Structuring Your Day

We’re back!

It’s Time that BTD picks up the pace.

Last time we spoke I finished a series on cold outreach. We started with cold outreach because the plan is to help build new readers from entry-level sales reps and SDRs to full-blown Sales Turbos and to do that, we need to start off with a baseline skillset. We will help add skills and guidance from succeeding as an SDR/BDR to AE and beyond.

Now that the intro course is done, let’s talk about surviving, and thriving day-to-day!

One of the main reasons I advocate going into sales (Specifically Tech Sales) is because it is a high-paying career option, that doesn’t take over your life. Get good and not only will you not be doing 100 hour weeks like some other high-value career paths, but you can actually claim back a lot of your ‘9-5’ time to work on your own business. This is a quick intro to time management, and why you need to follow BowTiedBull’s golden rule of “Doing the opposite”. We don’t have a hard structure for you to follow - as that is what your sales managers are going to tell you to do - but we do have some suggestions and a shift of mindset on how to approach your day.

This is focused as SDRs and Full Cycle reps, we will do another post for closing roles.

Time Management In Sales

What is expected - MCMB Approach?

It’s important to understand that even though it is true that you can work less than an 8 hours day while being successful, your management is unlikely to agree!

What does management think you should be doing? Well if you’re an SDR it’ll likely look like this:

At multiple companies I’ve been at this is the standard layout when SDRs are being trained on how they should approach time management - have every moment scheduled out for productive tasks. Even this one is relatively easy compared to some that I’ve seen.

This is built around having a pure numbers game approach (More calls = more bookings - MCMB) - mentality. If you’re looking at this slide in your onboarding, you’ll likely have higher call targets, and continually hear “Make the calls and the bookings will come”.

There is something to be said for this approach, it works to a limited extent, and it works for 1 reason - The MCMB mentality comes down from management who have designed the system to extract as much value as possible from underperforming or below average sales teams.

Force a below-average rep with no real skill or strategy to hit the phones all day every day and you will get lucky occasionally.

It may work, but it is extremely inefficient. BTD readers aren’t average and below-average sales reps. You are sales professionals, and when you put this in front of people who are above average, they get burnt out, don’t have time to do more important work, and become habitual underperformers.

If you are new to the role, and haven’t won over management, or want to clock in, clock out this approach is for you.

How can we improve on MCMB time management?

There are a number of ways we can improve on this. We advocate remote work so that you can spend your working hours paying attention to more than one stream of income - whether it is two WFH salaried roles, your career+your wifi money, whatever it is, this is the main improvement to MCMB.

Once you get the basics of how to do your job down, YOU WILL NOT NEED TO SPEND 8 HOURS A DAY WORKING to get to target. Figure out what your high priority tasks are, do them in the morning, and be done with it.

As a quick example:

Back when we were SDRs we had 3 major KPIs, Calls dialled, meetings booked, and MRR (Monthly Reoccurring Revenue) generated. While other SDRs were focusing on following the calendar layout above, we simply did the opposite - smashed out call target immediately. If the calls were 40 for the day, we did not stop until 40 were done. This is easy, 40 calls can be done in less than an hour that way. These calls should not be random though.

For the other stats, things were the same, other SDRs focused on volume, going after as many prospects as possible directly with the same script over and over. We focused on top quality, and the right person, as well as a structured plan of attack. We’ve written a primer on cold outreach in it’s many forms, and in the future we will write deep dives into each one to further your mastery, but the primers are enough to know how to approach your prospects. So using your knowledge, and a little bit of brain power, look at who you and your colleagues have booked in the past, which types of businesses, what personas, what use cases close the best, book the best etc. and focus solely on those. Do targeted calls only to prospect’s mobiles (Get zoom info, or sign up for free versions of Lusha + Zoominfo). If you are focusing on the right people, using the right approach, and you are directly connecting (Fuck gatekeepers and hold music) there is no reason you won’t be able to hit your booking and revenue targets.

If you’re a paid subscriber you also have our SDR forecaster tool - this will make things even easier going into your quarter knowing who you’re going to book and when. Why stress like everyone else when you can be ahead of the game?

If you’re not already subscribed, consider signing up to get the SDR Forecaster and other tools to dominate your career.

We have found that spending 1-3 hours on outreach, 1-2 hours on prospecting/admin per day as an SDR once you’ve gotten a hold on the best practices for your current company is enough to hit target.

Remember, you don’t want to be the TOP performer, you want to be in the top 10% of performers. Less stress put on you from management, but doing well enough that no one questions you.

SO you’ve done your calls to targeted people. all before lunch. You’ll probably have a few meetings throughout the day and stay on slack, but as an SDR there really isn’t a need to work more than 3-5 hours. The rest of the time you should be focusing on building out another form of income.

This quick post is just a hello, we’re back. There are a number of posts already written to be released weekly for a while. Both paid and free posts are going back to normal frequency, with some special additions in between.

Happy holidays and enjoy EOQ!

BTD

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