Your Outsourced Lead Gen Team Shouldn’t Have Any Hodors
Reviews of the current season (5) notwithstanding, Game of Thrones is a remarkably popular television show with an outstanding collection of characters. One of the most memorable minor characters is Hodor, the stable boy whose vocabulary includes only ‘Hodor’ and answers any & all questions with that particular word. (Fun fact: his name is actually Walder, but he is called Hodor because it’s the only word he’s ever said).
I’d like you to ask yourself, especially if you use an outsourced lead gen firm, whether your sales development reps are Hodors? In other words, are they simply repeating a script & answering prospect questions with rehashed answers, or are they executing a consultative prospecting strategy?
demandDrive recently held a webinar that discussed the importance of creating a strong training program for sales development reps (SDRs) that prioritizes sales development skills over product knowledge. While this remains as the best way to train SDRs, the combination of these sales development skills with the eventual mastery of product knowledge will most often manifest itself in the form of answering prospect questions. Rather than repeating slightly different versions of their script in an effort to avoid answering specific questions, SDRs should give careful consideration to each prospect question and provide answers that both qualify and help the prospect.
The ability to answer (and return open-ended) questions tends to be a weakness for many outsourced lead gen firms. Based on feedback from clients who have tried outsourced lead generation in the past, many vendors don’t have any sort of product knowledge download for their reps other than scripts and elevator pitches. It is the job of the SDR to provide not only qualified leads to their sales reps but also a positive experience to their prospects. Don’t forget, the customer experience will often start with this call.
At demandDrive, our SDRs — who are already certified in our sales development methodologies — go through a comprehensive “knowledge transfer” in order to understand the ins-and-outs of their client’s product. This ensures our SDRs perform as a replacement or extension of an internal team.
Hodor is a great character — well liked and a hard worker. If he were to land a sales development job in Westoros, however, he certainly wouldn’t be a top performer. Make sure your outsourced lead gen team isn’t providing you with Hodors.
(Hodor)
