Planning the Perfect Sales Day Part One: Sales Development Reps

Part of our culture here at Revenue.io is to regularly talk to sales managers as well as sales reps so we can better understand how to improve sales processes. We nearly always learn something valuable from these conversations that we either pass on to others in the sales community through our content, or to our product team so they can devise new ways to help companies accelerate sales.

Since we routinely share what sales leaders tell us is important to them, we thought we would also share some insight from some of the hard-working SDRs that we talk to.

Michael Slator, sales development rep for NEOGOV

For this piece, we chose to feature Michael Slator of NEOGOV. Take one look at his LinkedIn profile and you’ll quickly notice his ambition, drive and in-it-to-win-it attitude—all qualities we feel are essential to being a successful SDR. We think that by highlighting how one successful SDR would ideally plan his day, it could potentially help other sales development reps successfully evaluate how to plan their daily sales activities more successfully.

NEOGOV, a company that provides the public sector with HR solutions, is one of the growing number of companies that handles all of their sales remotely. According to Slator, his job at NEOGOV is to reach HR decision makers, schedule a demonstration, and ensure that the lead shows up to the demonstration. As anyone who has worked as an SDR can tell you, getting leads to book and then actually show up to appointments is a lot easier said than done!

In Slator’s own words, here is a schedule for what a perfect sales day would look like:

8am – Check and respond to all emails/voicemails (this can be a rarity for SDRs, so seeing anything in my “inbox” is thrilling).

8:15am – Follow-up with all leads scheduled for demonstrations that day. This is incredibly important; from my experience sales development is 2/3 initial pitch, 1/3 solid follow-up for cold leads. This means that, yes, the initial cold-call is important, but following up is crucial too. Follow-up consists of emailing the lead the night prior to the scheduled demonstration, as well as calling them the morning of (the demo) to remind them and ask if they have any questions before it begins.

9:00am – More follow-up, but now I’m reaching out to call-backs that were “too busy this week, try next” or “we’re looking at our budget next month, try me then” or “she’s out of the office call back tomorrow.” These phone calls generate 75% of my booked demonstration because they are already familiar with NEOGOV and know what the phone call is regarding.

11:00am – Begin cold-calling or calling on existing customers. The goal is to hit 100 phone calls and 20 conversations every day, so often times the cold-calling can begin earlier than 11:00am depending on amount of call-backs.

12:30pm – Lunch

1pm – Check and respond to emails. Speak with my Account Manager in regards to how many “leads” showed up to the demonstrations from that morning, and send the appropriate follow-up information (one-page brochure and contact information for pricing if interested – from there, it is up to the Account Manager to stay engaged with the lead).

1:15pm – Cold calling, and a lot of it.

2:30pm – Coffee break, or at least getting up and walking outside. Stimulating blood flow is crucial to the life of an SDR – you’ll never make it if you don’t take breaks. It’s also a good time to reflect on the flow of your conversations that day – I like to think about conversations that didn’t go as well that day (or objections I didn’t handle properly) and reflect on how I can make them more smooth and flowing.

2:45pm – More cold calling.

4:00pm – Sending out follow-up emails from the demonstrations that are scheduled to take place the following day. It’s a good time to catch leads before they leave the office to give them a quick reminder about tomorrow’s demonstration. If the demonstration occurs before 8am, I’ll preset an email and schedule it to deliver to them at 5 or 6 in the morning. That way, it will be on top of their mailbox when they arrive at the office.

5pm – Head home for the day for some much needed R & R.

Thanks to Michael Slator and NEOGOV for their participation!

Want to learn more about what it takes to build a successful team of sales development reps? Check out our eBook How to Fast-Track Revenue with a Dedicated Sales Development Team.