EPISODE #001
How being “the Idiot in the Room” gave me an SDR advantage. Learn the secrets to sales development success in the world of SaaS with Neil Bhuiyan.
Welcome to the first-ever episode of the SDR DiscoCall podcast, hosted by HappySelling Founder and MD Neil Bhuiyan.
Listen in for inspiration from the man who has learned from the ground up the secrets to success as an SDR and now wants to share these insights and practices to help brand new SDRs become happy and successful sellers in their own right. Neil shares the story of how he went from teenage tearaway and someone with an inherent dislike for the stereotypical salesperson to become a successful SDR and now MD of his own SDR training and consultancy business, all without a university education or a formal sales training background. Neil is living proof that with passion, belief, and an enthusiasm to never stop learning, the sky’s the limit.
Listen on Apple Podcasts
EPISODE #001 TRANSCRIPT
TL;DR
+ Introduction [00:00:09.610]
Hello and welcome to the first ever SDR Disco-Call Podcast with your host Neil Bhuiyan. I'm also the Managing Director of a company called HappySelling Ltd and my role is to make brand new sales development reps or SDRs into HappySellers. And I do this by providing SDR training as well as consultancy. Today, we're going to be talking about my own SDR story of how I started many years ago and kind of got to HappySelling. Before I do, though, I just wanted to give some context as to why am I launching the SDR Disco-Call Podcast.
+ How the SDR Disco-Call Podcast Came About [00:00:44.110]
Well, earlier this year with the pandemic that was going on, like a lot of us had a lot of free time on my hands and I had the great opportunity to meet a lot of up and coming budding SDRs that were relatively new to the role (a year or two in) so I could hear about their stories, learn best practices, and then share these insights with my current students. And then it dawned on me, I listened to a lot of podcasts. However, I haven't found one which was designed specifically for brand new reps who are coming into the role of sales development in SaaS companies. And wouldn't it be nice if they were able to hear from other SDRs that were currently in the role themselves to share these insights and best practices to help you guys become successful and HappySellers? So, as mentioned, I’m going to be going into my own story today and we've got some great guests coming up from multiple companies. And I really look forward to having this journey with you guys.
So how does the SDR Disco-Call Podcast work? Well, it's actually a Discovery Call, hence the name.
And every Tuesday at 8am, we're going to have a brand new SDR for 30 minutes and an agenda of introductions their SDR story and three key takeaways that they've learned to share with other SDRs.
+ Neil’s Story: The Early Days [00:01:58.470]
So with that in mind, let's begin. So with my actual story itself, before we go into sales, I'd like to kind of give you the journey of how I got into sales and why I got interested, because to be honest, it wasn't something that I ever foresaw that was going to be right for me.
So when I came out of college, I decided that I didn't want to go to university. It didn't really appeal to me at the time. And I love to work more than earn money than I did go to continue studying. And in truth, I had a little bit of a problem with authority when I was young. I was a bit of a tearaway and I still hold some of those traits today, but I've matured a little bit more, I hope to think, and I'm able to manage those emotions.
But within my working career, I've worked in food and hospitality, I've worked in logistics, and most of these roles were customer facing or customer service type roles so I was always speaking to customers either on the phone or face to face, and I really love that interaction. And then I got a job in local government. (local authority, Wandsworth Borough Council) where I was a Housing Benefit Officer. So my role was to help people from the local authority to see if they were eligible to claim state welfare and benefits to help them with their housing and council tax needs.
And I really felt like I was giving back to the community. I was helping people. And again, not having that university degree, I lacked a lot of things which I was able to learn doing that job. So I was able to learn financial intelligence, how to write a proper official letter and how to conduct interviews which would aid me later in life. So what I would do is I would look through documentation. I'd have to build a picture of this client and then sit down with them for an hour interview to discuss what they were able to receive and in some cases, being able to tell them actually they weren't eligible and having to have really hard conversations.
At a young age, this really helped me build out my character and also kind of figure out that I loved working within businesses. I love helping people. And I was also, admittedly, a bit of a tech geek. So any time there are any gadgets or smartphones or anything that were coming about, I was always that first guy to have it in the office and I wouldn't stop talking about it. And kind of what got me interested in sales is a funny story, and it was inspired by Apple.
+ It started with an Iphone [00:04:16.480]
So when the iPhone 3G first came about, I was one of the first guys to get it. I was a hardcore Nokia man back in the day and I was amazed at this device that you were able to install, apps for games, for TV, etc. And you didn't have to go into a menu / submenu to read your messages. It was just at the click of a finger. Right. And a lot of my work colleagues were like 'Neil it's just a phone as long as I can call and receive it. And that's all I need to do.' But I'd always find use cases as to how individuals would be able to find it. So I had a manager, Sarah. She was a lovely lady. She had two kids and she she would always say, Neil, get off your phone, get off your phone, get back to work, which I do quite a lot.
But I said oh, Sarah, I found this cool app. There's an app for this. There's an app for that. And she said, Neil look, a phone is a phone and all you need to do is just call people, send a couple of texts and that's it. And I was like, OK, well, Sarah, like you were telling me the other day that you went to the doctor's appointment and had you two kids were with you and they're quite young. They're quite rowdy and noisy. I said to her, well, look, here's a cool app where they can actually play activity games. It's Sesame Street. You can also like them, watch YouTube videos, etc, or you can even watch live TV from that. What do you think of that? And then a few weeks later, Sarah came back to my desk and said, Neil, I think I'm going to go buy the iPhone. And I thought, oh, great, come on board, get rid of that BlackBerry, that horrible business phone that you've got. And would you know it like in a department of like three hundred people within like two or three months, at least twenty five different people had bought an iPhone based on me just going on and on and on about. And I remember one day a good friend of mine, Michael, said to me, like, Neil, dude, do you work for Apple? Like, do they pay you commission? I was like no, no.
But I thought, hmmm, if I can convince people and kind of like show them that, you know, this is a great product and this is something that can benefit their life is that something I want to get into. And at that point, I didn't really know how to go about it because I didn't have any sales experience. I wasn't really a sales person because I always thought they were up their own arses and they were quite stuck up and they were money hungry. And that's not really what I was about.
So I decided to explore this a little bit further.
+ Why not having a university degree shouldn’t hold you back? [00:06:33.890]
Well, the thing that always stuck in the back of my head was I got this job at Wandsworth Council through a friend because obviously I wasn't successful in college and I didn't have that university degree and most sales qualifications or jobs at the time you had to have a degree. It was a requisite. So I thought, well, you know what? How about I do the same thing I did at Wandsworth - work my way through the ranks, learn how things work, and then see if there's an opening.
Right. So I approached a company called Reed Business Information. So they’re a B2B publisher and well known. They do a lot of publications around the world. You've probably read their magazines or subscribed to their articles. But I found a finance sales support admin position within their Proctor Street office in central London. And basically my job was to support a sales team with all the subscriptions that they had closed with customers, do all the billing. And what I really wanted to do was just literally sit on a bank of sales rep and just hear them doing their sales calls, like doing their team meetings, watching these like top billers and top closers like make sh*t tonnes of commission and all that great jazz.
And basically it was so awe inspiring to like see a collective group of girls like hitting their targets, working with each other to figure out what's going to be the best proposal to send over the client, having to answer to the manager when they didn't hit their target. And there was just so much hype that really inspired me. I said, you know what? That's what I want to do. That's what I want to be part of. But that position itself was only a six month contract and it came to an end.
And thankfully, my manager got me into a finance position within the main head office of RBI based in Sutton. And there I worked under a new product portfolio called XpertHR It was an online SaaS, H.R. solution, and my job was basically to save the customers after the sales reps had closed them.
So I would do all the billing, the subscription, the invoicing. And then if customers got stuck on the online portal, they would ring our support line, which would mainly be me, and I would walk them through how to like reset their password, etc, etc.
And then over time, what I found is I actually started to hate the sales guys because they would always sell them products or perhaps weren't clear in exactly what the customer or the customer just didn't understand it. So I was kind of like the agony aunt on the other end of the phone and just walking through customers and just, you know, making them happy and making them sure that they felt right, that they bought the right product. And the thing that the other ladies that I used to work with within that finance team, they said, you know what, Neil like you're a better salesperson than some of those guys out there because you actually know the product in and out. You really help out these customers and you help get these renewals in as well. Like, have you ever thought about going into sales? And I sat and I said, yeah, you know, I have. And I kind of wanted to get into this role to learn more about how sales teams work and kind of what is the product, because I felt scared about, you know, taking on a sales job because I didn't have that university degree. I didn't have that education that some of my peers had. And it kind of stopped me. That was my fear element because 'I didn't think I was smart enough, you know?
+ Don’t be scared to seek out opportunities [00:09:42.440]
But then after a couple of months of doing that job, I kind of got bored of the finance and doing the billing and the subscription. That wasn't my future and I approached the sales director for XpertHR and lovely guy called Jonathan Hammer. And I went up to Jonathan and said, hey, Jonathan, do you know what? I really want to get into sales. I don't have any experience, but I'd be willing to just give it a shot, if you don't mind. What do you think? And Jonathan gave me the looking up and down and saw this young, budding, energetic dude. And, you know, like I was known as a favoured member within the team. And he said, Neil, do you know what? I'll give you four weeks to test this out. And and if it doesn't work, then you're going to go back to finance and we're not going to have this conversation again. Do we have a deal? And without hesitation, I said, yes, let's do it. Let's do it.
Um, so I got into the role and basically what I had to do was call HR persona's like directors, managers, etc. and I had to do like one hundred and twenty dials a day, two and half-hour call times and book two meetings.
What I'm happy to say is eight months later I was one of their top reps, I was booking on average between thirty to forty meetings a month. And I just love the art of getting on the phone, looking out the window, having a smile in my voice and that person that always said no, I was determined to kind of ring them back here in a few weeks in my Salesforce CRM and then I'll try again. And I did this continuously, continuously.
And then what I also found was that they were hiring new tele sales reps. That's what we were called back then. And I was also helping them out. So every time we had a new hire, they would sit them next to me to see how I did my thing. And then I would always give them advice and tips on what made me successful. I always said, look, dude, like you've just come fresh out of uni.
I don't even have that. Like, this wasn't the world that I used to live in. Anybody can do this, man, you just got to give it a shot. And I had so much fun - going out with the team and hitting targets and thinking how are we going to send out this proposal, etc. I was living the dream and it was freaking amazing man. But then what happened was I wanted more. You know, that's kind of the thing when things are going good, you want more of the good.
And I used to have a really great relationship with the account executives. We call them account managers. The guys actually went out to meet the customers, to do the demos and meet them across the UK. And I went back to Jonathan and Fiona (my manager as well) and I said, hey guys do you know what I really want to get into sales. What is that career path? And they said, Neil, you're onto great things. We really believe in you and will probably give it about another three or five years and you'll definitely be there. I was like, three or five years? You what? I can't wait that long. I've got aspirations, I've got dreams. I want to travel the world. I want to meet new people. You know, I want to make commission and I want to live that life that I've always wanted. And it was a bit disheartening. And to truth be told, what they did say was right. It's just I wasn't in the right frame of mind to take in that advice. But, you know, everything happens for a reason. And this kind of takes me onto my next point, which is how I got into my start-up job. at Zuora.
+ The road to Zuora Inc - start-up success [00:12:59.670]
So working for RBI and XpertHR at the same time, I was at a networking event in Holborn where there was a lot of people from Tech and Silicon Valley and like other salespeople. And I just, you know, put myself out there and just went along on my own. And I bumped into this lady called Gabriella and she was a talent acquisition specialist for a US startup. And me being me, I always thought, do you know what, always try to introduce yourself, put out your hand (this is all before covid, mind you). And I said, hi, my name's Neil. What's your name and what do you do? And she said. Oh, my name's Gabriella. I'm a recruiter. I work for a US company. Probably not have heard of us before we call Zuora.
And I paused for a minute and I looked at Gabby. Sorry. She never liked me to call her Gabby. I said Gabriella. I was like, is that the subscription billing software that works with Salesforce? And she looked gobsmacked and looked me straight in the face, said, Neil, how do you know that? How do you know about Zuora? I said, well, before going into sales at XpertHR I used to work in the finance team and I used to use that billing software and I used to do all the subscriptions admin on that. And she was like Neil I'm going to change your life and I'm going to make you rich and obviously a young age at that point I was like, whoa, OK, little bit overwhelmed. What do you mean? What do you mean, what do you mean? And she said, have you ever considered working for a start up?
And I was like, I don't really know what a startup is. And she said, Neil think of the likes of Uber. Think of like PayPal, like all these tech companies like Apple, they were all once startups with really small teams and they became these big massive companies later down the line. That's kind of what we do at Zuora. That's the stage that we're at. And I was like OK. And her being a great recruiter that she is, she sold me the dream about like working for a US company, doubling my salary and, you know, like living the life that I've always wanted.
But first things first. I had to go through the official recruitment and interview process. And boy, was that a harrowing experience in itself. I can remember as clear as day. I remember on the morning I had a fresh suit on. I did my hair, I shined my shoes, and I even got a prayer and a blessing from my Mum before I left the house. And then I took a tube up to Covent Garden in London to meet them at their headquarters on Longacre Lane.
And I remember being nervous as hell, but I kept telling myself be strong, be confident. This is something you will be able to do. This is kind of your future. You're at destiny's door Neil, go in and smash it. And the interview process itself lasted a whopping two hours where I was grilled by eight different people from Zuora London office, from their account executive team, their professional service, and also their regional director for Europe as well.
And I remember there was a cup on the table of water and they always said to me, like, Neil, like, please take a drink if you wish. And I said to myself subconsciously Neil don't touch the water, because if you go for it, your hands are going to shake if you spill it.
I did not touch that at all. But boy, did I have a dry throat by the end of that process.
But there was this great guy that I met who became a future mentor and has a really good friend of mine, a guy called Brendan Walsh. He was also the first AE on the ground for Zuora Europe.
And Brendan beat the hell out of me during that process, he was asking me every question or giving me every objection as to why Neil was not suited for this SDR role at Zuora from stemming from my not having a university degree, not really working that long in sales, only having short successes at XpertHR and he also said the other candidates they'd interviewed, had previously worked at companies such as Oracle or other tech companies and had at least a year or two experience under their belts.
Like why me and I really had to defend and fight for myself. And I did well. I was quite proud of myself. But there was one thing in the interview which caught his eye and it was based on my CV. So towards the end of the interview process with Brendan, he said, , no, I have just got one last question for you. On your CV, you've got this email address. It's not your first name, last name, whatever dot com. It's XX underscore BEATS @ Yahoo.co.uk. Like, what's that?
And I was just like, oh, that's my personal email address because I can't use my work email address because I don't want them to know that I'm going for an interview. He said OK, OK, but like XX-underscore-Beats? What's that all about?
I said well outside of work Brendan, I'm an M.C / rapper and I work in UK Urban Music on the weekends doing gigs in nightclubs. He was like oh that's cool, you must have some great stories to tell. And Brendan's dynamic with me completely changed at this point. And he said, all right, that's really cool to have like a rapper on the team. I could get down with that. We could spit some buzz.
And then he said, well, Neil with this MC thing and Zuora, this is a full time position. We're really going to need you to roll up your sleeves. This MC thing - how would it inhibit your day to day work? And I said, well it hasn't. I've been doing it for the last seven years. Working other jobs and part time jobs is something that I do and it's my outlet and I kind of see it as a Superman alter ego.
And what I mean by that is, well, Monday to Friday, between the hours of 9:00 to 5:00 p.m., I'm Neil Bhuiyan B2B sales professional. And then in the evening and weekends, I'm this M.C / rapper. So it's like a Clarke Kent alter ego thing. He was like all right, I get that, he said, but what happens if this thing takes off and you kind of leave Zuora? And I said, well, look, I can't predict the future, Brendan, but it's kind of like playing the lottery.
I have to have that ticket if I'm going to win, but there's no guarantee that I am going to win. And with that, he looked at me quite sternly and said, All right, well, Neil, thanks a lot for your time today and best of luck with the process and will reach out to you to give you feedback. And I walked out the door and my heart was pumping and I remember ringing my mom just saying you know what, Mom? I don't think I got the job. I'm nothing compared to the other people. Well, it was worth a shot, right.
And within ten minutes, as I was walking towards the tube, I get a phone call from Gabriella and she says, Neil guess what? And I was like, what? She said, you smashed the interview. They tried to grill you. They tried to beat you up, and you really stood out. And they want to offer you the position.
I was over the friggin moon. I was jumping up and down Covent Garden with a smile, a spring in my step. And I said, this is it. This is destiny calling. This is the beginning.
And I was so happy that day. And little did I know that I was about to embark on a great journey.
+ The beginning of a great journey: Zuora and beyond [00:19:58.600]
So who was Zuora and who was this SaaS start up Neil was about to go join and fly out to California to meet? Well, simply put, at the time they were a subscription management platform, a SaaS company based in the cloud that provided a solution to take your subscriber information from your website processes into your CRM and make it subscription aware and then push all that information into your accounting software or general ledger. So in essence, it was an end to end solution that touched sales, operations and finance, and it was headed up by a guy called Tien Tzuo.
Tien was employee number eleven at Salesforce.com, the big CRM SaaS company, and he was also Marc Benioff's right hand man and CMO who helped launch and scale Salesforce for global domination into the CRM that we all use and know today. And they obviously were established in the US, but they wanted to grow their presence across the world and decided to open up a London office as to which I was going to be their first SDR and I was a hybrid one at that where I was doing inbound and outbound and working with four account executives to generate pipeline throughout the region.
So I was flown off to California, San Francisco, and I remember arriving at the airport so pumped and thinking like, wow, I'm really living the dream, I'm travelling now. I'm going to see the Golden Gate Bridge and I'm going to be able to see Fisherman's Wharf and all these great sights and sounds. But first things first, I was taken to head office in Redwood City where I met the other SDRs. I remember I was meeting the likes of Danny Borelli, who was a great, great inspiration and support for me to transition from sales rep to SaaS SDR.
Then we had Harrison Horran, we had Addison Lee, we had Kelly. We had all the others that were about 20 of them there. And I remember being shown around the Redwood City office and I saw in front of me meetings in his office walking up and down. And I looked to Harry and I said, Harry, who is my buddy at the time. I said, Harry, is that team is that our CEO? And I was like, Yeah, that's the man.
That's the man. So I just frogmarched myself straight across the room. I went into Dean's office, knocked on the door and said, Hi, my name name's Neil Bhuiyan. I'm your new ZBR for EMEA pleasure to meet you and an absolute honor to to meet a Salesforce veteran. And he was a very quiet man, very reserved. And he smiled at me and he said, Neil, pleasure to meet you. Welcome aboard Team-Z. And I wish you all the success.
I've got a couple of meetings, but we should definitely catch up later. And with that, I smiled and walked out and went back to the SDR group. And Harry looked at me like, Dude, that's like our CEO. You shouldn't just, like, walk into his office like that. And I was like, why not? Like, I wanted to meet the guy. So I did what I thought was right. And I did this throughout my trip into other offices, such as the CFO, Brian Bell, CMO, and made the realization that I made a really great decision and I was literally in the midst of so many great minds and I was so excited about what was about to learn.
And as part of the onboarding, we had an SDR SaaS 101 done by sales enablement, where we were learning things about CRM, general ledgers, APIs, integrations, and these sessions were held by people that had worked previously at companies like SAP, SuccessFactors, Salesforce.com, and they've been doing this job for like ten years. And I was like, wow, they've really been in SaaS for ten years. They've got so much knowledge like that. How do you get to that level? And I remember also feeling a little insecure because a lot of these guys that live the Silicon Valley life, they knew all about this stuff. And I just said to my teacher, privately, I was like look, I am a bit worried. And he said, look, Neil, you're going to be learning a lot of stuff and we're not expecting you to know this stuff straight away. This takes time, but it is a good idea to sit in calls, listen to how account executives do their discussion, how professional services do the implementations.
And if you ever hear those acronyms like APIs and CRM and GL's, et cetera, and you don't know what it is, then ask at the end of those sessions because it's really stupid. Well, there's nothing there's no such thing as a stupid question, but it's stupid if you don't ask and if you just sit there pretending to know because your prospects will call you on that bullshit, which was a very valuable lesson. And it's something I've always done throughout my career.
I'm always asking questions because I always want to learn.
So as part of our onboarding process at Zuora, our VP of operations, a guy called Ben Kwon, took us SDRs to Foster City, to a hotel to give us lunch and kind of do a team building exercise. And I remember sitting in Foster City within the hotel and we are around this big table and Ben's at the front like a head honcho, kind of like a yakuza figure. Like this guy, from my point of view, was quite scary and very serious.
But he had a playful side to him as well. So shouts out to Ben. And I remember him going around the table saying, like, hey, guys, kind of like, what inspired you to join Zuora? What are the things that stand out to you, what do you want to get into your career and what you want to take away from this position as a ZBR at Zuora. And as I went around the room, like people were saying, well, it's their first job out of university, they kind of want to get into the world of sales.
Other people were like, I'd like to get into president's club. I want to have sh*t tons of money. I want to get that Rolex. Somebody else is like they want to put a deposit on their first house. Addison, I remember, said he wants to get his first Corvette. And Addison now has his own racing business and props to him. He's a crazy driver.
Every time I go out to San Fran and they came to me and at this point I did feel the nerves bubbling up because, again, I felt so lower than some of these guys because I didn't have their experience. I hadn't lived this life before and they lived in Silicon Valley for years so this was the norm to them. And I went silent for a minute. And then I look back up at Ben and I said to him, I want to be the CEO of my own company.
And the room went slightly silent. And some people looked at me like, who the hell is this guy? And Ben was like, what's prompted you to say that Neil? And I said, Well, look, I've met so many great people at Zuora and I've heard their stories about launching companies and, you know, being successes and kind of doing it again and again and multiple startups. I said, I want to live that journey.
I don't really know what I'm going to be the CEO of, but I know it will happen in time. But I just want to learn as much as I can right now whilst I'm at Zuora. And Ben paused and he said, I think you may need to have a conversation. And at this point I thought, oh, sh*t. Like, what did I say wrong? Have I said the wrong thing?
And then later on in the day, Ben pulled me to the side. He said, you know, that's the first time I've ever heard somebody say that in one of these orientation sessions. And he said, have you ever considered like management or sales management and I looked at him. I said, dude, I'm a hunter. I want to be a top salesperson. And he's like, So what's the path to your CEO? And I said, Well, I want to be ZBR Zuora, business representative AKA SDR. I then want to become an account executive and then I want to be a VP of sales and then I want to be a CEO. And Ben's words of wisdom look great CEOs have pretty much gone through multiple roles and there isn't one straight line to success or to be the CEO.
So think about it. If this is something you'd be interested in, I think it could help in your path. And cut a long story short, it definitely did help learning managements’ of teams kind of like leadership, how to build strategies and processes. These are all great qualities of a CEO or a managing director of HappySelling UK.
But yeah, so for me after this, I was then flown back over to London to kind of execute the job that I was trained to do. And I was an inbound/outbound SDR. I was processing inbound leads, handing these over to four account executives and then doing outbound messages to book meetings for the account executives as well. And I really like doing this because I always had inbound leads to process. And I remember when I got back to London, I had 800 to kind of go through and it took a few weeks, but we finally got there.
+ Never Stop Learning: John Barrows sales training [00:28:07.810]
But it was outbounding, which was my passion and joy. So a lot of the time the account executives who were there before me were outbound and using their old techniques. And during my stay at Zuora in the US, I was privy to John Barrows sales training. So some some of you may know John Barrows and Morgan Ingram, the SDR GOAT. I met John like when he was still fresh training SaaS companies in Silicon Valley as a one man band, and his training really stood out in terms of messaging, using LinkedIn, etc. And I just loved crafting personalized emails based on research reaching out to C-level people and organizations and booking enterprise meetings and a lot of the time, Brendan and the other AE's were like Neil, how the hell are you doing this? We've been doing it for ages. And I was like, hey, it's all about the John Barrows Sales training.
+ The Guardian Newspaper: 3 years Outbound in the making but the hard work paid off [00:28:59.460]
But I remember one outbound journey which really stood out to me. And it's an outbound play that took me about three years to book that meeting. And it was The Guardian newspaper. So I approached the CEO on a message to say, hey, look, this is what's going on in the market. We're currently working with the likes of Financial Times, IPC Media, etc. They've grown their subscriber base. People are moving away from print and they're going to digital subscriptions.
And Andy, the CEO at the time, got back to me and said, Neil, we don't believe in getting our content or making our subscribers pay for this. This is all about free. We don't want to monetize this. So I eft it a year and went back to and and always checked in with him like year after year, a couple of months, just saying, hey, here's a piece of news, et cetera, et cetera.
And then I remember Zuora, we held our annual conference, which was called Subscribed, and I invited Andy and I just said, Hey, Andy, look, I know you're not ready for Zuora you want to buy it, but there's going to be a lot of other C-level people from media companies such as yourself, and it would be a great time to network and meet others. So he came along to the event and I remember two weeks later, like doing the post event follow up.
He then sent me an email and he said, Neil, I know we weren't ready before, but Subscribed really sold it to me. And we're now ready to engage with Zuora. So three years later, after that initial outbound, they became a customer. And I was really proud to see that come through. But it's just evident that it's not just a one and done that's going to book you meeting, especially in the enterprise space. It does take a lot of time. It takes a lot of education and events are a great way to educate prospects because they can meet other customers like them to understand what was their process. And it's kind of like telling a case study right. But in real life.
+ Neil’s part in Game of Thrones - how SDR’s can help change the world [00:30:40.550]
The next story is one of my claims to fame. So as an inbound lead that came through from a company called HBO Nordic and at the time they were facing challenges with a local provider to help them launch a new video on demand TV service on subscription. And they were looking for a solution that could take the subscriber information, put it in the CRM and then do the billing for it. And I did my SDR qualification. I then did the education and awareness as to what Zoura was and how it can help them.
And they agreed to take next steps of booking a demo with our account execs. So I did all my notes, popped into the CRM and then booked it into my calendar. And off the back of that, Brendan came back to me and said, Neil, they're really into this. They're actually wanting to fly us out to the Nordics to do a proof of concept. And I was like, great. So firstly, you've booked the meeting in and you've accepted it. So I get paid. That's how I got paid. And then I also got paid if the deal closed. And at that point I wasn't really too worried about that. I just wanted to make my commission right. And then Brendan came back from the Nordics. He said, yes, they're totally on board, Neil well done that's a stage two opportunity. So I got paid because it closed as well. And he said, oh yeah. The cool thing is that they're looking to launch a TV show called The Game of Thrones, some medieval thing.
And at the time I was oh OK, whatever. And then a few years later, I'm in my friend's apartment and she's like, Neil, you really got to watch this cool new TV show. It's called Game of Thrones. And we sat down and she started playing it. And I was like, oh, I had a helping hand in this. I actually helped the company join with Zuora and it just hit me there. And I was just like as an SDR you're talking to front line leaders and businesses are launching products and services and you get that sort of privy information and you're literally helping change the world. So I can kind of say that I helped bring in the launch of Game of Thrones to millions of subscribers across the whole of Europe. That's my claim to game. And that's a pretty cool story, right? One of the most powerful lessons I learned in the art of SDR'ing in sales was again from Brendan Walsh, which was the power of silence.
+ Neil’s Key Takeaways [00:32:53.250]
So imagine for a moment we are on a stage two call with a CFO that wants to know about budget and pricing for Zuora's platform. And Zuora wasn't cheap, let's just say north of around three hundred K for the solution that they were looking for. And normally in sales, what we do is when we say something where we feel it's going to scare the prospect, we'll say something and then jump in straight away to kind of make them feel safe. And this is kind of what I was forced into doing as well a lot of the time through my own habits.
And we kind of gave the pricing to the CFO. And at that point, Brendan put his hand over my mouth and said, Neil don't say a word. And we sat there for about a minute and I looked at Brendan. I was like, dude, we have to say something. He's going to kind of like, walk away. This is a big deal like. We're going to screw up and Brendan looked at me and smiled and put his finger to his mouth and says, Nope, don't say anything.
Two and a half minutes went by and I'm literally clawing away at myself and my face and thinking, oh my God, Brendan, what have you done to this deal. What are we going to do? And then all of a sudden the CFO comes back and says, yeah, that makes sense. Cool, so what do we do to move forward to the next step? Brendan then looks at me. I'm looking at him with my mouth and jaw wide open in amazement and thinking, how has he done this sales voodoo, especially when quoting that type of pricing to this guy. And then we got off the call and Brendan kind of pulled me to the side and said, look, a lot of the time in sales we have to remember there are two ears, one mouth. And when this one mouth is talking, the other two ears have to listen to this and processes information Neil. So you have to give them time to breathe. And I was like, whoa, you're so right.
And using this art of silence is something that I do in Discovery Call. I teach it to SDRs. And again, it's because we as humans, innately, we we hate awkward silences. But again, it allows people to kind of process this information and then come back to where the consensus decision as to what they want to do about it. So use the power of silence to your benefit and you can definitely see your conversations will change. So there are a lot of different stories that I could walk you through after being an SDR and going into a team lead, etc but I'm definitely going to save that for future.
But I hope that you've enjoyed my introduction as to how I got into SDR'ing. And I would say my key takeaways are, number one, don't fear stuff because again, just because I thought I didn't have a university degree, that I wasn't going to be the smartest guy in the room. In reality, what Zuora did, because I was that exception to the rule, they actually removed the requisite to have a degree to join the business.
And I've seen this actually happen in a lot of other SaaS companies. I'm really pleased to see this because, again, a lot of us can actually do the work experience and work our way up without having to have that degree.
And also, you don't have to be the smartest person in the room. If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Like me. I want to be the idiot in the room. I want to be learning from other people that are smarter than me so that can help me move on into my career or try out new ideas, etc.. Just like this podcast I had to learn it from somebody else. I saw them and now I'm trying to do it on my own.
Another key takeaway is a lot of us want to get from point A to point B as quick as we can. And I was no exception to this rule, but I have learned over the years it's all about the in-between of point A and B and the stuff that you're going to learn, the experiences. This is what's really going to build you up in your career. And these are the great stories that you're going to be able to tell. And this is what's going to elevate you to kind of know the directions of where you want to go rather than rushing from getting from point A to point B.
And equally, one of the most powerful tools that you can use as an SDR or in sales is the art of storytelling. I hope that these compelling stories have inspired you to maybe change some things in the way that you're doing or to help somebody else out. And I look forward to bringing on future guests to give more inspirations in the SDR Disco-Call Podcast. You can follow me on HappySelling.io. And you can also check out my LinkedIn if you've got any questions or you want to be a guest on the show as well, or you've got somebody that you feel would be great to get on the show and tell their story.
Thanks a lot for joining guys. HappySelling and take care.