Enterprise Sales Development with Ashleigh Early

In this episode of Enterprise Sales Development podcast, we speak with Ashleigh Early, host and CEO of The Other Side of Sales. Ashleigh is also The Other Sales Coach and Consultant as well as Head Of Sales at The Duckbill Group. She draws from her experience in sales development to share insightful perspectives on prospect building and how to be an effective SDR manager. She talks about the three things she looks for in a first-time manager and the two things she looks for when hiring sales reps. She also discusses quotas, what is not actually captured in quotas and how to set them more properly. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN Why she likes in sales development How she coaches SDR managers and the three things she looks for in a first-time manager How to set quotas more precisely and why context is important Why should you concentrate on dark social, starting from an ad-value place Why she looks for empathy and curiosity when hiring sales reps and how she screens for that Why it’s important to understand customer success for prospecting QUOTES “I really believe sales is one of the few careers that you can have pretty much regardless of wherever you came from and whatever you’re dealing with.” -Ashleigh Early [01:57] “They don’t bring me in if everything’s going great. Very few people are going to pay my rates to get me to come in and say, ‘Great job.’ That’s not gonna happen. Honestly, I wouldn’t take that work to begin with.” -Ashleigh Early [03:03] “Every company decides quota differently, SDR and AD.” -Ashleigh Early [12:44] “SDRs do not have to understand everything about the product. They do not need to know everything about the industry to add value… But that doesn’t mean you can’t understand and emphasize with the person on the other side of the phone. That connection is where the meeting comes from, not your knowledge of the product.” -Ashleigh Early [29:10] “It’s a continual commitment process. The sale does not end when they sign the contract.” -Ashleigh Early [34:02] TIMESTAMPS [00:00] Intro [00:25] This week’s guest: Ashleigh Early [01:35] Two things she likes in sales development [02:46] Coaching SDR managers [06:55] Three things she looks for in first-time managers [09:33] Setting quotas and asking for context [14:24] Quota design [18:39] Why concentrate on dark social [23:50] What she looks for when she hires sale reps [31:05] When to start closing [34:45] Understanding customer success [39:58] When to send prospecting emails into fundraising rounds [42:11] Messaging and metrics [49:50] Networking for Dummies [52:04] How to contact Ashleigh RESOURCES Hurricane Sandy FireEye, Inc. What Is Dark Social And How Can You Measure It? The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million by Mark Roberge HubSpot Arista Networks, Inc. Business Networking For Dummies by Stefan Thomas CONNECT