Dan BrockwellThe traditional method for B2B companies involves splitting sales development teams into inbound and outbound reps. While this approach can be effective, it often presents challenges related to attribution and potential brand damage.
We encourage the combination of these two approaches, advocating for each rep to adopt an "All-Bound" strategy. This shift can result in improved conversions and more robust sales development for reps.
Before diving in, let's clarify the differences between an inbound and outbound SDR.
What’s an Inbound SDR?
An inbound sales development representative focuses on engaging with leads who have already expressed interest in your company through various marketing efforts.
These leads, referred to as warm leads, have demonstrated prior knowledge or interest in your business before any contact is made.
These marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) demonstrate actions like filling out contact forms on your website, subscribing to newsletters or blogs, downloading content after submitting landing page forms, or providing information at conferences.
Different marketing activities indicate varying levels of intent; for example, requesting a call demonstrates more interest than simply downloading educational content. Understanding the sources of MQLs and their impact on sales pipeline is crucial.
Inbound leads are generally easier to qualify and schedule sales meetings with, which is why companies may compensate inbound SDRs less than outbound reps.
What’s an Outbound SDR?
An outbound sales development representative establishes connections by reaching out to leads likely with no context on your product.
Since cold leads typically have no prior familiarity with your company, it's often more challenging for an SDR to pique their interest in your product or offer and has a lot lower conversion rates than inbound.
However, despite the challenges, investing in an outbound sales motion is worthwhile. Even converting a small percentage, like 1%, of your cold leads can result in signing high-value deals you would never have otherwise closed.
Additionally, outbound sales efforts often contribute to generating inbound leads. By raising awareness of the product, outbound activities can prompt discussions among prospects who may not yet be in your sales funnel but are potentially interested.
Why the Siloed SDR Approach Creates Challenges
Inbound SDR teams are twice as likely to report to marketing leadership rather than sales (Bridge Group, 2018). This is because they primarily focus on handling follow-ups with MQLs and ensuring the conversion of inbound leads.
However, maintaining separate SDR teams can pose various challenges as it can lead to confusion among representatives and breakdowns in communication between teams as well as difficulties with attribution.
Here are 2 common challenges that arise with a split approach:
Attribution Challenges
Miscommunication between inbound and outbound SDR teams can affect attribution quality for SQL conversions to the appropriate representative or channel.
Consider this example scenario:
- An outbound SDR makes a cold call to a new lead.
- Although the lead isn't immediately qualified or converted, they share information about your company with a colleague.
- The colleague then looks up your company online and downloads an online resource, becoming an MQL in your database.
- An inbound SDR follows up with this "new" MQL, qualifies and converts them into an SQL, and schedules a sales meeting.
This scenario shows how outbound efforts can result in inbound leads. However, because the lead's interaction spans both inbound and outbound channels, the effectiveness of outbound activities may appear overlooked.
In this example, the outbound representative initiated contact and raised awareness for the account. Yet, due to limited visibility into internal communications at the lead's company, the outbound SDR may not receive proper recognition for their contribution to this conversion.
This situation not only impacts the outbound rep's metrics unfairly but also compromises the accuracy of team metrics reporting.
When inbound and outbound efforts are kept separate, pinpointing the exact lead sources for sales-qualified leads becomes significantly more challenging.
Customer Communication Challenges
Lack of organisation within the sales development team can reflect poorly on your company's brand, affecting how prospects perceive your business.
Consider this scenario:
- An outbound SDR tries to reach a decision-maker, leaving a voicemail when the cold lead doesn't pick up.
- The voicemail sparks the interest of the lead, leading them to assign research to a lower level employee.
- After checking out your website, the lower level employee fills out a contact form to request more information.
- Later, an inbound SDR follows up with the employee (now an MQL), eventually scheduling a sales meeting.
- The employee (now an SQL) attends the meeting and is considering making a purchase.
- Meanwhile, the outbound rep keeps calling and emailing the original lead, unaware that the account has progressed to the opportunity stage.
Persistently contacting a prospect already engaged in the conversion process can endanger the deal, spruiking unprofessionalism and potentially leading to the loss of future sales.
Having separate teams increases the chances of SDRs missing important interactions and tarnishing your brand's reputation
Develop an All-Bound Sales Development Approach
Implementing an all-bound outreach strategy involves integrating inbound and outbound efforts to jointly increase SQLs.
Instead of separating your database by lead type, consider organising contacts and assigning individual reps ownership of specific accounts.
To effectively divide accounts among reps, establish clear segmentation criteria, such as:
- Geographic territories
- Company size (bigger companies go to more senior reps)
- Industry or vertical segmentation
Choose a segmentation method that aligns with your company's needs and buyer preferences. Assigning account groups to reps streamlines scalability, making it simpler to replicate for varying lead volumes and ensuring fair opportunities for each SDR.
Benefits of an All-Bound SDR Strategy
Creating an all-bound sales development strategy offers many benefits beyond just enhancing conversion rates.
Reps just focused on cold calling can also lead to discouragement due to frequent rejection, but combining cold calling with warm lead can boost morale and help with confidence.
Additionally, as aforementioned inbound activities complement outbound efforts and vice versa.
Inbound follow-up provides more opportunities to engage with prospects and address common pain points and objections.
Outbound activities teach SDRs crucial skills for converting cold leads to sales-qualified leads, which translates to more efficient qualification of inbound leads and shorter sales cycles.
An all-bound team ensures equal opportunities for all reps to convert leads, regardless of inbound or outbound focus.
Uniform evaluation metrics allow for better visibility into the effectiveness of both inbound lead generation and outbound outreach, enabling adjustments for improved outcomes.
Inbound lead volume fluctuates based on marketing initiatives, making it crucial to avoid siloing inbound reps.
An all-bound team ensures reps remain active and engaged regardless of lead volume fluctuations.
Setting targets for outbound activity helps prevent SDRs from solely relying on inbound leads and ensures a balanced approach.
Benchmarks should be reasonable and adjusted according to the volume of both inbound and outbound leads at any given time.