Tips and Tricks to Crush your Quota as an SDR

As a sales development rep, your job is to bring in business.

And to bring in more business and become a top-performing SDR/BDR, you don’t need to work harder.

You need to work smarter.

The SDRs that stand out and rise in the sales ranks develop a few key skills and choose the right sales tools to simplify their work and help them reach out to qualified candidates at scale and speed.

Because quality prospects + high volume = big wins!

Keep reading and we’ll reveal how top SDRs use Apollo to climb to the top of their sales boards and we’ll give you a few sales tips and tricks straight from SDR experts here at Apollo.

Let’s get into it!

The responsibilities of an SDR

Qualified prospects just don’t walk themselves into the sales funnel…

Behind every qualified lead is a trusty SDR who put in the work to move them through the sales pipeline.

In an SDR role, you are at the forefront of your organization's outbound sales.

From cold-calling and social selling to lead nurturing and booking meetings, your goals are to find out who is interested, who is most likely to become a new buyer, and the most effective way to communicate with them.

This involves two core processes:

1. Granular prospecting and finding the right leads
2. Creating a system of seamless and effective outreach

Good SDRs do these things well.

But the great ones do them alongside smart and dynamic sales tools, making their work simpler, their outreach more effective, and their wins even bigger!

3 SDR tips and tricks

At Apollo, we know a thing or two about great sales development reps…

We’ve interviewed a few of our expert Apollo BDRs and compiled a few tips and tricks for readers looking to up their sales game:

Tip #1: Organize a to-do list for daily outreach

Kier Golino, a top business development representative here at Apollo, recommends that sales development reps put a lot of thought into who and how they reach out to promising leads and develop a daily list for contact outreach.

“Apollo’s advanced filters help a lot in determining who I target, [such as] recent and frequent users”, he says, “because nothing is better than the hot ones!”.

Creating lists allows you to narrow down the specific contacts you want to reach out to on any given day of the week.

Tip #2: Test your email subject lines

Your target audience may prefer different things, that’s why it’s important to try out different email subject lines.

Wendy Pascasio, Apollo BDR standout, says, “Prospects’ inboxes are a battleground for attention. I use email subject line testers to score the emotional impact of all my subject lines”.

(Try Wendy’s method yourself with the free Omnisend email subject line tester!)

And don’t be afraid to get creative!

Try mentioning a mutual connection, asking questions, using powerful one-word subject lines, throwing in an emoji; anything that causes curiosity and grabs the prospect’s attention.

Tip #3: Use sales intelligence tools for prospect insights

Take it from Apollo BDR Manny Martinez: data is everything.

“Being able to see the technology stack the prospect could be potentially using and getting to their LinkedIn profile with just one click allows us to be better prepared to engage in a conversation that is based on facts”, Manny says.

The sales development reps who approach prospective customers with personalized insights and intelligence build better relationships and book more meetings.

Never make those phone calls or send those emails without doing your homework.

Leading SDRs use Apollo – here’s how

Speaking of intelligent sales tools, Apollo can help you maximize sales performance across both of your core SDR responsibilities: finding best-fit leads and effectively reaching out to them.

Finding best-fit leads

There are millions of potential customers you could go after — there are more than 32 million businesses in the United States alone. But not all of them are a great fit for the products and services you’re offering.

SDRs need to use their company’s ideal customer profiles (ICPs) to target ideal leads with precision.

(Check out this video to learn more about developing your perfect ICP).

With Apollo, finding leads that match your ICP couldn’t be easier. Our advanced filters and personas allow you to include or exclude specific subsets of data when you search for new Contacts or Accounts in Apollo.

And with our Chrome Extension you can use all your Apollo data insights for outbound prospecting and lead generation directly in your LinkedIn window.

Our handy LinkedIn sidebar will allow you to:

• View companies’ technologies, hiring information, funding rounds, etc.
• Access any saved info you have on connected accounts
• Instantly see any activities you have recorded in Apollo about a contact’s company
• Add contacts into any Apollo list
• Contact prospects directly

(Download the Apollo Chrome Extension here to instantly up your sales prospecting game)

With all your exciting and new leads, you can also build high-quality target lists.

Apollo Lists allow you to consolidate related contacts or companies in a common location so you can easily find them in a Search, use them in an Apollo Sequence, or export them for use in third-party platforms.

When filling up your pipeline is this easy, you’ll be the stand-out SDR that crushes their sales goals quarter after quarter.

Automating outreach

With Apollo’s world-class sales automation, you can free yourself up to focus on high-value activities that actually drive revenue and prioritize the customer experience.

When it comes to automating outreach, there is no better tool than Sequences.

Sequences are your own personal outreach campaigns, equipped with any number of sequential contact points and tasks that you can customize to personally engage with your target audiences at scale.

You can set up timed steps (automated emails, phone calls, action items, etc), step triggers, tasks, specific sequence permissions, A/B testing….the list goes on and on!

Read this blog post to learn more about how to create your most successful sales sequence in Apollo.

Sequences is Apollo’s most robust sales automation tool, but there are plenty of other automation features in Apollo that will make your life as an SDR oh, so much easier.

Rules Engine helps you automate tasks at the account level. Job Change alerts notify you when a contact has changed roles (and is at the opportune position to buy!). With the Apollo-Google Calendar integration you can manage your prospects, log meeting notes, create follow-up tasks, and send follow-up emails, all in one place using state-of-the-art Apollo workflows.

Sheesh! Is it possible for sales development representatives to be too efficient?

We think not…

Now, my friends, with your sharpened sales skills, you’re ready to go tackle new sales opportunities!

And if you want Apollo by your side handling the tough work for your SDR team, you can sign up for free here.