Insights and Research for Marketing, Sales Development and Sales

Every sales development rep (SDR) needs to do research as part of their prospecting and the more guidance their leaders can provide around this process, the more efficient SDRs can become. A clearly defined process for each stage of prospecting research can help SDRs accomplish one set of tasks then move on to the next set of tasks, rather than wasting time bouncing back and forth between the internet, CRM, and sales engagement platform for prospect information.

Sales development leaders spend their time developing their prospecting strategies and touch patterns, managing and coaching their teams of sales development representatives (SDRs), and measuring the team’s success at scheduling meetings so they don’t have time to do the work required to keep up with all of the latest sales development technology trends. Technology constantly undergoes rapid changes and that’s why TOPO analysts gather data, talk to companies, and watch the sales development technology landscape to discover the latest market trends.

The sales development technology stack supports how an organization prospects, regardless of the go-to-market (GTM) strategy used. It is the collection of software tools that help sales development leaders develop programs and processes for the sales development representatives (SDRs) who—in turn—plan, execute, track, and optimize their interactions with prospects and customers.

Analyses of sales effectiveness are usually based on the views of sales leaders. While those opinions are clearly important, it is equally important to hear about the day-to-day realities of sales directly from the reps in the trenches. That is why the TOPO Sales Sentiment Index (SSI) is based on feedback from sales reps themselves.

If you want to join the ranks of the highest of high-growth companies, do not leave alignment to chance. It’s a fool’s errand to expect a 22-year-old sales development rep (SDR) fresh out of university to develop a consistent, scalable, repeatable prioritization, execution, and qualification process. Be prescriptive in your expectations and methodical in the tools you arm your teams with. I use the sales development team as an example because they bridge the gap between marketing and sales, and are a pivotal piece to the pipeline puzzle.

Marketers target the most important prospects with cross-functional plays designed to drive meetings, and frequently send a unique gift as the core of the orchestrated play. The hope is that the gift will stand out to the prospect and they will agree to a meeting. With 87% of top-performing account based organizations using meeting plays, that’s a lot of iPads, drones, and bottles of wine shipped to corporate executives. Corporate gift policies—and the sheer volume of such gifts—can limit a marketer’s ability to be effective with this approach.

The only thing growing faster than our clients revenue today is the change they face in order to sustain growth. 

With our mission to help sales and marketing organizations grow revenue faster, we are excited to share that TOPO has agreed to be acquired by Gartner, the world’s leading research and advisory company. 

The job of a sales development rep (SDR) involves a high volume of repetitive tasks aimed at eliciting a response from a prospect. SDRs use different channels to contact prospects multiple times using similar, but slightly different, language based on the situation. The sales development leader is responsible for making the SDR team as effective and efficient as possible by providing proper guidance for this core job function.

One of the most critical roles a sales development rep (SDR) plays in an organization is to qualify prospects before they speak to sales. But the pressure to quickly qualify and handoff meetings to sales reps often results in leads that are passed along before the prospect has been fully qualified. This issue is compounded by sales reps with differing opinions of what constitutes qualification and who may ignore qualified leads that have come from SDRs. This lack of alignment causes problems on both sides of the handoff.

TOPO is excited to share that Summit 2020 will be April 23-24th, in San Francisco on the Embarcadero overlooking the waterfront. With over 86% of attendees expected to return, we are grateful for 5 years of ongoing support and are excited to welcome new attendees to make Summit 2020 the best yet!