[00:00:00] Darryl Praill: My name is Darryl Praill. I'm your host and you, my friend, well, you and I we're gonna go on a journey every single week, talking to the industry's most accomplished sales legends, as they share with us, their tips, their tricks, their techniques, and their tactics to becomes sales rockstars. You simply need to do what they're doing and you will achieve similar nirvana. If you like to laugh, you like to be entertained, if you'd like to go off on tangents and tell stories, you're going to love what you're going to hear next. Sit back, relax, it's going to get real.

It's another week here at the Inside Inside Sales show and folks, have you ever. Have you ever panicked when suddenly you realize that you're supposed to be at a meeting and you're not at a meeting and you know, the prospect is there and you know that you scheduled the meeting, you agreed to the meeting, you might've even used your own link for the meeting, and yet you're not there and you're panicking.

You're a little. Besides yourself. Well, here's what you need to know. It happens to the best of us. Now. I don't want to throw anybody under the bus here, but today's guest may or may not have shown up on time and been aware that they were speaking and knowing what they were to talk about. We're not going to, we're not going to go down that road.

This is a hypothetical it's totally hypothetical, but what I want to talk to you about, and by the way, I should mention before. That may result in a slightly shorter than normal podcasts, but on the, you know, value per month. Quotient. It's going to be off the charts. Plus my editors are going to be so happy.

And if you're out running or exercising, you might want to have a second podcast lined up. Okay. That's it. That's all my caveats for today. Here we go. Let's get into it. I love to rant, you know, that ha okay. So I just started a job. You know that to guess what I did when I started the job, I'll tell you. I thought about what were the top three things I needed to achieve in my job in the first year to be successful.

Then I thought about what were the top three things are going to drive those top three outcomes. Then I thought about what are the top three initiatives I had to do. Then I thought about what are the top three people I need to talk to? In other words, I could go won, but you get the idea here. People like to think in groups.

Sometimes five. If you look at the top performing pieces of content, it's like three things, you know, need to know five mistakes. You should never make, you know, these three morons couldn't pick up a girl. If their life depended upon it, you get the premise. So today we're going to talk about not one. But a trifecta on all things about amazing SDRs.

And I want you to think about it. I want you to sit still. I want you to contemplate. I want you to think about what are the top three attributes that you think, and I'm going to say SDR, but it could be an eight that you think you need to blow out your quota.

Get promoted. What are the top three? You got them. You ready? You thinking? All right. If this was Johnny Carson, if he was still on the air, kids, look it up. He don't know who Johnny Carson is. I be doing the great Carnac right now. And I'd be tapping my head saying, here's the envelope. Let's open it up. And here's the answer now?

Of course I'm not current. I could look at that. My guess is doing. If you're watching this on video, he knows her Carson is of course he's in California. That makes sense. Who is the individual who knows about all things, SDR. Well, I'll drop a hint here. Okay. Hit number one. He's been on the show before in number two, he's been on the show twice that makes this, this third time hint.

Number three, the company he represents that he found it is called Tenbounds. Hint. Number four, his wife is way prettier and more talented than he is. Hinton number five, he has got a garage full of Mr. Pep. It's a doll that makes noises and makes you feel good about yourself. And he's willing to sell it to you at a heavy discount for giveaways as he desperately, it looks for him.

[00:04:29] Sponsor: Are you in sales, but you're not using a sales engagement tool? Then you're probably losing out on revenue because you are not engaging with prospects at the right time, with the right cadence, and with enough persistency. You need VanillaSoft. Go to vanillasoft.com.

[00:04:45] Darryl Praill: All right. Those are your five hints. Who do you think it is? If you guess David Dulany. My friends. You were right, David. How are you doing my friend?

[00:04:51] David Dulany: I am doing fairly well. Darryl, thanks for having me on. And I'm excited to talk to you about this and just so you know, it's Mr. Pep-Talk

[00:04:58] Darryl Praill: Mr. Pep-Talk

[00:05:00] David Dulany: When you're not feeling well, and I cannot believe I don't have one here. I, I, my kids probably got ahold of him.

Well, I would have not normally I'd be back in my old office of VanillaSoft and I would just simply grab him. But. Fully in my home office here and I haven't fully unpacked yet. I will admit. So Mr. Pep-Talk whom I love and I have is not readily accessible either. So we're equally delinquent, but Mr. Pep-Talk talk, boys and girls, I did a Google once. If you Google Mr. Pep-Talk, you will find him. He is online and David can give you one hell of a deal. All right. So that's what you need to know. Operators are standing by Darryl and we've got a, I've got the inside track. So give me a call. We can get you as many of these as you need.

www.mrpeptalk.com

[00:05:40] Darryl Praill: MrPepTalk.com. I love it. Okay. tenbound.com. As long as we're doing the dot.com game and boys and girls, if you don't attend band, let me tell you one thing. It is the place to go to for all things around sales development, as it relates specifically, but not exclusively, but specifically their expertise, their specialization.

Around S D RS David. Today, we're doing this very compressed timeline because it's possible that you might have been late. But theoretically possible, of course not actual because you understand that, that one of the amazing attributes of incredible STR maybe even one of the trifecta aspects is showing up on time.

Now that I've given you enough grief, talk to me, David, I'm just going to torment David nonstop. Your folks here are do that. You're like a dog with a bone and you won't let them. I do this to my wife occasionally to, I don't know why we're still married. What are the top three things? Okay. So folks, remember I said, think about the top three things.

Okay. Karnak when you opened your envelope, what were the top three things that would our key. To helping an SDR, blow out their quota and get promoted. And then I want to know, are they good at it or are they not go?

[00:06:49] David Dulany: It's a good question. And you know, Darryl, I was running SDR teams at tech companies for a number of years before starting Tenbound.

And then we actually now work with SDR teams and SDR li. To help them with their predictable pipeline hands-on every day. So I'm, I'm still in this, and it's really interesting in observing top-performing SDS. Versus folks that, that struggle and, and and just understanding some of the differences that we see out there.

And, and I'm going to start with the one aspect that is not a determinant, which is I'm kind of going the opposite way. What's not a determinant necessarily is product knowledge. And that's usually where SDRs will start. When they start with the company, they'll go in and learn everything about their company, the systems, the process, the processes internally, and the product that they have.

And I think you've, you know, this as well as I do the customers and the prospects couldn't care less about your product. So it's a lot of times. And not necessarily the payoff. So what are the big three? That's what we're going to be talking about.

[00:08:04] Darryl Praill: Okay. Okay. Before you answered that funny story, there was a study we did when I was at VanillaSoft, where we commissioned this, we did, we surveyed 2000 buyers, senior level buyers.

All right. And we said, what are the top competencies you want? Product knowledge was not number one. Now I don't know if. Spill the beans on your trifecta, but I will share with you what number one was up 2000 buyers. It was. Understanding the buyer's business needs. 89% said they valued that as the number one attribute by far number one.

All right. That's it. So that I steal your thunder or what you go for it brother.

[00:08:50] David Dulany: Big time, a big time. So there's three things and you just hit number one, which is industry and persona knowledge. So we put it into that bucket. So what is it? It's essentially understanding at a high level, the vocabulary, the problems, the pain points, what your industry is dealing with.

As far as the, the difficulties and the, the, the struggles that they're going through, and then specifically the people that you're calling, what are their specific you know, goals, objectives, and, and problems that they're trying to solve at a high level. So we're not talking about personalization, we're not talking.

Making every single message that you send out, but just at a high level, do you understand the vocabulary? And do you understand some of the major pain points of your industry and your persona? So that's thing, number one.

[00:09:49] Darryl Praill: Okay. I want to stop there and I know we're on a compressed timeline. We're going to talk fast in my sales experience, whether I was a rep or I was a sales leader. Most reps, 80 plus percent, according to Darryl's unscientific math had no knowledge of their industry other than what they were taught by their employer during their initial onboarding process.

[00:10:13] David Dulany: Yeah.

[00:10:13] Darryl Praill: And made no effort to get to know their. What have you seen?

[00:10:17] David Dulany: A hundred percent because if you think about it, most SDRs get into the job and they're just looking for a job.

They're looking for a way to get into the tech industry, get some experience. And so then that they can you know proceed to become an, AE or to become a marketer or, you know, get their foot in the door in the company. And so they're not necessarily interested in the industry that they're calling on or even the person.

The people that they're calling on. So, you know, if you're not interested in a topic, you're not going to spend a lot of time. You know, learning about it and figuring out how you can help. And so if, if you're in that, you know, 1% and you want to become a tremendous SDR and, and it'd get better in your career, there's a, there's a resources out there.

Read the blogs that your industry and. Tune into watch the conference talks that they watch jump onto the newsletters that they read. And really just, all you're trying to do is get that vocabulary so that when you create a message, you're actually talking about a problem that they have versus your product, which nobody really cares about.

[00:11:28] Darryl Praill: So if you're a new SDR, pro-tip for me, make a point of calling one to two existing Marquis. I do customer profile. Customers a week. So you do two a week when you're just ramping up. Then the first three months, that's 12, you've talked to 24 customers. You are there. Even we call one a week, that's still 12 customers.

You will get it and ask them, why are they a customer? What was the problems? They needed everything else. If for whatever reason you can't do that, you know, a lot of do that stupid as the case, go to your customer, success people and ask them, what are they seeing as they make your customers a success? All right.

So everything David. Plus that be intentional, do that. What's number two, my friend?

[00:12:09] David Dulany: A hundred percent, a hundred percent. And then th the, the next thing is more along the lines of sales training. So D the, the best SDRs that we see out there dive in to the sales skills aspect of the job. So that means a lot of role playing a lot of training, online training.

Studying, how do you become the best at handling objections? Pitching your value proposition, getting meetings, staying focused, time management, all the things that make a great sales person dive in and get those sales skills critical.

[00:12:47] Darryl Praill: Sure. A story with you folks. I was talking to my head of sales of the day.

She was sharing with me how we're working with the sales trainer and outside sales. They who shall remain nameless, but are expensive and talented. Are they talented because they're expensive? I don't know. But you figured that part out regardless. This is what happened. They did a role calling, you know, a role-playing a phone call pitching the whole nine yards.

I can't talk today, but you get the idea and the sales trainer just rip them all with love and respect. I want to be clear on this, but called them out and how they suck. Suck, suck, sorry, sorry. Sorry. And afterwards, the sales manager went back to the head of sales and they were upset. Because the sales trainer essentially hurt their feelings.

I'm just being a smart ass. That's not what they said, but you get the idea. They're very rough on them. Guess what? It's tough. Love if you. Can't survive a sales trainer, the real world's going to eat your sorry, ass up. You should welcome that. Who make your mistakes there. And then when they over prep, you, you will go out and you will hit a home run and you will be very, very rich and you will then go buy the Lamborghini and you will flaunt it.

Dulany and I who do not have one. So if one was industry and persona knowledge and two is prospecting and sales skills, what my friend is number three?

[00:14:06] David Dulany: Well, this is another thing that's totally learnable and that's grit your mindset. And that means that it is so easy if you've been punched in the face a few times, you know, theoretically after a whole lifetime of getting a blue ribbon, you know, just for showing up at the soccer game.

And now suddenly you're, you're out there and like Darryl, you mentioned you're, you're taking the punches and you're trying to use your sales skills and you're trying to use her industry vocabulary. A lot of people are not looking right now for solutions. And the truth is that you know, you're probably interrupting them and, and, you know, in your activities.

So you're going to have to really focus on developing a gritty entrepreneurial, get it done no matter what type of mindset and that's something that you can do every day. There's so many resources that can help you go from sort of a negative. Naysayer to a positive attitude believer. And you've really got to focus on that.

[00:15:10] Darryl Praill: If you're a longtime fan of the show, you will have heard me say over and over and over again, that the biggest sales skill you need is mindset. Now I've given you lots of recommendations before I've given. I brought in guests on the, on the podcast to talk about mindset. So I'm not going to beat that up.

You can go find that yourself or just Google it, but mindset is huge. It's it's it's, it's literally as simple. Being intentional about how you react to a tough situation. So you make 50 calls a day and nobody answers the phone. How are you going to choose to react? You do get five conversations in those 50 calls of which three of them yell at you and call you everything in the book.

How are you going to choose? To react. Mindset is a choice. That's the biggest thing you need to understand. Now I understand this mental health. We're not talking about mental health equity mindset. All right. One of the things I love as a friend of mine, another great trainer once said, the reason we find sales so hard is because mom and dad.

When we were young, taught us to be polite, say yes, please. You know? Yes, sir. Yes. Ma'am no thing. You know, they're not to interrupt, not to be rude. Sales says, you need to throw all that out because you are going to interrupt them and you are going to be annoying. All right, mindset. You choose to do that.

How you choose to react will dictate your success. So my brother, I've heard you say the three, the, the, the amazing SDR trifecta is industry and persona knowledge. We talked about how to get. Prospecting and sales skills. We talked about pursuing that lots of resources. We'll come back to that one and three being gritty and having an entrepreneurial mindset about mindset, the power of the mindset, how you choose to react.

Okay. Let's go back to prospecting and sales skills. There's this little website I've heard of an organization. I call Tenbound. Have you heard of it, David?

[00:17:03] David Dulany: Yes. I highly recommend it. Five stars.

[00:17:06] Darryl Praill: Tenbound.com. If you can give our audience one tip as it relates to this tiny organization called Tenbounds, as it relates to that trifecta skill of developing.

What would that one tip piece of advice, counsel wise, words, wisdom be?

[00:17:26] David Dulany: Yes. I go to the website, get on the newsletter. It's free and ton of prospecting and sales skills, advice, mindset, advice, industry personas. Coming out once a week. And did I mention that it was completely free?

[00:17:41] Darryl Praill: It may come up. I will tell you this folks, the, I have been to numerous Tenbound events.

I have found their traditional sales development conference, which I know they've been virtual the last little while, but even I've been doing it when I was live. I'm not saying this. This is my top two conferences in the industry, two very different comps. They don't know. I would say would be outbound worlds apart in, in style and format.

That's how good the conference is. If you want to learn. Talk to your boss, do it as a group thing. Just go and do it, David. Thanks for joining us today. I am so glad you're here. Best way to get ahold of you. My friend, LinkedIn. I'm guessing?

[00:18:19] David Dulany: Yeah, LinkedIn it's D U L A N Y. So it's a little bit different. And then Tenbounders, T E N B O U N D .com.

[00:18:28] Darryl Praill: All right, David, you as always our rock star. I think your brother, Fred. Did you have fun today? It was compressed. It was tight, but I told you on the messaging per minute quotient, we were going to kick ass. And I think we did just that I will see you next week. Take care. Bye-bye.

This episode was digitally transcribed.