Second-line SDR leadership with Brandon Jackson

0:003%. That's the percentage of folks that make it to a second line leadership role. So these are people that are managing other leaders who are running teams and in sales, that's typically your director of sales position in SDR. That's your, you know, your head of SDR, your director of SDR. And the reason I bring this up is that it is really such an uncommon thing for someone to do. So few people experience it that And the people that really excel in these positions are folks that have had to do a lot of just, and if you're one of those folks listening to this, you know, this, you probably weren't trained really on how to do that job.

0:42There was a lot of it that's, Hey, you were great as a rep. You probably had one of the top teams as a sales manager, and you were graded in terms of your potential as a second line leader. You were graded based on how you performed as a manager and as a rep, which do those skills help? Yes, they absolutely help. Are there a ton of other skills that you need to know as a second line leader? Yeah, absolutely. Right. It's, it now becomes a train the trainer type of thing where you're managing people, managing other people. You have even less impact, direct impact, at least on the day to day, you have to get that impact through the people that you work with.

1:18And the reason I bring this up is, you know, honestly, I haven't seen a lot of content out there on how to really excel in the second line leadership role. And that's what we've been doing a lot on this podcast. So before we introduce our guests, thanks for checking out Outbound Squad. My name is Jason Bay. I'm CEO at Outbound Squad, and we're all about helping you turn complete strangers into paying customers. The number one thing that we help with at Outbound Squad, we've done it for 250 plus sales teams in the last five or six years, is Outbound PipeGen. So that's working with SDR teams to help grow, scale, create more standardization, playbooks, et cetera, for their team to execute on, train the reps to be more skilled on the phones, email, account selection, how they're leveraging AI, and then working with the managers to make sure they have a great system to reinforce there.

2:07We're typically partnering with really great, talented enablement leaders. And we do something very similar for account executives. There's a really big focus right now on self-sourcing as account executives. And we've gotten to help companies like your Shopify Zooms, Ripplings, iHeartMedia's, Amex's, other worlds, all the way down to your startups that are building out some of their first sales teams focused on outbound pipe gen. So that's what we talk about here. If that's something that aligns with you and your role and what you're interested in, you're definitely in the right place. So today I'm talking to my guy, Brandon Jackson.

2:40So Brandon Jackson, I got to meet up with him in Austin in person. And we actually did a workout together. One of the things I love doing with people that I meet either for the first time or just people that I've known, honestly, but haven't met in person is to go do a workout together. And we had a lot of fun in our workout group. We did a 5.30 a.m. workout. He was down. First, he was down to do it. And second, he crushed it. So that was really cool. At the time when we talked, he was head of sales development at Common Room, who has since been acquired by Zoom. And he just started as a senior director of global sales development at ping identity and he's managing a huge team over there i think he told me 100 plus reps or something like that so uh i'm super excited for this conversation because we dig into a few things uh when we talk about the collaboration between marketing and revenue everything around tech you know messaging reporting like how you're reporting on pipeline uh how to build better you know department relationships with your leader across the aisle.

3:46We talk about messaging. We talk about tooling and tech stack quite a bit in depth. We talk about SDRs being the tip of the spear in the first impression and what he thinks about SDRs not being allowed to touch MQLs and a lot of the trend that we're seeing around agents focused on those. We talked about pipeline quality. We talked about a bunch of different stuff I think you're going to find really helpful if you are a second line SDR leader or you hope to be one or you're just wondering what that job is like because maybe you're an SDR or an SDR manager. So you're really going to enjoy the episode.

4:22Before you do that, I got two things for you. One of them is absolutely free. It's an outbound masterclass. I spent six hours in a studio recording our very best stuff. It's free for you. The purpose of this is we just want to get as much of our methodology and content and the stuff that's been extremely helpful for other sales teams to build pipeline out there for free. We get paid to customize this stuff. We don't charge for our content. So go check it out. Outbound squad.com slash masterclass. And if you've listened to this episode or you've been a listener for some time and you're like, I'd really like Jason and team to come in and help us implement some of this stuff.

5:00Be happy to talk to you. Shoot me an email, Jason at outbound squad.com. Be happy to walk you through how and if we might be able to help you out. All right, let's get to the episode.

5:19So it's been good to connect with you. We've been connected on LinkedIn for a while and had like a few messages back and forth. And I saw that you moved to Common Room and Common Room's doing some really cool stuff. And I've been wanting to chat with you about your experience because there are not a lot of, there's not a lot of content out there that I see for a second line SDR leader, right? Which is like, there's a major jump there between I'm an SDR, I'm managing some reps to I'm managing people that are managing reps. And, you know, part of your job now, of course, as you know, is like, you know, managing up into the rest of the organization.

5:59So I'm excited to jam with you, dude, and dig into that. Super excited. And I need to start by apologizing, because we've been connected for probably years. I just, as of recent, have made a conscious effort to try to get more out there in the community and get involved in doing more events. And just with John, I want to connect more with our like-minded leaders. So yeah, apology on that front, but I'm excited we finally are able to meet. Yeah, so I have to ask you first because most people get into sales on accident. I'm curious if that was the case for you or if this was intentional. No, it was not necessarily accident, but it wasn't the plan.

6:42I think a lot of salespeople can relate. My degree from San Diego State was actually in public administration with a minor in psychology. And I had aspirations to actually get into politics. I knew my slogan. If you want action, vote for Jackson. But yeah, Yeah, I wish there was a world in which maybe that could stick sometime. But, you know, I had really cool aspirations to learn, like, what really was going on up in the politics of things. And then I also found a knack for working with people. I've also been a leader since a young age. I was a quarterback in high school. And long story short, I paid my own way through college and I was able to take on some roles.

7:28I sold memberships at the gym in San Diego at San Diego State. It's called the ARC, Aztec Recreation Center. Shout out Aztecs. Is that what you did to pay for school? I did, yeah. And I had financial aid. So blessed for all of that. But first person to graduate college in my family. And I found throughout paying for college a couple stints at which I was communicating and working and selling some form or fashion. and I also watched a show called Suits, which a lot of people know and love and ultimately decided that I wanted to be in a field at which I can control my income and work with people and was fortunate enough to land a sales role directly out of college as an IC selling insurance.

8:15So that wasn't a plan, but it was a career fair, spoke to a lot of people. A few people called me back. I went through the process and found an opportunity that led me down an incredible path of where I am today. Where do you fall in like the introversion, extroversion scale? Holy, that is, I was actually just talking to my partner about this, my lady. I posted on my story, Killian Murphy, who's one of my favorite actors, he posted a story that says he has romo so there's fomo fear of missing out then there's romo relief of missing out and i think if you would ask me five years ago at any point five years and and prior i would have said i'm 100 extrovert i'm a sales guy i'm energetic i want to be in the mix i want to know what's going on and i think people change and i think just like your taste buds and and maybe it's every 12 years Maybe this should be studied.

9:13I'm at a point where I am an introverted extrovert, meaning by default, I probably don't want to speak as much anymore and talk and be the gift of gab in a setting. but I can do it. And once I get the ball rolling, I enjoy it. I never regret being in a situation in which I have to be an extrovert. But I think by default, I would love to be secluded and be isolated and not have to engage because it's a social battery these days. Yeah. So you re-energize you're finding more through probably either doing something alone by yourself or with the family or Yeah. Every night. Yeah. It's interesting. I asked that because I wasn't quite sure because when you meet people in a situation like this, everyone seems kind of extroverted when you're meeting people for the first time and you're recording content or doing a dinner or whatever.

10:13But I am very much introverted. I for most of my life been pretty introverted. I've actually gone a little bit more towards the extroversion side these days. But I would describe myself as an introvert that really like I like to connect with people who I really connect with. I like to talk to those people a lot you know yeah and this is a hell of a uh career pathing for for an introvert I know I mean you meet thousands and thousands of people so yeah and especially running group workshops and doing all of that kind of stuff but um so you you get into insurance sales you get into tech sales and I'm curious the leap into a management role what was that like for you?

10:58Because all of the skill sets, and I'm guessing you probably had a similar sort of path where when you become a manager, you don't exactly get a lot of training at most companies on how to be a great manager. It's kind of like you crushed it as a rep. Now go help other reps do that. But what was that experience like for you? I agree with that sentiment. However, I do think pre-COVID, a lot of companies did do, at least from my experience, somewhat of a good job trying to train managers. And I say that from my experience. So I was working at Houzz, the home remodeling design platform in San Diego.

11:33I was there for four, four and a half years. And they had a really clear cut path at which, you know, the promotion path would look like. And I made it very known that I wanted management. Now there wasn't like a course or anything of that nature, but I think there was a lot of, we were in office five days a week. And so there's a lot of peers and managers that I got to shadow and I could learn from. And so for me, because I was so excited about it, I treated it like it was, you know, the LSATs. When I first knew I was getting promoted, I wanted to study it at home. And I tried to interview people that weren't on my team, other managers, and just try to be the best that I could, but also lean on what got me there in the first place.

12:18But it definitely was a lot. I went from an IC team lead of an account executive. So I had a pair, two other account executives that I was responsible for. They're closing. I had to close business. And then I went right into an SDR manager where I had a team of like 25 SDRs. 25 people, one team. One team. And that jumped at one point to like 40 at house because of some transitions. And we co-managed the OC in San Diego office. And so there's a lot that happened. So you were thrown in, but I'm very thankful. What part of that was the most challenging? Was it the, you know, there's the skill set of like working one-on-one with reps, there's the meetings, there's the time management part of that, there's the, hey, holy shit, my calendar is crazy and I'm not creating any space for not only myself, but just to be a little more strategic and not being in like responsive mode all the time.

13:14Was there anything like that or something different that was a particular challenge for you at first? Everything you mentioned definitely honestly rings a bell of like, wow, yeah. The latter part of what you just said definitely was something I wish I took more space and time for from the strategy and thought leadership standpoint of how I was presenting myself to leadership. I think as a frontline manager, especially when you're early on, you want to do right by your team and you want to show up as a great leader to them. whereas you know there's something to be said about taking a step back and trying to think about how you're being viewed from the ceo down and and those different layers but i will say the answer to your question would definitely be the balance between getting the most out of your reps while still trying to build a great culture and i talk about this with my manager uh today at common room and she's phenomenal um but you know it's a fine line between establishing you know boundaries and especially when you're an IC within the realm that they remember you as if you're promoted from within and they remember you as an IC and establishing the credibility and kind of the standard of excellence of what's to be now that I'm a manager while still building the best culture because I really think culture supersedes 90 % of a lot of things that are talked about in today's society, I think.

14:40Okay, maybe that's the first thing we should dig into a little bit is culture. And, you know, how would, and maybe you could think about this through the lens of like how you've done it practically, and then maybe advice or learnings you would give to a first-time SDR manager that's thinking about culture as well. But how do you think about culture and accountability and striking that balance, like you said, of, hey, we have performance management that needs to happen. But these are also freaking human beings. People didn't get enough sleep last night or going through something personal that's tough.

15:12You know, whatever it might be. How do you how do you kind of think about that? Yeah, that there's so many different routes to go with that specific question. A lot of greatness around culture, I think, is imperative. First and foremost, you as a leader, whether you're this is your first time being a leader or you've been doing it for a decade plus, you need to have within a concrete belief of how you want to run your team. What is the mindset going to be of this team? And you need to make sure everything you do kind of exudes that. And I think you also should be able to communicate it to your team as early as possible of this is where we are getting to.

15:52This is what the expectation of this entire team, not just of me, not just of you, but what we're going to be viewed as. And so I think starting with the mindset and the belief in getting the team bought in is huge from a culture aspect, no matter the games, the fun, the spiffs, getting them bought in on the mission, the why, the mentality, the mindset, all of that is the foundation of culture. And I think for those that are looking, oftentimes when I meet with other first line managers and they are talking about wanting to be a director or have managers under them and go to the next level. I learned this from a CMO I reported to two companies ago that was acquired and he's now the CMO of Couchbase, Josh Harbert, he's incredible.

16:39Look at him like a mentor. He told me to have a convictious story that you're presenting that you can present to an exec board or to your team. And so I built a acronym that I lead every team with And I even, if I'm interviewing, I lead in interviews with, and it's CPAD. C is for culture, P is for process, the A is for alignment and accountability, and the D is for development. And so I think from an SDR pipeline standpoint, if you have the culture being number one in building that, a lot of those other things are going to be what you want to build on to create a foundation of excellence for pipeline for both marketing and sales.

17:18So those culture, process, accountability. alignment slash accountability. Alignment actually supersedes accountability. And what I mean by alignment is whether you fall under marketing or sales, you have to have the buy-in and alignment of your peers and or the leadership across those different functions. It's imperative. And I think you and I spoke about this from like a marketing and sales side of things. Yeah. What does the D stand for? Development. So I've found, and we all know this, if you don't have a path at which you can get your top performers into a place they want to be in, you will ultimately be a revolving door.

17:57And some companies are okay with that. I've literally spoken to founders and C-suites where they're okay with their top performers leaving after a year and a half of great work and they understand that's what they've built. But ultimately, there needs to be some form of development for the team that you're managing in order to keep them motivated, inspired, and truly have it aligned with the company's vision, I think. So development is huge. Yeah. Okay. So I think what we could actually do, if you're cool with it, and we're kind of riffing here. I love it. I love the CPAD acronym. What if we just kind of break down each of these pieces?

18:34Because this sounds like it's been a really big part of your success, and it's something that you pass on to your managers as well. So from a culture standpoint, if we kind of dig into this one a little bit more, Do you have any examples and feel free to use something you've used in the past or, you know, with Common Room currently? What does that why sound like? Is it like we're going to be the number one team thing? Is it more big picture oriented around Common Room's mission or the company mission? Like, what is that thing? And this is like the elusive thing I feel like great leaders do that's kind of hard to like put your finger on.

19:13But like when you get someone bought into like a leader shared with me, actually, some of the best analogy, he said that, you know, people run a marathon for a cause. You know, it's like they do this stuff because they're it's to raise money for cancer and someone in their family has suffered from that, et cetera. It's like we can get people to do really hard things if it's for a cause, something bigger than themselves. So how do you think about like that piece and like any examples you can provide would be great too because this is such a really big part. It is. The SDR, as you know, it's so hard.

19:51So hard. So hard. I, yeah, couldn't agree more. I think they have the hardest job in all of sales and arguably outside of sales as well. But if I also tell every SDR this, if you can master this, you truly can go on and there's no role you can't overcome. 100%. Without any ounce of doubt. And on this topic of culture, I think my philosophy and mentality goes well outside of the SDR realm. I think if you're an AE leader or, you know, you're running any type of organization with the team that is rolling up to you, having that established culture and mindset and bought in on the why is imperative.

20:31And so to answer your question, I think I will start off by saying, unfortunately, I don't think it's a one size fits all, meaning there's a foundation that I like to bring in to every team that I get to lead. But it's not going to be a surefire thing every single time. I think first and foremost, you need to understand your current team that you have. And so for me, before I came in and said, team, this is what we're going to do. This is the mission. I always want to take a step back and get a chance to get some one-on-one time with every single individual. I think that's imperative. You got to know what's important to every single person.

21:13So like you said about people running a marathon and they have a why, whether it's a group or not, everyone is motivated differently. Sometimes it's very similar to their peers. Sometimes it's not. And so being able to tie a little bit of that personal motivation of why they're here to the greater organization, whether that's a team first and then the organization, I think great leaders are able to tie all that together quickly. And so for me, meeting with every single one of my reps, and we have currently 15 reps, and there's a few different areas around culture I wanted to hone in on at Common Room specifically.

21:50The biggest part was the internal brand of the SDR team and getting the other departments to believe and understand that this team truly could be the backbone of this company's success. And I believe that like a true SDR org that's run to the greatest of its capabilities can be the backbone for revenue if it's done properly. So a lot of different avenues to go from a culture standpoint. I think understanding your team first and foremost, letting them know that we are in this together. You need to get them to understand that you're in the boat with them. That's huge. And then from there, it's getting them to all align and buy in on what our collective goal is as a team and then why we're here and how we can impact this greater company and keeping them in the loop with the company changes and missions.

22:39And so they really feel like they have skin in the game. Yeah. That's the culture. I love that. But I think one of the biggest responsibilities you have as a leader is to like always be talking about the big picture and like what's coming up next and where the company's heading and like what's new and exciting because you're really managing like the emotion of the team. So I love that. I love that idea of like we want to be the tip of the spear of the organization. You had shared that while we were prepping for this. And it's like we can be like the I forget what the word was that you specifically that you use, but it's essentially like we can be like the tip of the spear when it comes to like the growth and the revenue engine of the company.

23:25Oh, yeah. That's like a really fucking cool thing to like kind of rally the team around. It's like and then the internal brand of the SDR team. And like I love that because what that does is it really kind of knocks down some of the silos as well. And remind me again, do you guys report up into marketing or sales? I've been at Common Room for two months, started under sales. Now I'm under marketing. Yeah. So there's going to be a cross department thing that I'm sure. I don't know. Have you dealt with that before, actually, in your previous roles? Okay. So my last company, I was brought in to report to the CRO six months in.

24:00She departed and then I switched and reported to the CMO. And I think that's part of the culture and mentality that I share with my team. because a team can often freak out like down at the individual level when they hear about, oh, we're switching from sales to marketing or what's happening. And I always exude the same message. You guys, it doesn't matter if we report to the CEO, the CMO, the CRO, the CDLMO, does not matter. Our mission remains the same. We are the backbone and the pipeline that will get this company to the revenue goals that it needs. Whoever we report to, we will continue with the same every day kind of cadence and mentality that we're going to be the best of the best.

24:41And so, I truly do believe that. But it does go without saying, depending on who you're under, you do have to ensure the alignment across the other side. Yeah. Love it, dude. Before we move on to process, anything culture-wise that we missed that would be good to talk about?

25:03It's a loaded question in a sense, like, short answer is yes there's probably more things that I would love to give more from like an advice for for people maybe feeling like they don't have a great grasp on their team or the culture they feel like culture isn't fully adapt I feel like there's you know there's definitely things that one can do um but I I also feel like I don't want to automatically um give out the antidote that this will work for everyone as well. I think it really does depend on specific scenarios. So I think with that, we could move on, but I'm truly happy to dive deeper with anyone if it comes to that.

25:45Yeah. So process, what's this mean to you when you're talking about process? This is, here at Common Room has been an incredible experience from the process standpoint. I would say ultimately the team needs to have a standard of excellence of what they're expected to do but more importantly how they're expected to work with other departments and there should be zero unknown of anyone saying I don't know what happens after x or I after an event I don't know truly what's happening with the leads. And so a process could really dive into, and it's funny, I created this acronym before chat GBT even like years ago.

26:36Right. And so this was all I did, like I built it out on hand to paper and wrote out kind of a funnel. Then I upgraded to like a lucid chart at one point, but now you could use Claude. So everyone could definitely bypass those archaic times, but process can break down into a few different things. Process within you as a manager and your team on how they're owning their days. What does their day look like? What does a great day look like for an enterprise SDR versus commercial? That's a huge aspect of workflow slash process. But then I think the low hanging fruit is uncovering processes from different departments in that alignment of, as I mentioned, marketing, what happens with every lead?

27:21Is there a surefire process that you know is being followed up on and there's nothing being left to chance that the SCR team can be on top of? Again, and that also builds the brand internally. When you take ownership as a manager and you roll this out and you connect with the demand gen or the events person and you say, hey, I want to get a little bit tighter and have an agreed upon alignment process. Once you get that alignment bought in, then you roll it out and you even can have a team meeting and start to do those types of things, give you that executive presence of ownership, which I think a lot of first time leaders can just start doing or asking to do.

27:59I don't want to step on people's toes in order to get to that next level. And then the next aspect of process is the alignment with sales. Whether you report to sales or not, making sure it's not a wild, wild west. My AE does it this way. My SDR likes to do it this way. I think having a baseline foundation of what good looks like. And I tell the SDRs like, even if your AE isn't showing up the exact way you would like, you still should show up as a professional. You'd be the greatest SDR this person has ever dealt with. Show up on time, every time with your book of business, what you've done, your plan, your account strategy, and you have that process owned and that will truly start to, again, build the brand and you will ultimately, I think, see the results you want one way or another.

28:46Yeah, love that. So if we go back to process, there was like, we call it the weekly rhythm and it sounds like, you know, I was interviewing Ashley Kelly yesterday. She is VP of sales development at Rippling. I've had a couple of conversations with her. I love her work. Dude, aka her work is like 400 plus reps now. Wild, yeah, yeah. So she always says SDR is a daily business, you know? So you mentioned daily rhythms and things like that. And I know that there isn't like a one size fits all, but maybe just in your experience, like when you say daily or weekly rhythm, what are the expectations? Like what guidance is expected to give to a rep around what that, you know, their typical day should look like?

29:32Yeah, that's a great question. I think first and foremost, you want to make sure you're speaking to the right segments. You know, what a commercial SDR does is not going to be one-to-one with what an enterprise rep does, SDR does, for example. But I think from a daily cadence, it's twofold. One fold is what the SDR should be doing from an expectation and outbound perspective, kind of the metrics, setting yourself up for success, owning your calendar so that you feel like you're running your own organization. I always try to instill that, that whether you are an SDR or an AE, you're the CEO of your book of business and own it, operate like it.

30:12And so I think one aspect, as I mentioned, of the daily processes, how does your day look like? Are you set up for success without anyone else, any other AEs, any other alignment, just you and what you're doing every day? Did you prep the night before? Luckily, at Common Room, it's a really incredible tool for those that don't know. We are working day and night to ensure we have segments, which essentially a rep could come in each day and have filtered kind of where they could focus their time based off of intent and signals, and then kind of just plug it out into outreach and our dialer to make that outbound.

30:49But aside from that, really feeling like they should never wake up on a Monday, roll out of bed or go into the office at 9 a.m. and sit down with their coffee and say, okay, let me organize my week. I think you're already behind. And I think the greats don't do that. And so I'm not saying work crazy hours. I'm not saying work weekends. But if that's, I know people that do that, I'm guilty of it at times. But what I'm saying is owning your own day process so that when you close your laptop each night, you know what your next day or even next couple of days should look like. So that's one aspect of the process.

31:25The other daily process is alignment with your counterpart. At the end of the day, SDRs are supporting the AE. No matter who you report to, marketing or the CRO, it does not matter. You are responsible to get quality pipeline for your AE. And so ensuring you have that relationship built is imperative. And it really is a make or break for a lot of organizations is that that partnership. Got it. Would tooling and tech fit under this bucket of process? Yes, it would. It would. Yeah. Give me some of your thoughts on tooling tech, you know, dialers. Are you a fan of them or not? Like stuff that you're seeing working.

32:09Obviously, it sounds like you guys drink your own champagne, which is like always cool, right? When you sell a solution that your reps can use. And then I'd just love to kind of hear your take on AI and, you know, all of that kind of stuff. Absolutely. And I'm sure I'm actually curious on the majority of the combos that you're having and interviews you're doing. What percentage is around AI? You know, like out of the last hundred people you spoke to, if you took all the time that you recorded, what percent would have some tie to AI? I'm going to guess 30 to 40 percent. And maybe Ronald. I mean, everything has been related to AI in one form or another.

32:49And it's maybe not like, how are you using Claude? Right. It's maybe stuff at like the org level. Okay. But it's, yeah, a lot of these interviews, I mean, it comes up more in customer client conversations for us. Ah. Right. So it comes up, I run all the sales calls at Outbound Squad. So every sales call it's coming up, people are asking, hey, is AI a part of this? How do we take the outbound playbooks and process that you're going to create for us and not just train the reps and managers on it, but how are we going to infuse AI into this? How are we going to use this to train our AI model if they have it?

33:24If they have a GTM engineer, it would be, you know, they're always asking because the GTM engineer, I'm curious your thoughts on GTM engineers, but the GTM engineer is basically a RevOps person that's really good at tooling but has no sales experience. So they're in charge of the AI that is producing a lot of this stuff, yet they are not the person that has the first-hand experience of doing it. It's the same problem of, I have an enablement team that does not make cold calls, has not made them ever before or in many, many years, training the team on how to make cold calls. It's the same kind of problem.

33:59But yeah, it comes up in a lot of those conversations as well. So yeah, it's all over the place. I was just talking with John prior to this, CRO at Orem. And we were just talking about there's this quote that I come back to, and it's from Derek Sivers, and it's, if information were the answer, we would all be billionaires with six-pack abs. So I just worry that we're focused on the wrong use case for AI. I think surfacing information, like let's take Common Room, for example, surfacing the triggers and the signals, whatever you want to call them, all of that is, and being able to do it like that is really great.

34:45That's a, in my opinion, a smaller problem. It's still a big problem, but it's a smaller problem than the rep's ability to execute on those signals, particularly over the phone, the thing that cannot be automated right now. That to me is the much harder thing. And it's the people management of the frontline leader with those reps. Like, to me, that is a problem that I think we're still figuring out how to leverage AI to solve for. Because again, I could surface insights through Orem, let's say a coaching solution on what this rep needs help with, but the rep still has to be receptive to that coaching.

35:21The manager has to deliver it. They still have to be able to execute it. Someone has to reinforce it. You know what I mean? There's still such a human freaking I know you know this. I do. There's such a freaking human component to it. And I think that we're just focused on the wrong thing, honestly. It's so funny because in a weird way, I feel like, not sure whoever is going to listen or watch us, I feel like we all know that. Like in a weird way, like we were just out in the lobby talking with John and he said what I already knew and I believe also is we're actually longing for human connection again.

35:58And I think we all are aware that AI has so many benefits, but at the same time, the way it's being executed and the human touch is almost more valuable now than it was before AI was around. And so there's a lot of different convos to take with AI specifically. I will just say, and I'm pretty confident most people are just going to nod their head and say, yeah, like, duh. But AI should be, well, first, before I give my sentence on it, my belief, and this might ruffle feathers, is I think AI is a buzzword that a lot of board members and executives. Oh, big time. are more like we yeah there's now budget for ai but they don't know exactly what that even means and yeah marketing departments and and sales departments have budget for ai tools yeah and it's more just like a stamp like oh the company's using ai yeah but that's so surface level that if you're not doing it right like i personally i'm not going to say the name um of the tool have purchase ai tools that were supposed to help our workflow and save time backfired completely made me lose sleep lost the the company money uh rep workflow three x in time it took before the ai tool and and so my sentence is ai should be bought and leveraged at least from like this the the pipeline and outbound perspective should be bought and executed truly just to allow your reps to focus more of their time on revenue generating activities.

37:48Whatever that is, that RGA for your company, you can decide or you should have your leadership decide. But ultimately, AI should not take over that revenue generating activity, which is phone calls, emails. I don't even think AI should be handling unless it's, you know, you go to a conference and you get a thousand boost scans and, you know, it's low intent, unsure fit, and you want to get a warm pulse check before an SDR gets it. But if you're paying an SDR org and you use AI to the right capabilities, there's no reason why your SDR shouldn't be the spearhead of being that first point of contact, the expert and your pain and asking the right questions and determining if it's a right fit for their tool.

38:33Yep. 100 percent, dude. Dialers, give me your thoughts on that. And yeah, I actually am a fan of dialers and I think I used to. How do you use them, I guess, is maybe the more nuanced question to ask. Like, yeah, you know, the parallel dialing versus power versus point and click. Like, how are you? Yes, we are using a dialer at which our SDRs can control whether or not they parallel dial or power dial. And so I do have reps that have a preference and I'm OK with that if they want to do single dials. I'm a big fan is the end of the day. I'm also I am not a fan of parallel dialing more than three numbers at once.

39:15yeah i just think again with ai and us being able to leverage common room to kind of know who we're calling we need to be prepared for one of these three people at most who's going to pick up yeah that this isn't just a one-on-one hey uh give me a second let me pull up who you are or you should be super generic when the exact that you're trying to get a hold of finally there's the delay pause and like i think you should know one of the three people it's going to be John, it's going to be Jason, it's going to be Bob. And if one of them pick up, I'm ready. I know what Jason has been doing the last 10 years.

39:48I know where Common Room might fit or the product you're selling. And so I think from a parallel standpoint, I do think having it down to where you're prepared to speak to whoever picks up is a superpower because you get one shot at a first impression. And granted, you can call back and you could try again. And there's sometimes there's greatness in messing up on a first pitch, but at the same time, success occurs when preparation meets opportunity. So when someone picks up, that's your opportunity. Are you prepared? And so to answer your question, I allow the team to leverage and own their book and feel that autonomy on parallel dialing versus power dialing.

40:31Yeah. I think that distinction is really, really important. It's a tool, just like a sequencer that can be poorly misused and abused. Yeah. Here's another huge thing that I think more and more companies are changing how SDRs are paid and what the quota is. But there's still companies out there that, you know, have daily metrics that you just have to check the box as a rep. I made 200 dials. I made 250 dials. You can literally do that in like 45 minutes and speak to no one. Right. Granted, you can't always control who picks up. However, the way I've been trying to instill in the mindset of my team is, and again, I don't know my boss and some people may not like this, but I say, I don't give a damn if you made a thousand dials today or you made 50, how many quality conversations did you have?

41:20How many at bats, meaning you actually got to pitch your product or try to overcome an objection. You need to have three to five every day. Don't care how many dials it takes. And so figuring out, So setting yourself up using tools like Common Room and your other, you know, intent and having the right enrichment set so that it's time spent on the phone is to the right people at the right time is going to be that's that's where, you know, you should leverage AI. Yep. 100 percent. So the next part of the CPAD culture process alignments next. We talked a little bit about alignment. How do you think about managing the alignment as a second line leader?

42:00Because it's really a big part of it's now going to be on you managing that cross department alignment. How do you think about that? And maybe a good question to ask would be like, if you were a first time director of sales development, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give yourself? Yeah, absolutely. Around like alignment. Yeah, absolutely. And what's funny, I think it's probably more and more common. two companies ago I was a director but I started off I was director title frontline manager so I built a team from ground zero like literally not one rep you build it out then you get to get a team lead and a manager after but for six eight months you're director but you're a frontline manager so all that to say is like I feel and I see those that have those titles but still have to do the daily grind of one-on-ones and managing you know the emotions and the individual contributors either way no matter what even at some organizations you don't even have to be a director and you can own this alignment first things first i always like to do from building kind of like the credibility standpoint is meeting with your counterparts so if i report to the cmo and that's marketing you need to get alignment with the vp of sales your cro your directors whoever is is at the forefront of leading sales and understand to them first and foremost what What does success look like with a SDR team?

43:25That's it. Like, let's hear what your expectation and vision of greatness is. And I want to tell you what I'm planning on doing. I do think you need to be firm in kind of what you want to build with this team. Because, you know, you have to have a little bit of that backbone to get even, you know, sometimes the credibility across departments. But long story short, once you understand what their greatness is and you paint the vision of what you're trying to build and accomplish and ensure that at the end of the day, the mission is the same. It's quality pipeline for your team. So, again, if I'm under CMO, CRO, when I go to the sales leaders I speak to, at the end of the day, whatever we're trying to accomplish, solve for, it's about getting your reps, quality pipeline.

44:16So they're two or three X ahead of what their quote is every given quarter. And we're going to work backwards to get there. So I think once you instill that early on, instead of coming in and swinging of this is what I'm building, you need to agree or let's figure it out. You have to, there's a level of, you have to be a seller. You're selling yourself. You're selling this partnership you're now building. And I think it's a great opportunity to do so. And so I think understanding what's important to them, where the lowest hanging fruits, always keeping your word, taking action. I think a lot of that over communicating early on to have them be able to get the vision of what you're doing is all important in the alignment aspect.

45:04how have you handled situations in the past where there is maybe a lack of alignment on stage one to stage two conversion for example right it's like hey we're setting up these meetings for the aes and you know they're dequeuing some of these opportunities that really are meeting some of the requirements that we have like this is such a big like gray area in many organizations, but how do you think about that handoff and making sure that it's objective as possible? And then how do you kind of handle situations like that where it's, you know, maybe the AE is disqualifying more than they should be because, you know, they're used to working the inbounds and they're like, dude, I actually got a freaking cell.

45:54This person didn't say they had budget, you know, like whatever. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that is a gray one. It's a, it's a, it's a tough one, but I think it's very solvable. Um, and again, a lot of it comes down to what I mentioned before of making sure with the sales leader, you never forget the North star. Yeah. We're on the same team here. Right. I granted it's been brought up for like, if we're using that example, it's been brought up, like there's some things I want to, we're going to discuss around DQing and making sure that you and I are aligned on what an S2 truly is. But at the end of the day, like, let's remember my team is here to make sure your team is crushing it.

46:32You have quality pipeline. Your team should just be able to just take quality calls and not focus their time on outbound. I mean, that is like future state. I know a lot of AEs have to prospect these days and that's what grades do. So, but I want to paint that vision to an AE leader or a director because that's a holy grail for them where they know they could spend time on working deals and generating revenue. But ultimately it's about, let's take a step back. First and foremost, what is an S2 to you? This is what we have written down. Is there a difference between what's current, whether you wrote it, whether it was from a previous leader, do you agree with this or do we need to update this?

47:12Because before we leave here, you and I should just agree on what this S2 is. From there, we can work and determine how to roll it out, adjust, whatnot. Before we look at any individual or whatnot, let's just make sure you and I, like, what is an S2 to you? How far off are we? And come to an agreement on, when we leave here, you should be doing the same message to your team that I'm going to go to do my team. And all of them, as ICs, should know that you and I are in alignment and we will stand together on this hill. This is what an S2 is. And these are the SLAs and expectations. So I think that's how I would handle the specifics around that.

47:47I will say there's little things that I've done recently at Common Room, for example, when we got here. There was, you know, a little bit of a lack of belief in the SDR team. So much to, you know, is not a complete openness to allow SDRs to work tier one or really good accounts. Because I think there's an opportunity to build that bridge, which I think we've done a great job at. But a lot of it was the quality of the meetings and not believing in it. And so I think we aligned on what an S2 is. But more importantly, let's step back at an S1. What does an AE and you want to see on those first calls?

48:24Not so much common room one-on-one. Let's get some requirements in place. I'm happy to do that. I think the great SDRs come with that first call with some pain, some, you know, some things that this AE is going to be teed up to be able to control the call. You know, not spend a 30-minute intro call just on an intro, but you could actually get somewhere on that call. The AE will love your SDR so much more. And so what we did is many people have heard of BANT, which is Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline. Shout out to Shea Keeler, who is one of our sellers, our sales leaders. we changed the B to a C.

49:01And so we have the C as a competitor. So we made it a full requirement that we rolled out. We told AEs, you guys, new changes are coming. Now every meeting that an SDR is going to book, we have a field. We paired with RevOps, made sure it was easy turnaround with RevOps and the opportunity side of it, you know, the backend to make sure they can fill out the can't notes. And it's a requirement. You can't just put NA and save. It's like, nope, red. you have to put the can in there. And so we'd like to have our SCRs have two of the four. Typically, we really want the competitors that they're currently using, tech stack, and the need or the pain of where we know Common Room can help.

49:40And that way, the AE is set up for a much better first call. Love it. So we have three minutes left, by the way. Incredible. So development, just really quickly, anything there with development that you wanted to hit on that we haven't talked about yet? If your company currently doesn't have a dotted line to any type of promotions for your SDR team, whether it's just an internal promotion from SDR one to SDR two or SDR to a senior or BDR, if there's nothing in line, you need to go to the highest level you're able to, to work out career pathing. Sometimes, I mean, with Claude these days, you can literally have them operate as the greatest HR slash CMO, CRO and build out career pathing and work backwards for your specific team.

50:27But you need to have that conversation with the execs and, and, or understand and make the team aware that you will lose good, good talent otherwise. But I think it's so imperative in a low hanging fruit that C-suites aren't going to spend time doing it. Typically they have so much other stuff going on. So you as a sales leader of the sales development level, take ownership of that and make sure there's something in place and you're getting the ball rolling. Sometimes you have to be the noisy wheel or the, yeah, the noisy wheel. Squeaky wheel gets the grease. Noisy wheel, squeaky wheel. Closed mouths never get fed.

50:59Closed mouths never get fed. I use all of that. I use all of those analogies. Yeah. I love that because retention is so important right now because it's not the 2018, 2019 days where you could be an SDR for six to nine months and then become an account executive. That's just not the reality of most organizations right now. So you got to keep people around. I have one rapid fire style. Let's go. I love it. Before you go. Okay. Just because being a leader can be very stressful. I'm curious how you decompress after a long day or week. Yeah, I own my mornings. I think that's very big. I wake up at 5 a.m.

51:38every single day. I spend the first I try to do some meditation and not I would love to be to say like I like sit down and meditate, but no, it's more, I get my pre-workout, I'm quiet. I listen to, um, a specific Spotify playlist and it's more just like frequencies. And I, I like to just envision what my day will look like. And I'd like to get some activity in physically in the mornings. Um, so that's always, I look forward to that. I lay out my clothes the night before for the gym. So there's no excuse. And then from a decompressed standpoint, you know, I, uh, I'm really big. I mean, we could to probably talk a long time about this, but I've been really big over the last few years into, um, there's, there's a doctor, Dr.

52:21Joe Dispenza, and, and he's very big on kind of, um, understanding your internal body and how it works and how it could affect your reality. He says, your, um, uh, personality is your personal reality. And so like what you think and how you view problems and things. And so for me, at the end of the day, I try to really, uh, acknowledge what is a true problem and what's not. And I always try to make sure I, now that I'm a father of an almost two year old, never let that energy come into the home and use Claude or whatever you want to use your LLM to prioritize what's important. But realize at the end of the day, we're all humans.

53:03Everyone will always have a problem, whether you're an IC or a C-suite. So making sure, you know, you don't forget to give yourself some of that grace. But again, when it's 5am, I always get to the gym and I'm on the treadmill the first 10 minutes walking. That's when I'm like, okay, I got to execute. What's the toad I'm going to eat first? And so I sometimes always gear my days that way. Love that, man. Yeah. What about you? Oh, what I like to do, decompress. Muay Thai for me these days has been big. So I think having an activity that a couple times a week at least that will completely take your mind off something that is also like a learning activity so that you don't rot your brain on social media.

53:41You know, it ties like chess as well, because it's literally like so fun. Yeah, you have to. I'm not that great at it yet. I've been doing it better than maybe three or four months. But, dude, great to have you on. Where can people go to connect with you? And where can people go to learn more about Common Room? And, you know, is Common Room hiring right now? Let's. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Definitely. LinkedIn, I think, is something I'm really trying to be more active on as well. But just Brandon Jackson on LinkedIn. I connect with every single person that sends requests and common room is also there.

54:13We are hiring. I think we have some pivotal hiring. I think the company is in such an incredible position with all the AI motions going on. I'm really bullish that we're going to be an incredible player when the dust settles and in the coming months and years on what we can do in the AI go to market intelligence space. So yeah, looking forward to it. I appreciate the time. It went by too quick i feel like i wanted to get a little bit more juicy into some stuff but um i'm sure we'll connect again