EPISODE #004
Tune in to hear Corey Lindsay, a BDR from G2, who shares his roller-coaster journey, from finance to sales, with host Neil Bhuiyan. Plus, a host of star tips for new BDRs and SDRs on how to bring a human connection to prospecting.
Listen on Apple Podcasts
EPISODE #004 TRANSCRIPT
TL;DR
+ Introduction (to Corey and G2 crowd) [00:00:09.120]
Neil Bhuiyan Hi there, guys, and welcome to Episode four of the SDR DiscoCall Podcast. Today's guest is Corey Lindsay. He's a BDR from G2 crowd. He's been in the role for about a year. And we're going to be learning about his roller-coaster journey from finance into sales when he got flown out to the US for his onboarding experience and how he best learns, the importance of the human connection and how to get feedback from your prospects and also provide value.
So how does the SDR DiscoCall 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. So with that in mind, let's begin. So, guys, I want to introduce our next guest. This is Corey Lindsay from G2 crowd. Me and Corey were introduced via a mutual friend from Tai so Tai, thanks for listening in. We were having a dinner and she said, Neil, I've got this great BDR that I think you should definitely connect with. He's got a cool story. And that came about to a meeting during lockdown. And I was completely blown away by Corey's story because it reminded me of some parts of my own. But Corey, how are you doing and welcome to the The SDR DiscoCall Podcast.
Corey Lindsay Thanks for the introduction. Yeah, I'm doing great, thanks. Nice Monday morning. Getting the week nice and started and it's. Yeah, it's a busy one already despite locked-down.
Neil Bhuiyan I love it. So, Corey, if you could please let the listeners know who are you, what you doing and where do you work?
Corey Lindsay Yeah, sure. So as you mentioned, Corey, otherwise .Corentin on LinkedIn, it's not the easiest thing to pronounce. And I am one of the SDRs, one of the two SDRs here at G2. So in terms of who G2 is, effectively the trust pilot TripAdvisor or the Yelp of B2B software, in terms of my role, I'm just helping B2B software marketers and salespeople more precisely and proactively go after their target audience, quite simply.
Neil Bhuiyan Nice, thank you, sir. And as as I kind of found out when we had our initial discussion, you're kind of wearing a lot of hats. You've been helping out the G2 team, working with your counterparts and including time kind of what's your day to day look like, Corey?
Corey Lindsay Yes, an interesting one, so a bit of context here at G2 particularly in the EMEA team, two of us right now, which is both inbound and outbound.
So kind of dealing with all the branding and all the marketing efforts, that just brings in a lot of stuff, good and bad. And then I guess that's kind of the structure of my day, as I'm sure lots of people here on this call who will be doing inbound. They kind of know that that's the priority. You have to be quick. You have to be on the ball when you respond to those inbound requests. So not very much as the kind of the structure of my day, the skeleton.
And then whenever I find a free time, five minutes, even one minute, not anything to do with who I want to talk to rather than who wants to talk to me. So that's the outbound side without calling, emailing, link Tien touching or even actually just being more strategic. So these I guess the short answer days aren't always the same. In fact, they're very rarely the same. It's often just structured around what's happening on the inbound and then where I can find time elsewhere.
+ All in day’s work – Corey’s extra-curricular activities [00:03:40.750]
Neil Bhuiyan So a very busy all around individual that so you're doing both the inbound work is also helping out with the outbound work and you're doing a lot of other extracurricular things. So for for context, when I came across your LinkedIn profile, there's some really cool things where you had done webinars such as filling the funnel, personalizing the machine. How did you as a kind of like a SDR, all get dropped into these sort of webinars? And how did those come about?
Corey Lindsay So yeah, an interesting one. I'm not entirely sure how the initial touchpoint happened. I got reach out to for both of those, actually. So a lot of what I do is very much reaching out and being very active on on LinkedIn, not just from a prospecting side.
I think the prospecting side I've got to improve from just my personal branding perspective. So a lot of that and is very much what I look at trying to do. So kind of being a bit more engaged, helping out some of the other kind of up and coming BDR may not have had as much of fortune as myself being surrounded with such kind of great kind of up and coming salespeople, to kind of learn from the really kind of taking and passing on and chance to be a little bit of what I'm doing today to try and help pass on that message.
So I guess that's kind of how I got involved with with those types of Podcast and actually one of which is more of a webinar.
+ Why being a BDR or SDR is more than just booking a meeting [00:05:02.240]
Neil Bhuiyan I love it, and I think you raise a really important piece here, which is around kind of like your brand awareness of you as a person, as a SDR in the role, looking to help others. I've seen it with a lot of people. They come into this role of being an SDR. They think it's just, you know, calling booking meetings.
But there is so much more to it. Kind of what insights are you looking to share with the other future SDRs and SDRs out there Corey?
Corey Lindsay Wow. Big question. I think kind of what you touched upon there. One thing that frustrates me the most within the SDR world is the idea of just numbers and activity will. And it's kind of a numbers game, which, yes, I agree to an extent. But I think one of the ways I've SDR role is very much the sniper as opposed to kind of a machine gun type person like, yes, there's always going to be a numbers game.
Yes. If you only reach out to five people in a week, don't expect Ten meetings. But if you're reaching out to 100 people, then you might be able to expect more. But it's very much if I was to kind of give one piece of advice to any BDR, it was just I think it's just learn learn who you're trying to talk to, whether that's structured by your company already or whether you're in, I guess, the the difficult but exciting position of being a really new company whereby there's no structure of this.
Find out, talk to your customers, other BDR. That's one thing which I think BDRs just don't do enough of is really talking to the customers and being on the flip side of the sales process as well.
+ What's in a persona? [00:06:32.960]
Neil Bhuiyan But for you, like in G2 crowd, who are the type of the personas you're reaching out to and how did you learn about their world?
Corey Lindsay Yes, this is a this is an interesting one. The list is pretty large, so initially it's a marketing persona focused on the branding of how does that company look quite simply to it, to their prospective buyers, to their hopefully future customers. So primarily it's those types of people. But I guess the fun aspect and which also helps me from a multithreaded perspective is that almost every aspect of marketing can be involved. The generation to lead generation to content marketing, what not as well.
Even a sales team, even BDRs typically are working with us all the way to customer success. But it's kind of ask your question in terms of how do I how do I go about learning about them? I guess there's two main things, though, one of which I'm fortunate to have very, very strong product marketing to G2 that a lot of the kind of skeletal work, that basic work for me, who are these types of people? What do they typically care about, which is very much a good foundation.
One of the things which I didn't do early enough is engage directly with clients. So me myself, talking to clients again, other BDR role, unless you're doing a full cycle BDR, which some people do, I don't think it's very common, but doing all the way until close, you're very much its that first step and then it's up to you to kind of extend yourself throughout. So what I've been trying to do is even actually sitting in on customer calls I had a couple of times about a month ago, two months ago now, and actually just having five, 10 minutes, just ask them, hey, what did you buy?
Like what makes it even vaguely relevant to you? And what you're trying to do is almost try and get them to sell it back to me. Just going to hear what they say, how they would sell my product. So that's kind of one big element. And I think another cool element was so this is back in the kind of start of my BDR role kind of four months in. Then when you kind of just started to really understand how to do this job at all.
It's very much from just being in kind of conferences, conferences, kind of trade shows, things like that with G2 as well. Part of what we do is help vendors collect reviews and that can be in person with kind of reviews, lucky enough to do two of them kind of abroad. And again, when you're very much as face to face with that customer, you start to understand how they start to use your solution, which then gives you a very good understanding of why they use in the first place.
Again, I would always say ask them explicitly as well just to get that kind of firmly in. But I guess that's kind of how I've gone about trying to to understand what they care about In short.
Neil Bhuiyan I love it, I love it, I really like both of those examples so like the first one where you kind of asking the prospective customer to sell back.
What you do. And I think this is a really good way because you can understand, was the sales process any good, did they actually get what they were buying and did they understand it fully? But I think it's really nice to hear it from their own words, because not only are they going to pitch the platform, they're going to give you the why did they buy it and how is it going to help them? And I think if you can take those snippets and use it with future prospects or customers that you're going to talk to, I think that's really great.
+ Prospect and customer interaction in the new digital world [00:09:59.890]
Neil Bhuiyan And then equally, meeting prospects at trade shows and conferences and exhibitions, I think meeting people face to face to kind of see how they do stuff and how do they gauge feedback. That's really interesting. And obviously with the new kind of world that we're in, Corey like with those exhibitions and conferences, I know a lot of things are going digital now. How are you, like, gaining feedback, like with your prospects or customers today?
Corey Lindsay So I think right now, one of the main things that I would say has changed since kind of the entire lockdown thing is very much less about selling and more about understanding.
I think it's always been that way anyway, but the emphasis is definitely being put onto that recently. So a lot of what I do now is not necessarily asking for meetings, asking sales, things like that, because a lot of a lot of this would have come with experience as well. But more about understanding where a buyer is within the entire, not just buyer journey, but company journey, the reason that I use Buyer Journey is because typically there isn't one that exists.
Until I come along, we haven't exactly got a product which replaces anything. Think kind of an add on to the various other things, but it's understanding kind of those priorities at that point, regardless of what my solution is, if you can build that trust with prospects early on just to see, hey, this is ever going to be relevant, let alone if it's relevant to now, that typically give me a good understanding now at least what they care about how how they're going about their business and how G2 could be if now then they take great leverage up.
But otherwise, in a month's time, two months time, how it could potentially be relevant. Whereas I guess with a trade show or things like that, you'll be able to do that a lot easier because it's very much just a face to face conversation. You're just there, say, having a normal conversation and asking about their priorities, how their business is going. Much easier to understand priorities at that point. Yeah, I guess one of the main channels, which I'm using a lot of and again, probably not enough of even LinkedIn right now.
+ LinkedIn – the new trade show? [00:11:59.680]
Corey Lindsay Linkedin is definitely the new trade show from a connecting point of view, I don't know what you think Neil?
Neil Bhuiyan Dude, I 100 percent agree with you. If it wasn't for LinkedIn, we wouldn't be having this conversation today. Yeah, for sure. I think like when I used to use LinkedIn way back when I first started as a tele-sales rep.
And I remember after every call that had a cold call, I would go straight onto LinkedIn and connect with that person. Now, my connection message was quite under-par back then. It was just a case of, hey, we spoke, I'd love to connect.
I didn't even give any sort of context as to why. But the more the years progress and kind of when I go into Showpad, the way that I went into it was Corey lovely to speak to i'd love to share more insights and techniques from within sales enablement via my network, because I always connect with lots of people. And then I think over time you're able to then connect the dots, introduce people to each other, help them out. And I really love that thing where you say you're looking to learn about kind of what's what's going on in their world, what are they trying to achieve?
Even if it's not looking to buy a solution, you just kind of want to understand their world better. And then if you think, OK, this could be a fit, great I can put you into the sales cycle. If not, I can then still share best practices and updates from my network. And I see that you're highly engaged on LinkedIn and you really did stand out. So I think well done. A valiant effort, I think. Yeah, I agree with you there.
+ Corey and life before sales [00:13:20.680]
Neil Bhuiyan Do more. We can never be doing too much. But that kind of also I wanted to like where you said, like with your journey of kind of like getting into this BDR role, being somebody quite active on social selling and on LinkedIn, like what was life like before sales for you, Corey? What was your journey before jumping into sales?
Corey Lindsay Yeah, I think everyone I've spoken to in sales never really well is the vast majority. Never thought that end up in sales and it's definitely no different from me. So if background, I kind of did so a degree for human bio sciences, although it's quite unique. It very much is what it said on the tenets of human biology, and only that because of my enjoyment of biology, a sport and had never really thought too much about career side in terms of going into a human biology career.
So again, I was going through the classic kind of university stage of understanding what do I maybe want to go into? First place to go to is kind of family, see what they're doing, understand their world. And for me that was finance. So I end up going through a variety of work experiences, different financial companies. And although at the time I thought I loved it and I thought, you know is this is the place to be very quickly realized that what I enjoyed was the the people and how they went about their jobs as opposed to the actual job itself took me a bit of time, about a year of work experience.
I understand the finance at least in my eyes is quite draining and dull, but I'm glad I kind of steered slightly away from that. I mean, one of the main things was one of my work experiences when I came across the one of the retail sales team for this finance company, they were the ones who I guess initially inspired me to what a sales role can be as opposed to the negative connotation. I think everyone knows of, being pushy and just there to make our next commission cheque and..
Neil Bhuiyan Never!
Corey Lindsay Exactly. It's something which has always been around. I always consider sales people like that before I became one. So I'm very much guilty in that vote. Yeah, that's kind of how I initally got into sales as an option. And then although I was always at this point going to go for a bit of a year out and just take things a bit slower after university, I got caught up with recruiters and a lot of people do, as well as the specific company I actually engaged with.
It was one of the few, in fact, because I had a bit of a, again, a personal approach, as opposed to pitching me straight away what their job is they're trying to offer me. They never actually offered me a job until about two weeks later, which I thought was quite interesting. So that's how I eventually going to go to the sales world, as such, my door in and then again G2 is the first kind of chapter of this story which which I'm looking forward to.
Corey Lindsay And again, just one year in, about 13 months in. But very exciting story so far
+ It’s all about the human connection [00:16:12.870]
Neil Bhuiyan I love it and I absolutely love it and kind of the element of working in finance and realizing it wasn't kind of where you wanted to go. And you got an insight into kind of the potential of sales. You said an interesting piece here is that you really liked the human connection and the human element of it as well. Would you mind expanding on that a bit? Like what? What does that mean to you, the human connection?
Corey Lindsay Yeah. So kind of taking that step back into when I was considering kind of career options back in again, university time as everyone begins to wonder what you have to realize, university doesn't last forever, it was always going to be an initially consultancy is kind of where I could see myself going into again at a very broad level. And the main reason for that was having a measurable and tangible impact on a business, I could always see myself a little bit more into the B2B space than the B2C space from an impact perspective, so there was that consultancy element, which again is very people focused, very much helping people towards people, understanding their world, their problems, and then helping their business. What I quickly understood even before getting my first sales-role was that Sales and consultancy are basically the same thing they should be if you're a good salesperson, despite the vast, vast difference in a social connotation of one being great and one of being awful, quite frankly.
So. That aspect kind of is what got me into kind of the sales role as a whole, kind of that that people just I guess to answer your question, what what is that? People focused elemement to me, it's more to the enjoyment of the satisfaction of being able to say that I actually helped this person just personally. I mean, I'm not necessarily looking for gratification as someone to kind of throw kind of confetti over me and say, hey look, this guys amazing having that kind of understanding that you can take in this kind of context, a prospect from point A to point B with a really measurable impact.
And that is that is generally due to initial conversation, which I may have got told and told to kind of bugger off at the start and eventually came back and said, actually, let's have a chat. And now we're, you know, five months later, they're accustomed to having great success. That, for me, is very rewarding. Hopefully that makes sense.
Neil Bhuiyan I can 100 percent relate to that because I think when we initially spoke earlier this year, I went through a very similar Journey to yourself, where I used to work in a finance team, and then that got quite boring for me.
So I wanted to jump into sales. And yeah, I loved helping people making a difference to your point, making an impact.
And I think over the years, as I've realized, it's not just selling a solution, not just making a paycheck, actually making a difference to somebody who's in a role within their businesses, making a positive impact and change. And I can 100 percent agree with speaking to that prospect. Well, they say no, not interested. Slam the phone down and then maybe a few years later or even a couple of months later. And actually, you know what, Corey?
This might be able to help us do you have 15 minutes later this week just for a quick chat? And that's rewarding in itself where you're not forcing people into something, but you're trying to give a guided selling approach so this could help you out? We do have a solution, but it's when it's right for you.
+ When a prospect returns [00:19:44.900]
Corey Lindsay I think one of the greatest points to add to that quickly is when they and this might be relevant for a lot of the new BDR and SDRs who'll be listening to this when that prospect does come back one week, two weeks, two months, even actually five, six months of up to you and says, hey, look, still considering this, let's have a chat. I feel like it gives after Sales teams a lot more leverage, actually, almost tell them no and kind of throw their reasons back at them and said, hey, look, now you said that it was the wrong time to have the right people in place, that no bandwidth kind of list it, list it, list it.
And that gives, again, almost a chance to then to sell it back to you and say, hey, look, know, we do need a conversation because that's changed because of X, Y, Z, from my experience. But then literally all your all your notes done for the account executive, they've basically listed all of their new pain points, what's changed? Why they need a conversation now and then. You could you can take that almost to the qualification for email at that point,
Neil Bhuiyan 100 percent agree I think in the early days when you have when you have that prospect who comes back and you're like, yeah, I told you so, I knew you'd be coming back at some point its that element of trying to keep humble about it
Corey Lindsay You can never get too smug
Neil Bhuiyan Exactly. And I think to your point, you point it out something very interesting. And it is a question I should ask prospects, look more than happy to help. We can definitely have a chat. Just curious to know what's changed. And they can then come to you and say, well, we did try it with this vendor or we tried to build it internally. It didn't really work out. Now this is what we're looking for. And we now actually have real requirements. We actually have real use cases. So I think it's always nice when somebody tells, you no, initially to give them advice of what to look for, what's in a good solution. What's really going to help them out? And to your point, if they come back with all those requirements? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, we are the right people.
+ From finance to sales – Corey’s journey [00:21:40.370]
Neil Bhuiyan And I'm happy to introduce you to Tai or the account executive cycle, um, but also like with other SDRs and kind of coming into this role and like giving tips, et cetera. A lot of us we run through by working with recruiters agencies where we get training, etc.. What was your experience of moving from finance, meeting with the agency and company and kind of getting into G2? What was that like, Corey?
Corey Lindsay So you're talking more about the the actual process of getting into an SDR role and more the transition of what I have to do from Job perpective
Neil Bhuiyan if you can share both, I think would be super valuable.
Corey Lindsay So I guess the first one in terms of the transition to from that finance world, to the sales world, well, I guess very smooth. First of all, there wasn't again, when I was in the finance-world, there's very much more from like a work experience perspective. I've never had a like a full time job as such. One thing that I realized, maybe just from my personal experience, not generalizing and stereotyping every finance person, the sales people are a bit more fun, at least from my experience, whereas the corporate world is obviously very regulated.
And again, part of that with the finance world as well. A lot of it is it's just so structured. It's very if you don't do this, you can't do this and you've got to go to your Managers to get a sign off on or changing the coloured pen, something ridiculous like that. And that entire world at the time was the only kind of work world I knew of. So when I first came into the kind of the tech-sales world and this is before even accept my role at G2, even at the start of the even the process with the recruiter I was with many of the initial interviews with with among other companies understanding that there's a lot more freedom.
I think a lot of this will be not just with the sales-role in itself, but just see the startup element of the companies with which I was interviewing and I'm now working with the idea that if I completely screw up, it's actually fine, if anything. And G2 is actually really good at this. They encourage it. I'd say at least from from what I understand from it, they encouraged me to go out there and fail to then if I don't do it myself, encouraged me to reflect.
I think reflecting is the biggest thing as a new SDR one thing which I definitely should have done a lot more, the start. So quick tip to all you new guys and girls listening there. So from that perspective. Yeah, from the transition from kind of the finance to Sales, the biggest change was the corporate to startup, which I found very refreshing. Hopefully that answers your question that you are looking to get from me.
Neil Bhuiyan 100 percent, and I think one thing I have noticed as a consultant trainer is I am speaking to a lot more corporate companies that are trying to get into that sort of startup vibe where they're moving away from processes, bureaucracy and things which are quite rigid.
+ It's OK to mess up [00:24:48.720]
Neil Bhuiyan And they're trying to give more flexibility to the team. And that element that I'm so happy to hear that you have a G2 crowd where you're encouraged to fail and mess up and, you know, make mistakes, experiment, kind of learn your groove. I think it's really important. And what would you say to those new SDRs who are scared of failing? Like, how how did you feel when somebody said it's alright to mess up Corey, don't worry about it.
How did that feel for you?
Corey Lindsay So it's interesting. I don't think I've actually ever been told explicitly, hey, look, you're allowed to fail. I think it's very much just ingrained in the company. There's just never that repercussion or that fear of repercussion if you screw up again, just from my experience, to answer the first part of that question, what would you say to someone who is about to fail or scared of failing? I mean, I don't think it ever gets it ever gets easy to take something that's that's hard.
I mean, from the first I think the first prospect ever since I got sent back an email twice as long from a prospect telling me why I was not adequate as a salesperson. Yeah, pretty pretty tough to get, especially, I think with my first week or second week of work, one of my first email that ever sent out. So again, the stories behind that, why kind of the US type sales language doesn't always work in EMEA, I found that out the hard way in terms of the negative elements whereby you're getting told you're failing. We've done something really wrong. I take it much more as again, easier said than done. Right. But as a feedback loop whereby. If you just stop and think. They're obviously thinking about for a reason. You've obviously done something which is not quite right. Otherwise, they wouldn't be saying that you failed or something wouldn't be wrong. Quite simply. So having that self-awareness to actually understand, OK, well, there's something that's not happened or something that has happened that shouldn't have happened.
And then again, if you're feeling comfortable, actually, I think your prospects I've clearly missed the mark here, something is clearly not working at all based on what I mentioned. Do you mind sharing? That can go two ways, be very much a constructive feedback if the person is very willing to help you grow as an individual, and if that is the case, then you feel a lot of trust. And it might just be the fact that you've actually just missed the mark in terms of your you're selling kind of pitch and things like that, in which case you've probably got a sales opportunity in three or four months time.
If it's actually a generally good prospect, that's the other way that it could go. Is that the prospect then goes all the way down, kind of ranting on about how you're an awful human being? And I'm not going to say it's going to happen. It probably will happen in most people's life. A lot of that is just taking it with a pinch of salt. I don't like using the term having a hard skin, but there are elements of that which I think are very applicable to sales.
Understanding why things are as they are, why you might have failed in that way and then based on that with the context, which includes feedback from the prospect of the customer, rather making about judgment yourself as to what you can do better without taking everything necessarily to heart, which again, easier said than done. Um, yeah. I guess to narrow it down to kind of the self-awareness, I'd say for me, if you can really take a step back to understand why from a personal perspective, then they can help you so much in longrun.
+ Choosing the right time to ask for feedback [00:28:20.030]
Corey Lindsay Out of curiosity, how do you and your kind of role structure that how would you keep on top of when to offer feedback and when not to ask? I guess one of the things I'm always curious about is you could almost ask anyone for feedback about anything. Almost every single conversation you have. How do you prioritize that to see, OK, when can I have the most opportunity to learn from which conversations?
Neil Bhuiyan I think that's a really, really good question. So I think in my world, if I'm training or from consulting or if I'm helping somebody out as a manager etc sort of type role coach, it's kind of like check in points where if we've started a new training, I'll ask initially, like kind of what do they think about the training, kind of what we're about to learn. And then perhaps if we're in a two hour session midway through, I'll ask one of the students, like, how are you finding it?
Kind of what's it feel like to you? Are you getting any value out of this? Are you missing anything? And then towards the end of a session, I'll then ask him. Okay, so based on what you thought initially when we first started out, how do you feel things about now? Like what would you like to see more of I'm continuously, I think feedback is a continuous process. I think when is it not the right time? If obviously I'm not going to say that I've gone into every training session is always going perfectly swimmingly, smooth.
Sometimes I'll get reps that don't agree with what I do. And I always give the premise before every session that look what I'm about to train or teach you on is just what it's worked for me. It doesn't work for everybody. And if at any point you disagree with it, then by all means you don't have to follow it. But I'm always going to ask, why aren't you like following it or what is it about it that you don't agree with?
And I'll hash it out with them. But sometimes I can tell that they may not be in the right frame of mind. They might not be in the right mood to do that. So I think with people is body language, you know, like kind of looking at the facial expressions. I think every time I step into a session, I always look at me like, who the hell is this Neil? Why the hell is he coming to my company?
I could have been doing a Discovery Call or, you know, doing a demo. And hitting towards my quota, why do I have to give him my time? And I think it's once I've gained that trust and I see a smile and somebody's happy on the other side, that's when I'm asking for, feedback because they're in a good place to either give it or sometimes via email of like one or two students might reach out and say Neil. That was a great session.
Thanks for arranging it. I'll then ask them what is it about it that you liked? What stood out and is there anything you could do, you would do differently if you were in my position?
Does answer your question?
Corey Lindsay Yeah, definitely. It's interesting. I mean, I guess the premise of that was, like I said, you can probably also feedback at all points. I'm curious to hear that. Yeah, the the visual cues is what you go off predominately, which makes sense, as opposed to necessarily kind of having strict kind of feedback time. So start, middle and end, kind of being a bit more flexible from that perspective.
+ SaaS and the world of B2B tech (a newbie’s perspective) [00:31:14.200]
Neil Bhuiyan 100 percent. And so obviously, like with you going into this job as a BDR at G2, so you've kind of made the decision to move from finance. You realize that sales people a hell of a lot more fun and you kind of decided to move forward with G2. Like, what was those first couple of months like? Like learning a new way, a product, kind of a different world of SaaS and start up. What was that experience like for you, Corey?
Corey Lindsay Yeah, well, so I had no idea about SaaS even the SDR world existing before interviewing with maybe a week before interview with G2. I had no idea about kind of the wide world of B2B tech. I'd never been to the US where we were HQ'd. I never really properly worked in terms of a full time job as opposed to just kind of work experience and understanding the workplace that way, had no real kind of dedicated expectations to my day to day.
And I guess that all became I haven't got this to I do have this within a week or so. To say it was very busy and borderline overwhelming is an understatement. I find it very exciting. I mean, I was always ready to hit the working world. They got to a point where I went off to university. Yes. with interest of a course, I don't regret that at all. But it got to a point whereby.
That was definitely something missing. I was taking a lot in and it was all very interesting, but I kind of struggled to understand where what I was learning was going to make an impact in the future of my life and more importantly, where I was making an impact anywhere right now or at that time. So at that Point University, I was definitely ready to move into the working world. So I guess a lot of what happened when I started G2 was just hella-exciting, was really buzzed about kind of having a job and and to actually go to the US, like I mentioned, where we were, I had a two week onboarding.
Third, not maybe not many of the future candidates we have will be as lucky to do that with our current times. But again, a great experience because I mean, one of the this might be a question you are going to be asking later on from an onboarding perspective. A lot of the onboarding was was structured at G2. But the thing I found most both interesting and valuable was just just talking to people, seeing what they are, again, understanding of their failures and their successes and their roles, and that both at a BDR levels of people who even just joined a couple of weeks before me or even six, seven months before me, equally kind of valuable things to say.
And then all the way up to taking time with kind of some of the key VPs within the company just to hear what they have to say, where the direction the company is going from them. So I felt that that was one of the biggest kind of things for me from from that onboarding experience. I guess a lot of that really participated in my overall kind of first three or four months of the experience of G2 of going from what the hell do I even sell, let alone who I fell into, to then go into a point whereby I feel comfortable even just talking about my product, let alone selling it, I think was that was a big part.
+ Post onboarding: how to keep your internal knowledge fresh [00:34:34.980]
Neil Bhuiyan Hmm. So if I get it right, you kind of you've gone out to the US for two weeks for your onboarding to learn about product, industry, et cetera, but you get an opportunity to speak to a lot of different parts of the business, like from sales and other people that have just come in kind of what's their experiences, how they won things while they learn from failures, et cetera. Um, and then obviously that helps build up your knowledge over time and in the role that you're in now that you're doing.
How often are you speaking to the rest of the org and kind of what discussions you have in nowadays?
Corey Lindsay Yes, maybe just clarify, it's not as if I have necessarily set time with colleagues to kind of go through their experiences. I think a lot of especially that, especially as a BDR a lot of what you should and probably have to do with it. Just being a bit more proactive, taking kind of your understanding into your own hands, which is exactly what I was trying to do when I was when I was in the US in terms of what I do now. I mean, luckily, even though we're just two of us here in the UK team for the EMEA region as from a BDR perspective, there's a wide team of ten also in the US with a couple in India as well.
So I still have regular meetings with those, I guess to an extent have a manager in the US. Um, I take it more like a mentor from that perspective. So from that perspective, it's very much yes. I've got a lot of contact with my colleagues in the US and APAC region from a development perspective. What I would say is that even without that, again, depends on the company you're in, whether you're international or not, I think you should always be reaching out to whether they're in your organization or not, to people who you find genuinely interesting, genuinely valuable on LinkedIn, is a prime example where you're going to find the most amount of content, or at least I do personally, maybe just reaching out to those people, whether you spoke them before or not.
I mean, one thing which I found very surprising is that people are a lot more generous than you might think if you're just not reaching out to them. So if it's going to reach out to them and ask them for a couple of questions on, hey, look, I thought you did X, Y, Z on a Podcast like you tell me a little bit more about that. Um, some of them even take the time to a quick call with you.
To actually explain some of their mindset, their mentality or some of the techniques they have without necessarily being a prospect, some of them actually were prospects, not that they turn into anything meaningful from a meeting perspective, but the develop perspective. It was great.
Neil Bhuiyan I love that, I love that, I think, yeah, to an extent, it is a really good way in terms of prospecting is when you're brushing people's ego because you're taking an interest in what they do, things they've done.
You're just basically asking for a piece of mind. And it's something I teach your students, the moment. You can put somebody on a little bit of a pedestal to say, hey, I think you did great in the filling the funnel webinar. How did that come about? Like, what were you doing there? It can definitely bring people into a meeting. But equally, like you said, from a personal development point of view, when you're trying to learn about building your character, kind of what a great people doing.
+ LinkedIn – what stands out[00:37:36.210]
Neil Bhuiyan And you said when you find people interesting. So my question to you Corey is like, what is it about somebody on LinkedIn that piques your interest?
Corey Lindsay Great question. Wow, not what I thought about that much, actually, I guess for me it's very kind of very much for that instinct to an extent. But. Breaking it down a little bit, I guess one of the things which I think is very important to a professional in general, is the idea of emotional intelligence.
Again, people to talk about it all the time. But I think it's nothing which is trained enough from a Sales Perspective. But I feel like everyone always talks about how important it is, understanding prospects, things like that. And then you go into a how to prospect, how to use Linkedin, how to do emails, how to do calls, which is great from a proactive technique. But then the day this my belief is that anyone can do that actually where the emotional side and the emotional standing is not something which you can just kind of just get done quickly.
So roundabout way of answering your question. A lot of what I do and when I kind of see something interesting or linkedin is very much from a perspective. So seeing someone with a very unique perspective not seen before or where they a way of going about things and whether it's Sales or not, whether it's B2B technology or not, more often than not it is, because, again, that's just the type of people that I follow on LinkedIn.
But it's very much of a mindset, perspective that kind of brings around that curiosity for me and then brings so much so that I can reach out to them and request potentially time. But just a bit more understanding from from their mind, I guess, why they make those decisions and why they understand.
Neil Bhuiyan I think by showing your character, especially in your LinkedIn, because for a lot of us as a SDRs, this is how we were reaching out to our prospects, we have to be interesting as well. So rather than just say we do an SDR job at this company, this is what our company does. But kind of like what do you do in that space? Why you passionate about that space? What have you done to help other people outside of your space? And again, dude, when I came across your LinkedIn profile, I was like, wow, this dude really stands out I really want to get to speak to him. So I think for the listeners out there, like with your LinkedIn, if you you want people to connect with you and yes, definitely think about it.
Corey Lindsay And I highly recommend having a look at Cory Lindsay's profile LinkedIn to see how he's kind of laid out. I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned there.
+ Corey’s key takeaways [00:40:03.800]
Neil Bhuiyan So obviously, Corey, we've had a really good discussion. I would like to ask for the listeners out there. If there were three pieces or takeaways of information or tips that you'd love to give for anybody who's either just come into the role they're still in their first year. What would those three pieces of advice you'd love to give?
Corey Lindsay Well. There's definitely one which is the biggest and I save that to last, actually, I say one way I didn't do enough as a as an early stage rep is to listen back to calls.
So if you've got software like Gong, Chorus, Refract, Sales Intelligence software like that, then that's great for prerecorded for you. Otherwise, there's always the option. You can record yourself and ask colleagues to record it for them and actually listen back to technique. I did a little bit at the start because I was kind of just told that I should and there was a good idea and without really understanding why. And definitely recently the more you listened, but the more you understand even from yourself, why something goes terribly wrong or terribly right, for that matter, that's definitely a big thing. And listening back to Calls and definitely, the start of your SDR career, because that's what you're going to have the most mistakes, the most things of screw up and therefore you can learn from.
Secondly, because it takes about five minutes to go from the emotional intelligence perspective. Focus more on understanding the prospect as opposed to understanding your product. Hmm. So it kind of reiterates kind of reword that slightly instead of focusing so much on what can my product do for my prospects?
What benefits can they see? They can see 200 percent ROI over the course of a 10 year contract or whatnot. I would have loved to spend more time understanding why a prospect might even want to engage me in the first place, not necessarily from a kind of internal perspective, but from a personal perspective, just by talking to prospects, talking to customers, especially at the start. And I think you mentioned it quite well, the some of this call as well.
If you go in with that idea of how do I how do I sell to people like you and be quite transparent and quite honest about it, they could almost turn into opportunities themselves without you probably particualry wanting them to just at that point.
So that's the thing. The second one and the biggest one
[00:42:34.480] - Neil Bhuiyan go for it, and I'm eagerly awaiting.
Corey Lindsay Yeah, I think the biggest one is kind of like today. It's just be genuinely curious. If I want to say it in two words, and then again a lot of this then helps your personal life as well. I mean, fine, be curious how kind of your prospects. Basically understand what they're going through, because more often than not, especially from my experience, they haven't got a clue what problems they have until you can help them work through them. And the best part about it is kind of the job of the BDRs, it's going through that process of helping them understand the problems and then creating the problems.
And then once they've got problems, then they've got you've got the solution part of the job if you can genuinely.
Kind of be curious and understand why, and that's in all part of the job, I thought, in self-improvement as well from from a just generally trying to get better. Not a thing is by far the biggest thing, the biggest differentiator. Any BDR can have is in life.
Neil Bhuiyan I think those are three solid silver bullets of advice, Corey, and I really appreciate you sharing that with the listeners. And as we kind of come to the end of this Podcast, I just wanted to know for the listeners out there if they wanted to reach out to you to connect, to either chat or to get some advice, what's the best way to get in touch with yourself, Corey?
Corey Lindsay Easiest way is probably linked in. I'm always on there. This is where I live. Yes. Corey, Lindsay, I think all will pop up an otherwise Corentin Lindsay with my full name.
Neil Bhuiyan Perfect, I'll make sure I get those in the show notes. And is there any special things that you're up to like on social like any webinars or anything that's upcoming that the guys might be finding useful to jump into
Corey Lindsay at the moment? Not excessive amounts. There's been a lot of webinars over the course of lockdowns I think almost an overdose from all aspects of marketing. So I feel like at the moment that's been a bit of a quieter period. So right now I'm personally taking the time just to kind of reflect a little bit on the summer and then getting ready for the moment. It's early September. I'm looking at kind of when we can actually kind of get going again because again, business is going to get going pretty quick, especially how summer is now over, or getting over some kind of preparing myself more for the the upcoming, hopefully, surge of business on our way.
Neil Bhuiyan So, Corey, I just wanted to say a massive thank you for joining the SDR DiscoCall Podcast. We hope that you will be coming back as a future guest as we know that you are transitioning potentially into future endeavors and roles. Should it would be really interesting to see kind of how this progressed. But Corey just wanted to say thank you so much. And Happy Selling, my man.
Corey Lindsay Thank you, Neil, have a great day.