processes regulating operations. Hence, flexibility is low, and boundaries are fixed.
Final Words
All that we’ve described above is to guide SDRs in choosing the right jobs for their skillset. If you wish to get hired, start by listing companies that demand the skills you currently have. If a company requires a higher level of skill set, upskill and then apply to get your best chances of being hired. Finally, understand the sales leader personas and learn to calibrate your presentation skills accordingly to match their hiring requirements. When hiring SDRs, sales leaders generally look for curiosity, wittiness, and strategic minds. That’s because proactive approaches and continuous learning are important in a sales career. All aspiring SDRs should imbibe these qualities in them to ensure professional success.
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