How to Crush Your First 90 Days as an SDR Leader
The first 90 days in a new role can set you up for success or failure. Get Lydia Hutchison's roadmap for the new BDR leader.
Breaking Down the First 30/60/90
The first 90 days in your role as a new BDR leader sets you, and your team, up for success – or failure. Whether you're transitioning from within the team or joining from outside the company, those first 30, 60, and 90 days are critical. It's not just about finding your footing; it's about setting the tone for your entire tenure. This is the time to learn, listen, and most importantly, to lead with purpose. Because when you set the right foundation and build strong relationships with your team, there's no limit to what you can achieve together.
Think of it like building a house. You wouldn't start throwing up walls without a solid foundation, right? Well, the same goes for leadership. These initial months are your chance to lay down that groundwork, cement your leadership style, and most importantly, build trust and rapport with your team.
Now, I know what you might be thinking – "But why is that so important?"
Well, picture this: You're the new kid on the block, and your team is sizing you up. They're wondering, "Is this person here to support us, or are they just here to shake things up?" That's where those one-on-ones in the first week become your secret weapon. They're not just chats; they're your chance to show your team that you're here for them, that you care about their success, and that you're ready to roll up your sleeves and work alongside them.
And let's not forget about those workflows and processes. You might be itching to jump in and start making changes, but trust me, taking the time to understand how things currently operate will pay dividends down the line. It's like being a detective, searching for clues about what's working and what's not, so you can come up with a game plan for improvement.
Read on for Lydia Hutchison’s approach to mastering your 30/60/90 day plan, and how she's used this method several times over.
Days 1-30: Learning
This period is all about learning the ropes and setting the stage for success.
If you’re like me, walking into a new role is overwhelming. You’re bursting with ideas and big plans to make a huge impact. The problem though, is where to start. Figuring out how to prioritize and focus. What to spend your time on first.
To keep it simple and absorb as much as possible, I always watch and learn for a bit. The goal is to absorb as much as you can, while building trust and confidence in you from your team.
In week one, you'll focus on setting the right tone with your team and building those crucial relationships. Through one-on-one sessions, you'll dive deep into understanding your team members' perspectives, goals, and needs.
My priority Week 1 is always to focus on 1:1’s covering the following:
How are they liking the job/company
How do they feel about their own results
What do they need more of and less of
What is their long term career goal and how can you help them get there
As you move into weeks 2-4, it's time to roll up your sleeves and get into the nitty-gritty of workflows, processes, and systems. Keep a sharp eye on sales materials and conversion rates to identify areas for improvement and set the groundwork for future success.
Focus on the following:
Dig deep into who does which part at which skill level, and note where you’ll focus coaching with each rep.
Audit sales materials and output quality. Keep a close eye on conversion rates for each template, channel, rep, etc. This will help you decide where to put your improvement focus.
Days 30-60: Implementing
Now that you’ve started building relationships and assessed the state of the BDR program it's time to shift gears and start implementing process improvements you've identified. Based on your observations and insights from the initial period you’ll want to:
Outline clear goals for yourself and your team on a monthly and quarterly basis.
Optimize strengths and scale back what is NOT working. For example, high performing campaigns or channels should be prioritized while you test and iterate on the other sources of low output.
Set up your coaching cadence. I recommend weekly sessions with each rep to talk about what’s working, what isn’t and what you can help with as well as any improvements you expect. This is also the time to start laying the groundwork for any outside training the team would benefit from.
Formalize your dashboards and reports. Make sure that everyone uses and respects them as the source of truth. Now, you might be asking “what should I be tracking?” I like to see data monthly, but you can set yours up however you like. Here is a list of metrics that should be on every SDR leader’s dashboard:
Activities (calls and emails). The reason for tracking this is to watch for patterns. Things like, how many touches it takes to get a meeting, correlations between activity and meetings or opportunities.
Call and email sentiment. This boils down to call dispositions and lead statuses. How are people receiving the message?
Meetings set. How many people agree to take a call? What personas is this happening within
Meetings HELD. What percentage of people actually show up to the meeting? This helps you understand how well the value is being pitched.
Opportunities from meetings held. How well qualified were those meetings?
Closed Revenue. Every leader needs to be able to show how they impact the actual revenue target.
*If you want to get really analytical you can slice and dice this data in many ways. By persona, vertical, geographic region. When you’re trying to find what works, analyze and report on everything possible.
Days 60-90 Day: Improving
You've made it to the home stretch – the last 90 days of your journey as a Sales Development Leader. Now is the time to turn insights into action and drive meaningful improvement. With formal processes in place for utilizing insights and establishing clear metrics, you'll continue to build trust within your team and across departments. As you draft your playbook for the future, remember that documenting your processes will not only enforce structure but also facilitate seamless onboarding for new hires. Here are some key items to focus on:
Have a formal process in place for using and acting on those insights you built dashboards for.
Establish clear metrics for the team and make sure everyone understands them and how you’re reporting on them. *TIP: I find it helpful to really double down on WHY each metric matters, so it doesn’t feel like some arbitrary number.
Focus on continuing to build trust with your team and across other departments. You’ll be leaning on a lot of people for resources. Have a coffee chat with that product marketing leader, customer success manager or your rev ops person.
Evaluate your tech stack! Yes, I know, it’s really hard to get new tools. But, when you can drive conversations with data (like your dashboards), you can clearly pinpoint issues with things like data quality.
Draft your playbook. Once you have a clear understanding of what your new process and guidelines will look like, document them. This will be immensely helpful for enforcing structure and onboarding new hires.
What to include in your playbook
Org chart and how SDRs align w the rest of the business
Communication guide for how to action each channel
SDR PRocess and workflows for Inbound and Outbound
Lead and opportunity lifecycles
Messaging library
Qualification criteria for meetings
Objection Handling
Tech Stack
Metrics and Dashboard links
References and resources
As you wrap up your journey through the first 30, 60, and 90 days as a Sales Development Leader, I hope you're feeling empowered and ready to take on whatever challenges come your way.
By now, you've laid down the groundwork, implemented process improvements, and started to see the fruits of your labor. But the journey doesn't end here. In fact, it's only just beginning. As you move forward, keep those lines of communication open with your team, continue to iterate and improve on your processes, and above all, never stop learning and growing.
So here's to building strong teams, driving sales growth, and making a lasting impact in your organization. Cheers to your continued success as a Sales Development Leader!
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