Motivating your SDR team should be on the top of your priority list as an SDR Manager. If you’re an SDR Manager, you may have been an SDR in the past yourself, and you’ll recognise how taxing the role can be. In fact, SDRs have one of the highest burnout rates in sales, averaging 15 months.
So, what can we do to keep our team motivated and decrease their turnover?
Setting goals and establishing a compensation plan that makes sense
When setting the goals for your SDRs, don’t just focus on the large ones but also set smaller goals that are easier to achieve. This will keep them motivated to keep working towards the larger goals.
Building the right compensation plan is no easy task and, as perfect as it might be, it’ll probably need adjusting throughout time. The compensation plan needs to make sense for the company (what do we want our SDRs to deliver?), but it also needs to make sense for the SDRs.
Recognition
Recognise all successes – big or small.
How?
Mention them on Slack, give them credit on LinkedIn! Or why not surprise the team with a take-out in the office?
Why not bring this recognition to the digital world? There are plenty of recognition tools out there. Check out Kudos, for instance.
Invest on training
Regular one-on-one meetings with each SDR will give you a great overview of how your team is feeling, the problems they face regularly, and what you can do to help them further.
Power hours have also proven to be very effective to motivate SDR teams. Gather your team and block time off your calendars for 1 hour. Have each SDR make a cold call on the speaker and give feedback. This will also promote friendly competition amongst the team and will create a positive and exciting environment!
Plus, no one is born knowing how to do sales. Motivate your SDR team by offering them quality training. If it’s not offered internally, look for external trainers and bootcamps.
Make their job easier
Being an SDR is hard enough to have to worry about basic aspects of the role – finding the leads’ contact info, introducing all the outreach information on the CRM…
Give them the tools to be better and more efficient in their jobs.
Develop a career path
Being an SDR is not a forever job. Full stop.
So show your team that there’s something for them if they deliver. Many SDRs will probably want to continue a career in sales and become an Account Executive. But bear in mind that some SDRs might prefer another career path. Don’t close that door!
Give them freedom in their approach
We always say that being an SDR is also about being human. We do need to provide the SDRs with a Sales Playbook and structure on how to reach out to the leads, true! But once they get a hold of things, let them be them.
Are they great at video prospecting? Are they achieving results through LinkedIn voice messages? If it works for them, great! They’ll be happier and provide better results.
What we mean is – motivate your SDR team by allowing each SDR to be themselves.
If you’d like to know more about onboarding, check out this article.
Want to read more fresh content about the role of an SDR and sales teams? Check out more articles.