You don’t have my attention

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I encouraged my team to reach out to customers with respect, conviction, perseverance, and empathy. Yet, as a prospect, I was very hard to reach. I didn’t generally respond to cold emails or LinkedIn requests from business development reps (BDRs).

In the age of distraction, I looked for every opportunity to promote relentless focus and prioritization. It’s hard but apparently, I’m not alone. At the SaaStr Annual conference, David Skok from Matrix Partners gave a presentation on the “12 Levers of SaaS Success” to a packed house of technology entrepreneurs.

As a preamble to his discussion on sales funnel conversion (getting customers to do something they are not motivated to do, as he put it), David asked a simple question; “Who here uses business development reps (BDRs) as part of their lead generation strategy?” Seventy-five percent of the audience raised their hands.


“Oh, yes, we love our BDRs don’t we,” he said as the hands tunisia telegram data lowered and the audience chuckled in agreement. “Let me ask you this,” he continued. “Who likes getting prospected by other people’s BDRs?”

Crickets.

If the very leaders who employ these tactics continue to build immunity to them, what hope do we have?

While I’ve long since believed that the future of sales will look very different than it does today, here are three fundamental issues I consistently see with prospecting outreach.

When I wake up in the morning and turn on my phone (OK, let’s be honest — it sits beside my bed and I never turn it off), I have about 20 new emails to read since the time I went to sleep.