SDR Process

Marketing SDR’s = Firm Growth

Everything you need to know as a marketer to leverage the SDR team. 

Executive Summary 

SDR stands for Sales Development Representative. This team is essentially an inside sales team that sits between marketing, the business development (BD) team and firm sellers. As it pertains to marketing, the SDR team will take marketing qualified leads (MQL’s), provided by the marketing team, and will prospect into those contacts. By introducing an SDR to the contact we begin developing a more personal relationship with the contact and provides that contact someone here at Armanino as a resource for them as they begin or continue in their buying journey. The goal of the SDR team is to work with the contacts over time and facilitate getting them into a meeting with an Armanino seller and/or subject matter expert (SME). As the SDR’s communicate with the contacts and identify an opportunity they will open an Opportunity in CRM and ensure that the lead source is credited to the marketing campaign that generated the MQL’s.

We are testing and trying many new things in the SDR team and are building a more efficient, effective, and scalable models and processes. The Marketing and SDR teams are a partnership and will continually collaborate and work together to find innovative, better, and more impactful ways to contribute to Armanino’s growth!

SDR’s Purpose

To set meetings that lead to opportunities moving into stages 1-5. This means that general “thank you” type emails that do not have the purpose to drive meetings are not generally run through the SDR group and we need to support their success by sending the warmest contacts their way.

Quick Start Guide for Marketing PM

1. Definition of an MQL’s that would be sent to an SDR: These are engaged contacts and have indicators that lead us to believe they may be in a ready to buy state.
    
2. SDR’s prospect prospects. SDR’s do not work on client accounts and contacts. *The firm is working on client expansion strategies so keep your ears open for that.
    
3. Ensure you have a sales strategy meeting with the SME, seller and SDR assigned to that campaign to ensure all parties know timing, roles and responsibilities.
    
4. When loading a project into Workfront, ensure that you identify if SDR’s tasks are needed or not (SDR Decision Tree Under Construction). If there are “pre-event” SDR tasks needed, ensure that is indicated when submitting your WF project. Please work with your manager if you are unsure.
    
5. ALWAYS have an SDR Folder in the WorkFront project. This should already be built into all Templates. If missing, please let Operations team know.
    
6. Fill out the “SDR Worksheet” and load into the SDR folder within the project. The SDR worksheet has everything we need from you to be able to build and execute a sequence. Please fill out diligently. If there are two audiences, two different messages need to be outlined in the worksheet.
    
7. Create an excel sheet, and save as a .csv file, that contains ONLY the contacts that the SDR’s need to prospect into and load into the SDR Folder within the project. If there are two audiences, then there would be two .csv files.
   
   a. MUST identify Clients vs. Prospect & pull clients out of the list
   b. MUST pull out any contacts that an SME or BD person will do the follow up on
   c. MUST pull out vendors, Armanino people, competitors etc.
   d. MUST not have multiple tabs with non-pertinent information or filters that would cause confusion. The csv should be 1 tab only and completely clean.
    
8. The SDR follow up cannot begin until the SDR Worksheet and the .csv file are loaded into the SDR folder within the project.
    
9. SDR prospecting work will run anywhere from 4-8 weeks.
    
10. Once the follow up is complete the SDR will load a report into the SDR folder within the project on the responses and opportunities generated.
     
11. If a project manager would like to do a deeper dive into what worked and what didn’t work, they are always welcome to set any additional meetings needed with the SDR manager and SDR assigned to the project.
     
12. SDR’s only open opportunities (whether stage 0 or beyond) once the constituent has engaged with the SDR by replying to an email, calling in or responding via a LinkedIn message. There must be true sales opportunity potential for an SDR to open an opportunity in CRM. Leadership is actively building a solution for opening stage 0 opportunities on marketing leads (this is outside of SDR process)

Quick Start Best Practices

Sales Strategy

• Be sure you have thought through if SDR follow up makes sense and would be a good experience for the prospects getting contacted. Will this be a good customer journey for them or not? Will it be helpful to them or feel more like a “salesy” push?
   
• Be sure to have a sales strategy and planning call with the BD rep, the SME and the SDR all in the same room! They all need to be a part of making the plan, determine who will play what role and all be on the same page with confidence about the plan. This is a step that helps determine if it is appropriate to leverage SDRs and get everyone excited to generate opportunities.
   
• Webinars should have a polling question that asks the constituents if they want to speak with someone after the webinar. If they say yes, that is who the SDR’s will contact. If you want a broader audience reached out to then be sure to have a strategy and plan developed prior to the webinar developed with the SME’s BD person and SDR.

List Development

• Contacts that the SDR’s will prospect MUST be a highly engaged MQL. They should have clicked multiple times, stopped by our booth, engaged in multiple marketing activities, etc. They need to be as warm as possible before spending SDR resources on prospecting. See MQL’s for SDRs definition later in doc.
   
• Lists need to be cleaned up before loading into the SDR Folder. Focus on high valued contacts/accounts, remove competition or unwanted companies, identify and remove clients and have the SME’s and BD people remove those contacts they do not want contacted or that they plan to contact themselves.
   
• Execute the list work as fast as possible so that the distance from the time the contact interacted with our marketing activity to the time an SDR contacts them is as short as possible.
   
• If the list is new – work with CRM Analytics to get the list loaded into CRM before sending over to the SDR’s. 

Workfront Logistics

• As much as possible all SDR projects should be in WF to allow visibility in what’s coming down the pipeline and to organize, share files and communicate through the project.
   
• Ensure there is an SDR Folder in the documents section of your project.
   
• Ensure all SDR task dates make sense. If the SDR follow up is weeks after the event it is not very effective. If dependencies are off, please fix.

Events

Sample of a Kickoff Email for an Event 
Does not replace kick-off meeting. This is a summary to provide in writing after the meeting.

 Pre-Tradeshow Sequences

• If Armanino sellers will be in-person at a tradeshow or conference, running a pre-tradeshow sequence can be very impactful. The SDR’s will work to set up in-person meetings with the prospect and sellers that will be in attendance.
   
• Proactive preparation is necessary. SDR’s should be engage 4-6 weeks prior to the launch of the pre-tradeshow sequence and the pre-tradeshow sequence should begin around 3-4 weeks (no later than 2 weeks prior) before the event itself.

Project Types that SDR’s Work On

Below are the project types that SDR’s work on, and the 2022 general success pattern based on SDR data in 2022. The key takeaway is that we have opportunities to solve and improve results as we enter 2023 with new team structures and technologies in place. This is our baseline and will help us measure success in 2023!

Deeper Dive on MQL’s in Relation to SDR’s

As noted in the Quick Start Guide, the definition of an MQL’s that would be sent to an SDR is an engaged contact in marketing campaign(s) with indicators that lead us to believe they may be ready to buy or learn more. This means they are lower in the marketing funnel, they clicked, they downloaded, they attended.

Example: They may have opened multiple emails on a particular topic and clicked through into a case study.

Example: They have engaged in a nurture campaign without dropping down to general population at any time.

Example: They attended a webinar or stopped by our booth at a conference.

Workfront 

SDR Job Role Naming Conventions and Definitions:

SDR stands for sales development representative. This is the individual responsible to doing the prospecting (As of October 2022: Rutger Knottnerus, Kathryn Collins Duba, Jordan Thompson). Tasks they are assigned to are “Run Outreach Sequence” and “Load Prospecting Results to Project”.

SDR Manager (As of Dec 2022: Larkin McGowan) – Once we create and transition to a SDR Content & Operations Manager there will rarely be a need for this role to be assigned in the templates but will be used as needed.

Outreach Specialist -  Assigned to are “Build Outreach Sequence” “Launch Outreach Sequence” and “Turn-Off Outreach Sequence” 

Project Templates

Folders and Files in Project Templates

All project templates should have:

SDR Folder in the documents section of the project 

Within the SDR folder there should be the:

1. SDR worksheet
2. Sequence Report Template

Once the marketer has the clean .csv files of contacts to be prospected they will load those into the SDR folder:

Good Example:

Bad Example:

Tasks in Project Templates

All projects that need SDR work included should have an SDR section of tasks that look like the following:

Section Title: SDR Prospecting Support

Task 1: Create Contact File for Stage 0/Leads - assigned to PM

Task 2: Upload Stage 0/Leads in CRM - assigned to Rob Harrison

Task 3: Create SDR Contacts .csv file and Upload to WorkFront Project Documents SDR Folder – assigned to PM

Task 4: Write Outreach Sequence - assigned to Inbound Marketer

Task 5: Build Outreach Sequence – assigned to Outreach Specialist

Task 6: Launch Outreach Sequence – assigned to Outreach Specialist

Task 7: Run Outreach Sequence - assigned to SDR

Task 8: Turn Off Outreach Sequence - assigned to Outreach Specialist

Task 9: Load Prospecting Results Report to SDR Folder – assigned to SDR

IF there is a Pre-Conference Sequence Needed: This same set of tasks would be added earlier in the project timeline in a way that the sequence would begin 2-4 weeks ahead of the event date. The timing should be looked at by the PM & SDR together to ensure alignment.

NOTE: In Q4 2022 We will delete the following legacy tasks (You may see legacy tasks still existing in projects that were started before these changes were executed, please adjust those projects accordingly)

-Review Prospecting/Campaign Results. If a project manager wants to look deeper into data and pull the SDR content manager and SDR together for insights they are free to set up a meeting at any time.

-Review Sales Ops Tasks. This is no longer needed now that we have honed in the SDR processes.

Sequence Reports from the SDR 

Once Sequence is completed, the SDR will load the excel file report to the SDR Folder within the project.

The report will include the following: Link to Template Excel HERE

1. Total contacts placed in the Sequence
2. Open Rate % and Net # 
3. Reply Rate % and Net # 
4. # of Meetings Set
5. List of Opportunities Opened - Stage 0 (Provide Links to the Opportunity)
6. List of Opportunities Open Stage 2 and 2+ (Provide Links to the Opportunity)
7. Value of Opportunities 

Prospecting List Expectations and How To’s

It is the marketer’s responsibility to evaluate the contacts that have engaged with the marketing campaign and identify those contacts that warrant SDR prospecting work to be done. If you are unsure on how to do this please contact your manager for training.

The contacts should already be in CRM before providing the prospecting list to the SDRs.

Requirements for the prospecting list:

1. Must be uploaded in .csv format to the SDR folder (single tab only)
2. Clients must be identified and pulled out (SDR’s do not work with clients)
3. Armanino employees, vendors, competitors, referral partners etc. must be pulled out
4. Any contacts the seller, SME or Partner identifies as someone they will personally do the follow up on must be pulled out
5. Clear file naming conventions are required and desperately needed (we can’t interpret the meaning of things for 20+ individuals):
   • Example 1: “Prospects and Leads that DID attend”
   • Example 2: “Prospects and Leads that DID NOT attend”
   • Example 3: “Prospects for SDR’s_High Engagement with Campaign”
   • Example 4: “Prospects for SDR’s_Target List_Cannabis Industry”
   • Example 5: “Prospects and Leads that stopped by the booth”
6. Lists cannot have rows with things filtered out. This has caused a lot of confusion. The lists will need to be completely “clean” and must only contain the contacts that the SDR’s will be reaching out to.
7. If the contacts are already in CRM then we only need the individuals first name, last name, and email address to make the connection from our tool to CRM.

Best Practice Example for Webinar or Armanino Event 

Best Practice Example for Tradeshow or Conference 

Best Practice Example for Target List

Best Practice Example for PPC, Email/Nurture/Drip

Default Assignments for SDRs when a project is submitted 

As of Oct 2022 – subject to change

Assign to Rutger Knottnerus if:
INDUSTRIES aligned directly to Workfront Primary Industry Field:
General – Split evenly between Rutger and Jordan
 Technology Industry
 Blockchain/Crypto Industry
 Cannabis Industry
 Private Equity Industry
Financial Services
Life Sciences
Private Equity Venture Capital

Assign to Jordan Thompson if:
INDUSTRIES aligned directly to Workfront Primary Industry Field:
General – Split evenly between Rutger and Jordan
Real Estate Industry
Nonprofit Industry
Education Industry
Healthcare Industry
Entertainment
Consumer Business
Energy
Food and Bev
Insurance
Law Firm Services
Manufacturing
Media Production
Professional Services
Solid Waste
 
IF the Project is NOT aligned to a Specific Industry, THEN:
Assign to Rutger Knottnerus if:
PRACTICE AREA aligned directly to Workfront Practice Area Field:
FIRM  – Split evenly between Rutger and Jordan
Advisory
Audit
Digital
Risk Assurance

 
Assign to Jordan Thompson if:
PRACTICE AREA aligned directly to Workfront Practice Area Field:
FIRM  – Split evenly between Rutger and Jordan
Business Application Consulting
Individuals
Outsourcing
Strategy and Transformation
Tax

SDR CRM Processes

As It Relates to Marketing
There are a lot of CRM responsibilities that the SDR’s manage. However, this section is primarily focused on what the marketer would likely care most about in regard to SDR process.

• SDR’s only open opportunities (whether stage 0 or beyond) once the constituent has engaged with the SDR by replying to an email, calling in or responding via a LinkedIn message. They will not open stage zero opportunities for marketing purposes. There must be true sales opportunity potential for an SDR to open an opportunity in CRM.
  • A little extra context for you: When contacts are identified by a marketer as needing to run through the prospecting process in the SDR team they are added to a “Sequence” in our sales automation tool called Outreach.io. Once the contact engages with the SDR we create a stage 0 opportunity IF the response is one of wanting to move forward with conversations for services.
• When a SDR opens any opportunity, they are diligent to record the lead source and track it to the marketing campaign, event, activity that generated the opportunity.

Very important to note: As of Jan 2023 we have multiple conversations happening to try and solve the MQL/Stage 0 marketing practices. Please contact Rob DeMartini if you are needing further information. 

The Experts Inbox

[email protected]

This inbox is managed by the SDR team and specifically managed by Kathryn Collins Duba.

The primary sources that funnel straight to this inbox are:

• Website forms on the various industry and services webpages (these pages have UTM strings attached to them so that we can specifically see which page they filled out the form on and this becomes the lead source for any opportunity that the SDR opens.)

• The general “contact us” form on the website

• Most Whitepapers also filter to this inbox

***Please Note: As of Jan 2023 – We are still working on solving how to manage the incoming flow of leads from PPC campaigns and if they should also filter here or if we need other solutions