EPISODE #021
This guest needs no introduction - all the way from Atlanta, Georgia, his work has been featured in Forbes, Sales Hacker, the Hubspot blog, and the Harvard Business Review, he’s been nominated and won top voices of LinkedIn three years in a row and named a Top 25 Sales Development Thought Leader – it’s the one and only Morgan J. Ingram. Morgan joins host Neil Bhuiyan to reflect on his star journey from SDR to team lead and his current role as a global trainer at the world-renowned John Barrows Sales Training.
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EPISODE #021 TRANSCRIPT
TL;DR
+ Introduction to Morgan [00:00:10.130]
Neil Bhuiyan So today we've got a very special guest and episode in store for you all. It's one I've been looking forward to for some time.
And I consider this person to be one of the SDR GOATs of LinkedIn and Instagram for the sales development community. This person has been nominated and won Top Voices of LinkedIn three years in a row. All the way from Atlanta, it's the one and only Morgan J Ingram.
We're going to be learning about Morgan's SDR journey from SDR to team lead to ending up at John Barrows sales training, Morgan's first cold call, how he built systems and formulas to break through the noise, discussions with Gary V and John Barrows himself, and including SDR tips for mindset and consistency, time management, and how Morgan comes up with his content.
I'm really looking forward to sharing this episode with you all. So with that in mind, let's begin.
Neil Bhuiyan Hi there listeners, and welcome to another episode of the SDR DiscoCall Podcast. Today, I am so excited for the guest that we have on board. This is somebody I was thinking about even before the show was created, and it was a name on my vision board. And you know you have to put those things onto your vision board and it's now coming to fruition. And I'm actually sitting here looking at the person and I'm like, what, I can't believe it's happening. But guys, I want to introduce you to the man, the myth, the SDR GOAT, Morgan J Ingram.
Morgan, how are you doing today, sir?
Morgan J Ingram I'm doing fantastic, man. And with that intro, you can't be doing bad.
Neil Bhuiyan Thank you so much. So, Morgan, there is a lot of people that are aware of who you are via LinkedIn and through social channels. But for the people that don't know who you are, who are you, where are you based in the world, and currently what do you do?
Morgan J Ingram Yeah. So currently I'm based in Atlanta, Georgia, born and raised. And what I do is I help reps, whether it's an SDR from my obvious background there, AEs, full sales cycle AEs, even account managers, prospect and spark, net new conversations with prospects and also to further build your pipeline, because I believe that prospecting isn't just cold outbound. I think people get that twisted. It's really hey, am I reaching out to get a meeting whether by any means necessary, as long as it's ethical. So I train people globally on that.
I've been to multiple different countries to do that in the past three years working with John. And how it all started out is I started off as an SDR, and a lot of my experience comes from in that role.
+ Morgan’s journey into sales [00:03:25.280]
Neil Bhuiyan Absolutely love it. And guys, if you're not following Morgan Ingram, follow him on LinkedIn, follow him on Instagram, follow him on Twitter. There is so much content that you give out there and obviously we'll go into the content pieces shortly.
But being the SDR that I am, kind of looked at your LinkedIn. I was thinking I need to bullet point kind of like Morgan's journey and there was just so much in there. You've got a wealth of experience, but looking at your LinkedIn, from 2014 you were a sales and marketing director at CampusSports. You were founder at Collegiate Gaming. 2016 you were at Terminus and that's kind of, I believe, where the SDR journey started as well.
Morgan J Ingram Yep.
Neil Bhuiyan Mentor at GrowthX Academy, Sales in Brotherhood and Sisterhood, SDR Chronicles and then three years at JB Sales Training. Morgan, if you could kindly just walk us through how did that journey get you to where you are today? What was that like?
Morgan J Ingram Yeah, so I'll start with what I did right after college. I think that's obviously where a lot of people, whether you're coming out of uni or any type of school, what are you going to do? And even still today. And there have been people who have been doing really well. Shout-out to multiple people out in the space right now that are now going to colleges and sharing these insights. There's even classes, schools like Kennesaw State, which is a couple miles away from me. They're doing some more sales stuff here in the Georgia area.
But the whole thing is like there is no type of schooling on sales. So I never knew that I was going to get into it. So right after that graduation, I went to a local event. They told me about being an SDR. They told me about tech. And then I take a step back to be like, all right, let me go find out more about it.
So cold calling the VP of Sales. That's how I got the interview. Went through two interviews and I got the job from there. And then everything moved in that direction moving forward where it's like I was in a sales role. And then from there I started The SDR Chronicles, which was about three to four months in. I got the idea from Ralph Barsi so shout-out to him. He's the VP of Sales at Trey now. And then also I got the idea from Gary Vaynerchuk, which I'm assuming most of you are familiar with who that is.
And so having conversations with them both, that's when I knew I needed to start it. And at the time, which was, it's crazy to actually think about this, five years ago, there wasn't anyone who was doing it. So I decided to be that person and that exploded my career to then being seen on LinkedIn and then from being seen on LinkedIn and going through the ranks of being an SDR team lead, team lead to manager, got approached by John and he was like, hey, do you want to join the team?
I was like, sure, after multiple conversations. And that's what I've been doing for the past three years, is training and coaching teams all the way from Salesforce, all the way down to start-ups on how do you do prospecting right. And what's the formulas and structure you need have to be successful.
+ The importance of research [00:06:19.130]
Neil Bhuiyan I absolutely love it. So if we got back to that college piece like where you come out of graduation and then you're going to this event to learn about the role of an SDR and what tech is. Like for me, when I was approached by a recruiter, I was like, hey, what the hell is a start-up? What is tech and what is SaaS? You said you have to go find out about it, and I think that's a very key piece rather than just jumping into a role and a new career. But what was your learning to help you understand what that world looked like and what did it mean to you?
Morgan J Ingram Yeah, so shout-out to Sales Hacker on this one. I went there and read through everything because I didn't know what an SDR was. I didn't know anything about sales. I didn't know anything about tech. I didn't know what a CRM, like I didn't know any of these things. It was the same for you. You probably were just like what? Like, what are these acronyms?
Actually, side note, I'm surprised no one's created a acronym cheat sheet or something like that that you download once you get become an SDR, because there's so many acronyms that I'll say it in natural conversations with my friends and they're like, what the heck is a AE? What's a MQL? And I'm like, oh yeah, like this is what it is because I understand the verbiage now. And so, yeah, Sales Hacker. I read a ton of that and those insights. I reached out to people who already were SDRs or were in certain roles.
I was very proactive and looking for insights from people and they were really just informational interviews that I was continuously reaching out to people on. And that's how things really progressed when I was doing all these things.
Neil Bhuiyan I love it. And you're very right. It would be great to have that cheat sheet with those acronyms. When I've been an SDR manager, I've gone in and that's kind of one of the first couple of slides that I have. I'm like, there are so many acronyms, but learn what they are. But I think to a point where, like even with this podcast, when I'm launching it onto my personal social networks, it was like, Neil, what's an SDR? I'm like, oh, sales development rep. They work in the world of tech. And it made me even think like I need to explain it in a layman term for some people that don't get it.
+ Making the right connections [00:08:17.630]
Neil Bhuiyan But as you said, you're being proactive, you're reading up on a lot of stuff from Sales Hacker, you're reaching out to people. And those people that you're reaching out to, are those people still in your network? Do you still connect with them and kind of what conversations do you have with them?
Morgan J Ingram So I don't talk to Gary that much anymore. He's really busy. We just met at an event and we talked for like 5-10 minutes.
I still talk to Ralph. He's one of my mentors still. I consider him a great friend, and we are always in conversations about all different types of stuff. It's been cool because he's seen me since the very beginning. Some of the reps I reached out to, I still keep in contact with them. Now they're managing teams which is pretty cool to see. I still keep in touch with Max. I remember reaching out to him at the beginning, being like this is such a great resource. And now I consider him a friend, too.
So it's cool how a lot of people I reached out to originally and I had no idea what I was doing are now friends or mentors or people I do work with.
Neil Bhuiyan It's crazy as you say, going through the career, connecting with people initially, and then a couple of years later, you see yourselves like in their sort of level or doing similar roles and you see them grow and it makes you feel like, okay, this is a real thing and it's great to have those people around you. So networking 100 percent agree with it.
+ The first ever Morgan J. Ingram cold call (and why it sucked) [00:09:31.350]
Neil Bhuiyan And you said an interesting piece, to get into your first of role, you had to like cold call the VP. What was that and what was the first ever Morgan Ingram cold call like?
Morgan J Ingram It was awful. So it was really bad. The thing, though, is I was doing cold calling before I did that cold call to that VP of Sales. I would reach out to people about certain things because I just knew that no one really made calls. So I was willing to call people and talk to them and ask questions and all those type of things. And so me doing that wasn't new, it just was new to get a job, and so that cold call was awful.
It was like, hey, my name's Morgan. I'm looking for a job for and SDR. This is why I think I'd be great. It was bad. The thing, though, is I did it. The thing is, though, I did it because other people didn't. That's why they were like, we at least have to bring this person in because they're were willing to cold call, which they told me no one else had done that. And there are people who had more experience than me. It was just the fact that they weren't doing these little things that I was doing.
+ Breaking through the noise [00:10:37.010]
Neil Bhuiyan I love that. I love that. I think a friend earlier this year said to me, you got to do the things that most people won't in order to get the things that most people don't have. And that's kind of a great way to differentiate yourself. And it's something I tried to do in a lot of my life and learn from people such as yourself. If everybody is trying to prospect in a certain way or cold call another way, I'm like, okay, so what are people not doing? What have they not explored?
I want to try that out, even if it's crazy because it will get you results and it will help you stand out and break through the noise right?
Morgan J Ingram Exactly. And that's it. Breaking through the noise. That's my whole goal is how can I do that? If I could figure out a way to break through the noise, I'm already way ahead of everyone else. So if I could, again, if I could do that and figure out what the system and formula is behind that, that's going to be great. Because if I can't figure out a system or a formula on how to break through the noise, then I have something that's a one-off in a very unique case, which that means for me, I can't coach on that and I can't train on that.
It's just something unique to me. And there's certain things that I do that I've realised like that's just unique to me. I can tell people, here's what I do. Yet I don't think it's something that is scalable for that individual or for a company or a team or whatever that is.
Neil Bhuiyan One hundred percent agree. I think I learnt that very hard lesson as an SDR manager where I had been an SDR, I had been successful in what I did, and when I'm training other people to kind of do it Neil's way, I would sometimes have a lot of kickback to that. They're like, well, Neil, that worked maybe five or six years ago when you were in the role, but you're not in the trenches anymore. And I say, well, I still use it for my own business and it still does work for me, but I did understand that was my style.
So what I always say to students is like, look, take what I've taught you, but then make it your own, create your own framework. But whatever you have learnt that works, then share it with the rest of the team because that knowledge is invaluable for everybody to hear from.
But yeah, again, I watch a hell of a lot of your content on Instagram, on LinkedIn and there's so many things. And I'm constantly pushing people towards your content because I think you're somebody who knows what the world's like for an SDR. You also give free advice, a lot of free advice on LinkedIn. And that's why I think a lot of people still come to you as well. And you've always got time to talk to people.
+ Taking the time to respond (no matter how busy you are) [00:12:57.800]
Neil Bhuiyan I know that you are a very busy individual, but every time you do get back to them, like the guy took the time out to get back to me to give his feedback, that means a hell of a lot. And I think to your point, Gary V, that's something I learnt from him in terms of like he's always replying to his followers and listeners and taking time to have a chat with them. So, yeah, in short, thank you so much, Morgan.
Morgan J Ingram You're welcome. And so you mentioned something there that's very key, right? Actually, there's two things. One is when I was talking to Gary, and I've talked him three times in an event or in passing, is how locked it in focused he is with the conversation that's in front of him. He still has hundreds of people that are like around him taking pictures, but he's so locked in with you. I found that fascinating every single time I talked to him. I was like, how is he this locked in?
There's probably a million more things in his head than I have in my head and what's currently going on. And it made me realise, it's like even though we have these things going on in our life, that we have to be present no matter how productive or busy we get. And also, as well, he does take the time to reply and respond to people, and he's running a massive company. So even though obviously our days are filled with a ton of stuff that we're looking to do and we might not get to everyone, like I try to get back to every single person. As of late, it's been harder due to LinkedIn inbox because it's filled up, So I tell people go to Instagram. I'll get back to you faster there.
But the thing is, I was looking at me like if Gary could do this, why can't I? What excuse am I making?And once I got that perspective, it's been a lot easier for me to engage because I think about it in that way.
+ Talking tactics [00:14:43.910]
Morgan J Ingram And so my second thing is, is always giving people tactical advice. I think a lot of the times we think about things in hypothetical like, oh, we'll provide value. And it's like, but what does that mean? Like what's going on there? And the reason I love just giving out advice to people in the community is because it's something that I wish I had when I was an SDR. There was no other SDR person giving out content that I could be like, let me go learn. I had to go learn it all myself and my former boss, shout-out to Lucas, was amazing, too.
And so I got a lot of insight, but it wasn't on social. I didn't have that virtual mentor. So I was like, well, I'll just be the virtual mentor for other people and you have to be able to do that.
And I'll tell you this, this just happened on Saturday. I was out with my friends, and we saw someone that we knew, mutual friend. And he was like, hey, man, like I've been watching your videos on Instagram and I've never been a big proponent of sales and I use your advice. And it got me... He's a trainer, right? So doing training on the job. He made 20 grand last month just by using the free tips.
That to me was like that's what I'm doing it for.
Neil Bhuiyan That's the value.
Morgan J Ingram It s like impact of your income every single day. I've never had a sales call with him. We're not doing one-on-one coaching. He took the advice and he did stuff with it and that I was just like, man, I was so proud of him. So proud of him.
Neil Bhuiyan I absolutely love it. And you're right, because I'll be honest, I've been watching with the Top Voice on LinkedIn Awards that were going out. And again, congratulations, for becoming number one on that like three, two years running. Wow.
And I saw a little bit of bitterness on LinkedIn where people saying how do such people get, is it the algorithms, why are they voted number one? And when I saw yourself, I said, it's because this guy puts out a lot of free content. It's not gated. There is so much values that SDRs can learn on their lunch break or even for a trainer like myself where I'm thinking, okay, this guy has a new spin on it and he's giving it out, but he's asking for feedback. He's actually trying it out.
So I even saw on LinkedIn you were breaking down emails of how to get a good response and to initiate a dialogue and a conversation and to stop asking for fifteen minutes. And I said, that guy's got it. And so many people can see and get that value. And to your point where I get asked this a lot is the training that you give, Neil, is it just for SDRs? I said, well it's primarily based for SDRs because it's what I've learnt as an SDR, but other people can use it.
I've had personal friends, they also they've watched stuff or I've given advice and they've taken it into their personal lives when dealing with relationships with families or trying to handle an objection that a family member has said. And when they come back to me and say, thanks so much for sharing, I'm just like, no, thank you for actually executing it, taking it. It's all you. It's nothing to do with me. I just put out an idea.
I think that's why a lot of people will warm to you and come to view your content and actually want to believe in what you're saying because you're real. You keep it real. You're not just a gated content saying, hey, sign up today and you're going to get all these insights and content, et cetera, et cetera, you're actually giving it to them.
Morgan J Ingram Click on the link below.
+ Bringing sales to the streets and the story behind Morgan and JB Sales Training [00:17:59.540]
Neil Bhuiyan Yeah, exactly. And I think to John's analogy that I heard a few years ago when he said he wants to bring sales to the streets. He doesn't just want to read hundreds and hundreds of sales books and try to condense this all, he just wants to learn what's going on with people in the streets, share that knowledge, put it into the hands of people so they can actually do something.
And again, when I saw you come onto the scene, I didn't know who you was, but I knew that you was associated to the JB brand. And I was like, who is this guy? And you caught my eye and I just started following. And I was like, I love the stuff that he puts out. But that kind of brings me on to my next point, which is, so again, a few years back, I didn't know who you were. And then I saw that you were with John Barrows.
And I was like, how did he get in with John? What's the story there and please, how did you get into JB?
Morgan J Ingram So it's a couple of things and one of the things is going to go back to what you talked about, which is the Top Sales Voice. People always will have complaints across the board. Whether you do something or you don't, there will always be complaints, so you might as well do something. And so the reason that that's happened for 2018, 2019, 2020, it's consistency. My whole focus is I'm going to be more consistent than everyone else.
I've been doing Muffins with Morgan since April, I believe. Every single Saturday. The only time I miss a Saturday is for two reasons. One is I have to do something with my family and that's just part of it. Or two, last time I missed was because I want to go look for apartments and we had to go do it in the morning and we just couldn't do it any muffins later. So the only two times that I will miss Muffins with Morgan, but I do it every single time. You know I'm there.
Neil Bhuiyan And just for the listeners, just in case they don't know what is Muffins with Morgan, because it's a great idea. so for the listeners that don't know. Before we go into that story, what what is Muffins with Morgan?
Morgan J Ingram Yeah, I was going to go there. That's a good point. So it's a weekly Q&A that I'll have. So basically, people come on live on LinkedIn. I also have it on Twitch, too. And people will be like, hey, I have a question on this. I have a question on that. And we just go for an hour. I have music playing when we start out. We make it fun. And then as of lately, we bring guests. So guests we'll have emails that they're getting sent executives and we'll go through their emails and be very tactical. And like, this is how you should get responses to your emails.
So we get really, really deep. And it's on Saturday because then it's like, hey, you've got to get up for this. So this is premium content. And we switch the days from... I did one on Tuesday. But the thing is, that's the key. It's being consistent. And I know if I'm able to do be consistent and innovate, that leads to results.
So the reason I said all that is just how did I meet John? So it was through The SDR Chronicles. So I made a video for six months straight every single day. I was putting out some type of video or interview or content, and that's what put me on the map. It wasn't, hey, I made one video and it was awesome. It was like, no, I keep coming. I'm not going away. And he saw me. He was like, these are videos that are cool.
Like, awesome that that guy's doing that.
The video that stood out to him, and it's my video on my page right now so anybody could go check it out, is this is how I got promoted to an SDR manager and the five reasons behind that. And it broke down what I truly believe in at my core that leads to success. And so those things aligned with John's guidelines for his success. And then that's what he was like, I understand what this person does from a skillset standpoint. Now I'm backing him on how he sees things from a morals and ethics standpoint which align, because if we don't align on morals and ethics, it doesn't matter how good I am at what I do, there's going to be conflicts.
And so that's what really stood out to John. And then he reached out to me. He was like, yeah, come on board, let's do this. And then that's what's led into our relationship so far.
It's crazy because I was year, two year and a half, two years into sales, and he reached out to me being like, hey, you want to... I'm like, what? What are you talking about? I'm just getting started. But the thing is, he had obviously a lot of confidence in me and he's coached and trained me on certain things to help me get better, not only as a sales professional, but as a person as well.
Neil Bhuiyan Hundred percent. He has that, well, firstly, congrats for putting that video out, getting recognised, having this, the only way that I can put John is like a Jedi master coming out and saying, hey, Moran, come to the darkside for a moment. That's so cool.
And he has that impact because I remember when I was a young SDR at Zuora, and first time I'd ever been out to Cali in the States. And this guy with a goatee and bald head comes in and he's using a lot of cursing language and he's thinking, this is how we're going to do stuff. This is the way that we're going to do it. I've kind of perfected this art. And I sat there and was like, who the hell is this guy?
It was like a light bulb went off in my head and I was jus like, this is cool. The way that he was teaching it was just framework stuff that I could remember, and I could start using these techniques straight after the training. And when I was flown back to EMEA to the London team, these guys had been doing Oracle sales training, they had been hard, hardened veterans of SaaS already. And I'm booking these enterprise meetings. It's like, how the hell are you doing this, Neil? You've only been here for a few months.
I'm like, it's all about John Barrows sales training. That's the secret sauce.
+ The Jedi and the young Padawan [00:23:32.980]
Neil Bhuiyan Then seeing you and kind of when I saw you on LinkedIn, it felt like so you have John here who's like the old school sales guru, and then you have this young Padawan coming in with these SDR techniques. It's like you've got the piece of the puzzle. What's it like working with John, with somebody who's kind of like been here around for a while, and you're the new gen bringing in the fresh talent and blood and techniques? What's it like with your two's dynamics?
Morgan J Ingram Yeah, so I think the biggest thing is that I am always willing to try out new strategies. And John's like, hey, this is how I do it. Like this is it. But the thing is, he's very open with new things, but it's just, okay, how do I do that for me? How do I go about that and do that video, that voiceover or whatever? So I'm always sharing stuff with him to be like, hey, these are things that we need to take in consideration and then how do you execute on that?
Which is my whole role is like, hey, here's a new strategy. How does it work? Like from a metric standpoint, from a reaching out standpoint. So working with him is good because I can always bounce ideas off him and he's always like, yeah, go try that. That sounds good to me. But I've learnt from him on how to be more direct in conversations and more direct in my sales set goals, et cetera, whatever that is.
It's a lot of the things that I think about I get in my own world sometimes, or I'm like, oh yeah, these are all my ideas. And he's like, no. You need to like, what's the formula, what's the process, what's the system? Because a lot of my success when I was an SDR, I had a formula in my head. I didn't know how to really articulate it until John was like, no, everything has to have a formula system, like you said, a framework. But I just naturally could just do it because I just figured it out for myself.
And so that dynamic works, it's like, hey, I got this new thing I'm doing. Okay, but how does that work for everyone else? Then it's like, all right, let's figure out how to tell other people how to do this based on taking me out of the equation. And that's how our dynamic works. It's like, hey, I got this new idea. I got this new thing I want to try out. Okay, let's see if it works. Then how does this work with everyone else. Because you have someone who has been a VP of Sales, who has been a Sales Rep themselves.
So if you're going to teach him something new, it can't be like, this just works like this way. You have to give them something that's super easy and simple for them to execute. So if I'm able to explain that to John and he can do it, that I should be able to do it for everyone else.
Neil Bhuiyan I love that. I love that. You guys are very both, you've both got strong personalities and characters and I love both your characters. Do you guys ever like butt heads on new sales techniques and ideas? How do you mediate those?
Morgan J Ingram Yes. So I think when it comes to certain things. Like when it comes to using LinkedIn voice notes, for example. I'll be like, hey, I like to do it at this step. And you might be like, well, I like to do it at this step. So normally when we have that back and forth conversations, we're in the same arena, as in like we agree that this technique or this tactic or channel is good, but how do you go about that?
So I might say, hey, when I deliver price, I might go like this but he's like I like going like this.
But the thing is, he has his style and I have my style, but we all have similar frameworks on how we deliver it. We'll deliver the voice note the same way, but how the style... Or the framework of the voice note is the same, the style how we deliver is different. And also what's different is when we decide to do that. It's not like hostile, but we'll have a conversation being like, oh, no, I think it's better here.
But again, at the end of the day, it's A/B testing and split testing, which we both believe in. So we're both willing to hear each other out on certain things. But, yeah, there's some times where I'm like, John, I don't know about that one. Or he'll be like, Morgan, I don't know. But it's a healthy dialogue and we have to have that.
Neil Bhuiyan Definitely, and I think it's that kind of fear of conflict. Sometimes we may as SDRs, we might be fearful to bring a new idea to the table because we feel there may not be a consensus decision. But I always think it's healthy to have those debates, make sure voices are heard. But to your point, is that testing. You go try it this way, we try it that way. So you try and spit the lyrics like DMX and I'll go spit it like Drake.
We'll see who pops off in the charts. It's healthy definitely to have that.
+ Success as an SDR: A positive mindset [00:28:02.830]
Neil Bhuiyan And so obviously, like with yourself, you coach a lot of sales development teams, you help commercial teams as well, and you have a great reach globally. What are the things that stand out to you for SDRs? So there may be a few listeners are thinking about jumping into this world of sales development and you've seen different countries. What traits do you think make people successful in these type of roles, like the mindsets? How should I go into it?
Morgan J Ingram So going into an SDR role, right? I think the number one thing is mindset, like having a positive mindset. That may sound fluffy for most people. But at the end of the day like this is really important because if you don't have a steady mindset and you're not able to get yourself out of negative places when you don't hit your number. Now, I'm not saying negative places as in things are happening in the world. That's a different conversation. I'm talking about you didn't hit your numbers this week and you're upset.
Morgan J Ingram Like, no. Learn what you did wrong. How could you adjust and you just move on to the next week. So it's about keeping a steady mindset. The best reps do that. They're very even keeled. They're very calm. They're not stressed. They're not stressing themselves out. Because once they do that, then it leads to you having stressful conversations with other people you're looking to talk to. So that's number one.
+ Success as an SDR: Why time management matters [00:29:23.930]
Morgan J Ingram Number two is time management. The reps that understand how to manage their time are the best. This is something that I harp on over and over and over again, and I'm going to keep doing it until people are sick of me saying it. But it's time management and being organised. And again, a lot of people are like, oh, I'm good. All right. Well, when you ask people when's the best time you should be cold calling, when do you get your highest response of emails? There's not a lot of answers to those questions.
Well, that means that you don't know how to manage your time and you don't know when to make certain calls. When people say, hey, I don't have enough time to do this, it's not that you don't have ever time to do anything. That actually is not the case. There's two things. One is you don't know how to prioritise your time, so you get lost in activities that waste your time. Or two, you like saying that you're really busy, yet you're not being productive in those time slots that you put down. You're just saying, oh, I'm doing calls, but you're really not doing calls.
You're really making calls, looking at your email, looking at your... Like you're doing a lot. So you have it on your calendar, but you're not doing anything.
Morgan J Ingram So there's two things. One, you don't know what to even put so you're just lost anyways. Two is, you put it down, but you're still out of focus. And the thing is, if you can get this down, your success is going to skyrocket. I remember when I laid out my task each week and I looked at my task each day, everything changed for me. Even today, I'm very organised on my time because if I'm not, then nothing will get done.
And so that if you have that skill, you're going to go pretty far.
+ Success as an SDR: Be the best student that you can be [00:31:00.700]
Morgan J Ingram Number three is, and this is something I'm getting better at, is continuous feedback. So I have a whole new concept on it now because I was just listening to a course over the weekend: Tom Bilyeu, Impact Theory. You guys could go check that out. And one thing he talks about is always having a growth mindset and continuously asking for feedback. However, he talks about how what do we weigh are, basically, status on?
What I mean by that is do we only weigh our status on how smart people think we are, how much money we make, or how we're perceived in our career? And that really hit hard with me because I was like, when I look at my status when I first started out, I heavily weighted it on how much am I getting recognised in the community or how many deals am I closing? Everything was career based. And so he talked about how that was really harming for him and how it didn't help him be successful.
And I have made the adjustment in the past year and a half, but then I felt like this is a thing, is that you have to treat yourself as I'm going to be the best scholar I can be or student I can be.
So when you when you weighed your status on being the best student, then asking for feedback and you getting constructive criticism and things of that nature don't bother you as much. So then my light bulb that I had like three days ago, I actually have it written down. I have all these notes. I don't know if somebody's watched the video. I have a ton of notes on this because I was like, wow, that's it. Like that's what I'm missing out on.
I'm not thinking I'm being, hey, I want to be the best scholar. Because when you do that, the feedback, the criticism, the negativity doesn't bother you anymore over time. And I feel like the best reps, they get rid of that ego of, hey, look, I'm the best I'm going to figure it out myself, which I've been there myself. Now it's like, oh, I just want to learn. I don't care if you say I did a bad job there. I can fix it moving forward. And so I think those are three key skills, things that SDRs need to be doing to be massively successful.
+ Success as an SDR: Be the innovator [00:33:21.130]
Morgan J Ingram Actually I'll add one more, number four. It's always innovating and always saying, hey, video's out, let me go try video. That subject line I heard about, let me go do it. So when you're taking the time to watch a course like I'm doing or a podcast or this interview we're listening to right now, don't just be like, oh, that was cool and move out through your day. Write stuff down and be like, that's actually good. I've been taking advice from people's podcasts and I do it and it works and it's like, wow, shocker.
But we don't do that. We like listening to stuff and just being like, oh, this is just amazing. I feel good about it. Right. Just the educational hype. And then you're like, come on, you got to actually do it. And so those are the four things I would tell SDRs.
Neil Bhuiyan I think those you have dropped some big bombs of gold information there, and I 100 percent agree with you. So I think going back to your point of the mindset, this isn't always going to be easy. This isn't always going to be fun. But I have an ethos of a positive mentality brings positive results in reality by having that positive mindset when the chips are down and just keep going for it, it can definitely help leverage. Because many times I've been an SDR thinking, okay, am I going to get fired or am I going to get canned or am I going to go into this role, am I going to be able to start a company?
I'm just saying, you know what? It can happen. I just got to keep positive and happy about it.
Neil Bhuiyan Time management, 100 percent. I actually had a hard learning this year. I was somebody who lives and dies by my calendar. But I came to the conclusion a lot wasn't getting done because I was putting things into my calendar that I didn't enjoy doing. So I would then think, well, let me think, what are the three main things I need to get done today? So if it is to send out an email, if it is to arrange a training session, if it is to dissect somebody's email and give them feedback, these are things that I enjoy doing. So I'm trying to put things into my calendar.
But for the things that I don't enjoy, I'm putting them at the beginning of my day to make sure that I can just get through it. And then I have something to look forward to as well.
And yeah, with the learning side of it, my ethos is I want to be the idiot in the room. If I'm the smartest guy in the room, I'm in the wrong room. I'm not learning. So when I step into SDR teams and I hear all these young guys and girls coming up with these cool ideas, I'm like, wow, I do feel dumb right about now, but I love it because I'm learning from them. And then you share that knowledge as well.
I think prior to lockdown, I wasn't really listening to too many podcasts. I wasn't watching too much because I was happy the way that I was doing things, but now opening myself up a little bit. There was so much free content out there and there's so much to learn from. And I even think like with LinkedIn and sales knowledge, it's taken me away from YouTube because I want to be hooked on to LinkedIn TV. Oh, that's one.
Morgan J Ingram Yeah, LinkedIn TV. That could be something.
+ The key to digesting content [00:36:06.450]
Neil Bhuiyan And kind of watching it out there. So again, there is so much knowledge that we can gain. And with you, how do you best learn because you must be consuming so much content or also putting out content. How do you digest it?
Morgan J Ingram So I don't consume as much content as you may think I do on LinkedIn or other platforms. I solely focus on those platforms where, hey, I'm posting, I'm engaging, I respond, and that's my focus with LinkedIn. I don't consume a lot of people because you can overconsume. This is really important, it's not just like, hey, I'm going to follow 50,000 people. You're going to have fifty different thousand tactics to go do. That's too much for me.
So I scale it all the way back and I hyperfocus on three to four to five themes or people to get done. So for me right now, I'll go listen to 30 minutes to President's Club. I love that podcast. They get straight to the point, they're like tactics boom, boom, boom. That's all I need. I just need to figure out like tell me what to do. And then I just bought the course, Tom Bilyeu, so I'm going to go deep into that on mindset and business stuff. So I'm taking notes and I'm going to do things out of that.
I also have a question-based selling. I would need to get better at my sales cycle velocity and getting people to move forward with momentum and drive urgency. So I got a reread question-based selling to figure out like, okay, I'm missing something here. Let me go read this again. And then Valuetainment.
Patrick Bet David. I don't know if you guys listen to him, I highly encourage you do that as well. He talks a lot about finances, mindset, intrapreneurship.
So these are things that I'm doing to level myself up and I actually do the stuff that they say. But if you listen to 50,000 people, you're not going to do anything. It's just going to make you feel good, which cool. If you want it to, that's fine.
But I'm not trying to do that. My whole thing right now is I'm learning from other industries. Tom Bilyeu's in a completely different industry. Patrick Bet David, completely different industry. Question-based selling, that's still selling but not SaaS. It's different.
So the thing is like I'm expanding my mindset and my learnings from others so I can get better at what I'm currently doing. I don't just sit and consume things on LinkedIn all day long, because I know that there's other places I'm getting that information as of right now. I don't neglect people by any means. If somebody sends me something, I will definitely engage or check it out. But the thing is, most of that advice that's getting on there on LinkedIn, I have conversations with those people probably daily, if not weekly.
So I'm getting those insights just in conversations. So I really focus on, what are some new insights that I can bring to my role? And that's what I'm doing with these other different content pieces.
Neil Bhuiyan I absolutely love that and the reason why, because you're making me not feel as scared as I once was. Because being totally honest one book that I keep hearing from a lot of my reps and students is, Neil, it's all about predictable revenue. And they quote these books. I'm like, I haven't read that. I haven't seen it yet. But also I'm consuming some content on LinkedIn, seeing a couple of cool videos, but I'll be watching stuff by David Goggins, Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad Poor Dad.
I'm listening to fitness gurus because of their mindset and I try to take those little pieces and then implement them into the advice that I'm giving out or I'm trying to find like minded people, because I think if I sat there all day, every day reading stuff about sales, my life and my brain would get pretty bored. I always try to get inspiration from other fields, like you say, outside of our industry. And then to put it out.
So thank you for making me feel a little bit safe today
+ Diving in the deep end [00:40:05.680]
Morgan J Ingram That's what I'm here for. Again, it's just thinking about how can I get insights from people that are like, wow, okay, they're doing that? Let me hear more about what's going on here.
So I'll give you context. Tom Bilyeu built a billion dollar company. I probably should listen to what he has to say. You know what I'm saying? LinkedIn has a lot of great insights. Absolutely. Prospecting, sales, et cetera, but if I can get a course from someone who built a billion dollar company and he's got Q&As and it's very tactical based and it's based on formulas, which that's exactly how my brain works. Why would I not go spend all my time learning that over there?
I'll post and engage on LinkedIn, but I got this resource of someone who built a billion dollar company. Let me go dive into this. He's probably got things to say. We just shared here today. I'm on the mindset part because I know from mindsets like, okay, I know a lot of this stuff already. But the thing is, I was like, I haven't heard of that before. That's interesting. And that I get that one golden nugget of just being a scholar and having your basically status revolves around that. That's going to change a lot of the stuff I do moving forward, because I never thought of it that way.
Neil Bhuiyan Definitely. And as you say, like wanting to be the best scholar. With me, I never wanted to be the best salesperson. I wanted to do sales, but I wanted to get good elements of it and figure out where's my path? So did the SDR piece. Loved it. That was my most funnest part of my sales career.
And AE, I found that a very boring role because it was too transactional. Customer success, I loved relationship building but if I can take the best bits of those roles and then put it into somebody who loves coaching people, that's kind of what I want to do. But something I listen to a lot of podcasts, but the key bit for everybody that's listening on this, I'm putting show notes that this whole conversation is going to be transcribed. Morgan, all of your links are going to be in there, all your shout-outs to people. If you're listening in, go check out the show notes, read the advice that Morgan is giving, and execute on it.
So definitely I'll make sure they're all in there as well.
Neil Bhuiyan I see that we're coming towards the end, Morgan, of the show and we definitely need to get you back on. I think as a future episode, maybe it will be on LinkedIn TV.
Morgan J Ingram Linkedin TV, definitely
+ Morgan’s key takeaways [00:42:25.000]
Neil Bhuiyan But definitely I'd love to get you back. And we'll also hopefully get John on one day. I think getting you two guys in the same room on the same podcast, that would be really interesting. So fingers crossed in the new year, that's something we can maybe talk about. But if you was talking to a younger Morgan J Ingram a few years ago who was about to embark on this journey, what three bits of advice would you like to give them as they're about to start?
Morgan J Ingram Yeah. So number one, and we've already talked about it but I want to bring it back, is to be okay with the constructive criticism. I don't do well. Physically, my face, when I get negative or constructive criticism, I make a face like I want to kill you. It is bad because I tell people I make the face because I don't respond well to it, but I will take notes and I will do what you say. I'm not going to ignore you.
It's just my face looks kind of crazy. So my advice to people is, if you have that feeling that I have or if you make that face that I do, still ask for people's feedback and constructive criticism. That's the advice as a whole, but do it consistently, not just when you feel like it. It's a consistent thing because people see things that we just don't know about. I've talked to friends about giving feedback on certain things and certain things they'll say to me, I didn't even realise that.
I just do that because that's just what I do and now I got to make those adjustments.
I'll just give you one take on it. I used to... I don't do it a lot as much anymore. Sometimes it will happen because it's just habit, but I'm getting out of it, is that I'll go in this thing called space mode where I will be in my own world and we'll talk about things that I want to talk about and may not necessarily ask you questions about what you might care about in a conversation. So because I'll be in work mode all day long and so then I'll go out with friends, but I'm still in that mode and I just haven't turned it off.
So I'm in a work sales, presenting mode. But obviously that's not what you're here for.
So it doesn't help me to have genuine conversations with people. And my friends pointed that out. They're like you go in this weird space mode thing and people notice that. I'm like, what? Oh, that's right. I'm just in it so much and I had to separate it and it's got way better now. But that's why I say you got to ask for feedback and constructive criticism.
What I found to be helpful, though, is a tactical tip. And I got in my notebook over here is I'm doing 360 reviews right now with my friends, my girlfriend, my family and also people I work with and my mentors. So I'm telling them ahead of time when I ask you what are things I can improve upon or I'm not good at right now, I may make a weird face at you, but at the same time, I'm listening. So I have a notebook and I write it down. So that way they're like, okay, he's paying attention.
He may have a weird feeling about it and it's okay. So that's just my feedback there.
Two, what I would go look back on is to... and I started doing it later. I wish I just would have done at the beginning, is documenting everything in your role from the get-go.
The thing is I knew this at the end when I went back and I went through my pipeline numbers and my response rates and then I presented that for a SDR manager role. But it probably would have been easier if I would have just done that each month and just like documented what exactly I need to do.
That's critical because a lot of people don't document what their success is and what they've done, so then they can't articulate why I should get the next role or why I should get promoted. Or whatever that is. So that's really, really important.
I would say number three is really critical because I think if I would have taken this advice earlier on, things would have moved even faster and it's a little bit with one, is having conversations instead of presentations. And what I mean by that is we come into conversations with our agenda of, hey, this is what I want to talk about.
Now, if you're going on a sales call, you should have an agenda. You should tell the person this is what we're going to do. However, at the same time, you should be very, very comfortable with active listening and pivoting while in the conversation. And so a lot of the stuff I did was about presentations. I was like, all right, cool. This is how I'm going to do it. This is how it needs to go. Instead of just genuinely having just a conversation with somebody on a podcast, a webinar, or in my sales call, et cetera. I wasn't able to do that because I was so locked in on this.
So I would say conversations instead of presentations. And I got that from, shout-out to my guy Roderick on that one.
Neil Bhuiyan Absolutely love it. I've learnt so much in this podcast, Morgan. Thank you for sharing that. And you're right, it's about having a conversation with somebody. And I think a sale is the by-product and a later stage of a good initial conversation, where you just want to find out about the other person, what's going on in their world, kind of what's warranting them to think about these sort of things and human to human. And if you have a really good experience there, that's what they will remember you by, not just another person that's trying to sell them or pitch them. They actually wanted to care and understand what was going on.
At the end of this podcast, dude, I'm definitely going to be asking for your feedback on things I've done well and your critique and errors I can improve. I've got a lot to learn from yourself.
We've done a ton of them in the show. But what other shout-outs do you have, Morgan? Who out there?
Morgan J Ingram Yeah, I've given a good amount of shout-outs for real. I would just say, shout-out to everyone and this is why I shout-out to everyone, because you made it towards the end of the year. This year has been crazy. And so I would say give yourself grace during this time and be like, hey... Especially if you're listening to this, that means that you have Internet. That means that you have access to something to listen, so you're blessed. And I think I would say shout-out to everyone and make sure that you're grateful that you're looking at what's my perspective here?
Like, things are going really well for me because I have resources to be successful. Now let's make sure I focus up next year and get these things done that I told myself I want to get done.
So really, I just want to give a shout-out to everyone because you made it, and you should give yourself a round of applause for that.
Neil Bhuiyan Hundred percent. Thank you so much, Morgan. What's the best way to get in touch with Morgan and are there any things that we should be listening out for, looking out for coming from your self
Morgan J Ingram If you want to get in touch with me, Instagram is the best way @morganjingram. If you try to hit me up on LinkedIn, I can't accept any more connections so you'll just be sitting there upset. I'm just letting you know because people are like, why haven't you accepted me? It's like, I can't accept you. Go ask LinkedIn. Go ask LinkedIn. It's not on me.
Also, further updates. So if you want to get more content in terms of live streaming, come follow me on Twitch @morganjingram. It probably won't be in here in December, but I will next month, actually technically, I'm in December right now, but in January, we're going to start doing some live streams on me playing games and things of that nature. So it's going to be really fun. So catch me up on Twitch. That's just my one shout-out. Go follow me there.
Neil Bhuiyan I love it. Absolutely. So Morgan J Ingram, SDR GOAT guy with a lot of passion for for the SDR and the sales world, a lot of wealth of experience. I'm hoping, and fingers crossed, I'll be definitely voting for it, but Top Voice LinkedIn, 2021. Let's see that happen. Morgan, thank you so much for being a guest on the SDR DiscoCall podcast. It's been a pleasure to have you and most importantly, sir, happy selling.
Morgan J Ingram Absolutely, Neil. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure, as you said, and hopefully you'll have a great day.