Transcription
SDR role is in high demand; companies need sales development reps right now. On Glassdoor, there are 1,000 SDR job postings; on Indeed, there are 5,000; and on LinkedIn, there are 2,000. But the competition for these roles is extremely high. Most job postings have north of 75 applicants; heck, some have north of 200.
In this video, you're gonna learn how to nail every stage of the SDR interview process so you can break your way into tech sales, earning at least eighty thousand dollars your first year. This will vary company to company, but typically, the SDR interview process involves three stages.
Before going through how to nail all three of those stages, it's important to talk about preparation. I had a high school history teacher, Mr. Mayor, who used to say every single day at the start of class, “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.” That's the same exact thing when preparing for an SDR interview. If you don't prepare, you're wasting your time, you're wasting the company's time, and you're hurting your reputation. The world is big, but the sales community is small; trust me—prep is key.
For preparation, you need to know four things: the person, the product, the company, and the market. Who are you meeting with? What's the role? How long have they been at the company? What does this specific person care most about in the candidate for this position? An HR professional, for example, cares about different things than the VP of sales. The research you do on the person you're meeting with, the interviewer, will be used to formulate the questions you ask that interviewer throughout your conversations, and we'll get to that in just a minute.
For the product, the company, and the market, do not get bogged down in the research. Don't overwhelm yourself; you don't need to know everything, nor do they expect you to know everything. But you need to know 45 minutes' worth of research on a product, the company, and the market you're going to sell into. What does the product do in language a fifth grader could understand? What are the two to three key problems the product solves, and for whom? Who are the customers? Every tech product will have demos you could watch, either on their website or YouTube. Watch the product in motion; jot down a couple questions you have for the interviewer based on the demo.
Read the three latest news articles on the company. Who are the top three competitors, and how are they different? Check rep view to see how their product-market fit score is. A red flag in a job candidate is a lack of research. Now, as you continue throughout the interview process and the stakes get higher, it's not going to hurt to continue to do more research.
Awesome! We just got our first interview booked. Exciting stuff! The first stage in the SDR interview process is typically a 30-minute phone or Zoom screening with an HR professional. The questions asked here are pretty simple: Tell me about your previous experience, why did you apply to this position, what are you looking for in your next position, why do you want to leave your current role, and what do you know about our company or the product you're going to sell?
The questions asked in the first stage of the SDR interview process, this phone screening with an HR professional, are easy and straightforward compared to the questions you will be asked in the second and third stage of the interview process. The HR professional is looking for a few things in this 30-minute phone screening: Does this person meet the minimum threshold of experience and performance? Do they fit the job description and the ideal candidate profile that the sales manager and VP of Sales are looking for? Are they interested in the job—truly interested—or do they just take the call to take the call? Are they personable and likable?
This is a simple assessment to make sure that if that HR professional decides to move you to the second stage of the interview process, with the sales manager, for example, they’re not going to waste that sales manager’s time.
Now, prior to that conversation, send this email to the HR professional:
**Subject line:** See you tomorrow [Your Last Name]
Hi Christine,
Looking forward to our conversation on Tuesday. I'm interested in learning about the open SDR role to see if I might be a fit for the position. If there is anything I could do to best prepare for our conversation, let me know and I will make it happen.
Have a great weekend,
Matt
Very simple email, but it sets the stage for the conversation. Hey, I am super excited to have this conversation on Tuesday. I'm pumped to learn about the position to see if I might be a good fit to join the team.
Every sales interview you have, if you want to continue in the process, if you're truly interested in that role, needs to end the exact same way, whether you're meeting with the HR professional or the VP of Sales. You need to close that interview. You're interviewing for a sales role; it’s your job as a seller to close deals, in this case, the interview.
Christine, based on her conversation, based on what you learned about me today, do you have any concerns that would prevent you from moving me forward in this interview process? If you showed up prepared for the call, were personable, and likable—those are the two most important things in this interview—you demonstrated a desire for the role and fit the job description. That HR professional is not going to hold you back from moving on to the second round.
Now, just because you passed this stage in the interview process with the HR professional does not mean you're done with them. Right after this conversation, you need to send a thank-you email to the HR professional. Here’s the email you send:
**Subject line:** Thanks for the conversation [Your Last Name]
Hi Christine,
Thanks for meeting with me this morning. What excited me most about our conversation was learning about [insert key takeaway number one] and [insert key takeaway number two]. Looking forward to meeting with [insert the hiring manager's name] to continue the conversation and see if I might be the right fit for the team.
Thank you,
Matt
Every person you meet with, every person you speak with throughout the interview process gets a thank-you email. As you move forward throughout the interview process, it's your job to keep that HR professional up to date on your progress.
**Stage number two: An interview with the hiring manager.** The hiring manager is going to be your direct manager; the sales manager, for example. You can win—scratch that—you will win this interview with what you do prior to the conversation. A few days before the interview, you’re going to create and send a detailed pipeline sales plan to the SDR team lead. Nobody else will do this; no other SDR job candidates will put in this much effort to set the stage for the conversation with the SDR Lead. You may even land the job offer just by doing this.
The pipeline sales plan will include three sections.
**Section number one:** Mission statement and values. This isn't the mission statement and values of that company you’re meeting with; this is your mission statement and your values—the mission and values you're going to live by Monday through Friday, nine to five.
An example for you guys, looking at a past pipeline sales plan I sent prior to an interview that landed me an offer: My mission is very simple—work as hard as I possibly can while coming into work every day with a positive attitude and a willingness to learn.
Values: consistency, hustle, creativity, accountability, coachable—those are all values of top-tier SDRs.
**Second section:** Your prospecting strategy. This is the meat of your sales plan, and what you want to convey here to the hiring manager, the SDR team lead, is that you are going to use a multi-channel approach to consistently build pipeline and book meetings. You're going to cold call, you’re going to cold email, you’re going to use direct mail—nobody’s doing that nowadays—you’re going to use video messaging, creative outreach, referrals, LinkedIn voice notes, and video messages.
You're going to use the sponsor of today's video, Outreach AI. What Outreach AI is doing is super cool stuff; they're using AI to scrape a prospect's LinkedIn profile, their bio, anything they publish/post-wise on LinkedIn, and their recommendations, scraping that information to create a personalized message that can help you book a meeting with that prospect.
Guys, I used Outreach AI a few times last week, and I booked two meetings with two potential business partners that could help bring me leads all throughout the second half of 2023. Check out Outreach AI in the description of this video.
Provide two to three sentences about how you plan to leverage those channels to consistently build pipeline and book meetings. A bonus if you want to include this in your prospecting plan is to include a sequence you plan to use, and this is a must: you must include a cold call script and two to three cold email templates you build out for the company.
This is where you're going to win over your future sales manager, and we'll get to that in just a minute.
**The third section of your pipeline sales plan is focused on professional development.** This is where you're laying out and sharing with your future sales manager what you plan to do every single day to get one percent better. What YouTube channels and podcasts are you going to listen to on a daily basis? This one, for example, to get a little bit better. List them out—two to three sentences on how you're gonna role-play every single day, role-play your cold call opener, role-play handling objections so you can consistently build pipeline and book meetings. Maybe you're going to invest some money in a sales coach.
I invested five thousand dollars last year in a sales coach; it paid out tremendously. When I told my sales manager I spent that amount of money on a sales coach, they thought that was tremendous.
Professional development is so, so important, especially in the SDR role.
Now, with this plan, guys, do not spend time making this look pretty. If you got skills and can make it look pretty, great. If not, do not spend time doing that; the content is what's important, not how it looks.
You will send your pipeline sales plan to the hiring manager a few days before the interview and include in the email that, “Hey, I put together a sales plan; it's attached to this email,” and in the sales plan is a cold call script and two to three cold email templates that I built out for the role.
I'll be interested in any feedback and thoughts you have with this script and the email templates I put together. And, hey, I'm always open to role-playing a potential cold call when we meet next Tuesday.
What that sales manager is going to think is, "Holy, this potential candidate put together a detailed sales plan and actually wants to role-play with me a cold call on the interview. This is somebody I want on my team!"
I've set sales plans like this prior to interviews for roles I wanted to land; I landed every single role I wanted to land because of this sales plan. This sales plan, what it does, is it sets the stage and the tone for that conversation with your potential hiring manager. They will be impressed; nobody else is doing this. The questions on my last sales interview, the questions I was asked throughout that interview, were 100% focused around my sales plan.
I am now in control of that interview.
Now, this interview is typically an hour, and in that hour, the SDR team lead, the hiring manager is looking for three boxes to be checked: Are you competent? Are you confident? Are you the right fit?
The advantage you have when you're a young rep just starting out interviewing for an SDR role versus somebody who's more seasoned interviewing for an account executive role is that when you're interviewing for an account executive role, typically, there are years and years' worth of data to be judged on. That's not the case for an entry-level role like becoming a sales development rep.
The advantage there is you have lots of leeway to shape the narrative. Even if you have zero experience, you could beat out an experienced SDR interviewing for the same exact position if you have the secret sauce.
If you have a confident demeanor, if you have grit, if you're coachable, if you have a belief in yourself, if you have all of that going on for you, you're going to be okay. You're going to do great in the interview process because that's what they're looking for.
If you're looking for common questions you're going to be asked in an SDR interview and what the answers should be, type that into Google—there's hundreds of videos. Heck, there's probably hundreds of videos on YouTube focused on that specific topic.
I promise you, I promise you this: it's not about the perfect answer to the questions; the questions don't matter all that much. It's about demonstrating you're confident, you got grit, and you're coachable. That is everything in an SDR interview.
Towards the end of this interview, you're going to have the opportunity to ask some questions to the SDR team, the hiring manager. People forget this; they don't understand this is a two-way street. Interviewing for a job—yes, I'm being interviewed as a potential candidate for an SDR role—but I'm interviewing the company as well. I need to make sure this company is the right fit for me.
Some good questions to ask: What does ramp-up onboarding look like? What does success look like in the first 90 days in this role? How about what does success look like in the first year? What are some common reasons a person might fail in this role? What percentage of reps are hitting quota, and on average, how long does it take to get promoted from an SDR to an account executive role?
After that, again, you're going to close out that conversation. “Chris, I really enjoyed today’s conversation. The position sounds super exciting and it sounds like I believe I’m the right fit to fill this open role. Based on our conversation, based on what you learned about me today, do you have any concerns that would hold you back from giving me a job offer?”
Every true sales leader will love this close. Like the HR manager, you're going to send a thank-you email to the hiring manager, the SDR team lead, reiterating why you're the right fit for the position and why you're excited to join the team.
**And the third and final stage of the SDR interview process:** You will meet with the hiring manager's boss, the director of sales, or the VP of sales. If it's a small startup, potentially the CEO. Like the first two interviews, you're going to send an email a few days prior to the conversation expressing your excitement for the conversation and excitement to potentially join the team. You can even include your pipeline sales plan in the email.
Confident, coachable—great! The same three things the hiring manager is looking for are the same three things the VP of sales is looking for.
Towards the end of this conversation, you will have the opportunity to ask questions to the VP of sales. Think big with your questions: Where do you see this role in five years? Who was the best SDR you've ever hired and why? What sets apart SDRs that become account executives from those that don’t, in your view?
Like the other two interviews, you're going to go for the close: “When can I start?” That is a great assumptive close; especially on a VP of sales, they will love that. And like those other two interviews, you're going to send a thank-you email immediately after the call.
When you get the offer—and you will get the offer because you follow these steps to a T to nail the entire SDR interview process—in that golden nugget, the pipeline sales plan is going to be your ticket to win that interview against 75 to 200 other job applicants.
Now, it's time to evaluate the offer. The median base salary of an SDR in tech sales is $55,000, with an OTE (On Target Earnings) of $80,000. OTE means you will get that $80,000 if you're at 100% of your quota. Quota for SDRs is based on qualified meetings.
But if you're looking at that job offer and it does not have $55,000 as a base and $80,000 as an OTE, it's time to negotiate. If the hiring manager, the company, or the VP of sales is not willing to negotiate, it's your time to thank them for the opportunity, invite yourself out of that interview process, and move on.
You need to know your worth. Check out this video right here, "The Ideal Career Path in Tech Sales," and you're going to learn how long it's going to take to get promoted from an SDR to an account earning three hundred thousand dollars a year.
Thanks for watching, guys; we appreciate you!