Episode 24: 5 Questions with Austin Fuller

Austin Fuller, Director of Sales at NuArx, joins the UNSUBSCRIBE team to talk about vanity metrics! Why vanity metrics? Because Austin thinks they're one of the main culprits behind a dip in SDR quality (and we tend to agree with him). As he puts it: "SDRs are stuck performing activities that fulfill KPIs that don’t actually tie directly to won deals." Focusing on vanity metrics and attempting to 'backward waterfall' success has hindered the development of SDRs' skills. They aren’t put in a position to find unique perspectives on the industry, produce content, talk with customers and prospects in non-sales settings, etc. Until leadership and their KPIs change, SDRs will struggle to break free of the “appointment setter” stigma that sales leadership traps them in.  We're here to help make that change happen! The Questions 👇 Let’s dive into some KPIs that you consider to fall into this category of ‘vanity metrics.’ We’ll start with email opens - what’s wrong with tracking email open rates? Next, let’s dive into metrics around dials. What’s wrong with looking at call numbers as an SDR manager/leader? Now let’s talk about connects. What are some pitfalls around measuring the number of connects your reps generate? Now let’s look at the granddaddy of all KPIs, the one that other metrics funnel down toward - meetings. Where are teams going wrong when they measure the number of meetings booked? So all of these metrics are contributing to a broken system for SDRs. How do we fix it, and what does the future look like for the sales development role?