What You Need to Build a Team of SDRs with Gabe Lullo, CEO of AlleyOOP
In this episode of Exploring Growth, host Lee Murray sits down with Gabe Lullo, CEO of AlleyOOP, to discuss the key elements of building a successful sales team. They emphasize the importance of collaboration, communication, and learning from failures. They also explore the dynamics of sales development and the creation of tailored playbooks for clients.
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Gabe Lullo
00:00:00
Yet collaboration and communication and sharing, you know, things that are going wrong. We always say failing forward, right. We're a big believer and in, you know, everything, every, every failure and mistake is a learning opportunity. and again, going back to being cutthroat, you know, we don't want someone coming in and just being cancerous. And culture when it comes to just being, you know, taking things from people. Right? We want to just continually level people up.
Lee Murray
00:00:29
Welcome back to Exploring Growth. Today. We're looking at what it takes to build a team of salespeople with my guest, Gabe Lulu, CEO of Alley-oop. And sales, as we know, is the lifeblood of early stage and second stage companies. and getting it right can give you the opportunity to scale later on. So I've really been looking forward to this conversation since I was introduced to Gabe. Welcome to the show, Gabe.
Gabe Lullo
00:00:54
Thank you so much. First off, I'm a huge fan of yours. I've always I've always wanted to grow a beard like yours.
Gabe Lullo
00:01:00
So I'm a big fan of your beard too. But most importantly, your show is awesome and your content is great. So thanks so much for having us.
Lee Murray
00:01:06
Yeah. No problem. Yeah, I always say my beard when I get comments on my beard. It's like great, but it's the one thing that takes no talent.
Gabriel Lullo
00:01:12
Yeah, exactly.
Lee Murray
00:01:14
You just have it or you don't, you know.
Gabriel Lullo
00:01:16
Yeah, yeah.
Lee Murray
00:01:17
Okay, so before we jump into this conversation about building sales teams, tell us about your company and what you guys do.
Gabe Lullo
00:01:23
Yeah, we're one of the largest STR agencies in the world. A lot of people don't still know what an STR is. And that's okay. Sales development rep. So top of funnel appointment setting prospecting qualifying leads. That's what we do. So companies come to us to help build that out. And we grow their team in a white labeled fashion. So we're getting those SDR teams spun up. And the big piece of what we do is enable the SDR.
Gabe Lullo
00:01:47
I mean, anyone could hire someone and tell them, hey, go cold call. But without the support, the data, the tools, the management, the different type of scoring, using AI and how to use or not, how to use I write all the things that are involved in the enablement piece is really the hard part, and that's where we shine the most. We have about 100 stars on our sales floor, and we help all different types of businesses scale and grow their top of funnel function.
Lee Murray
00:02:12
Yeah, yeah, I think about. like I've recently I've been trying to make, French baguettes at home and I'm thinking I got these recipes and I watched the videos and it's super simple. It's four ingredients, and it's the way that you manipulate the dough and proof it, whatever. And it never turns out it's like, I cannot make it work, you know? And I think about that for for what you do is, you know, what you do is pretty straightforward. Like you have people pretty much get on the phone, get on email.
Lee Murray
00:02:39
They're getting in touch with people, but it's just not that simple. There's all this other connective tissue that goes with it that makes you a good baker, for lack of a better word.
Gabe Lullo
00:02:50
Yeah. I mean, it's funny, a lot of people, you know, hear words matter, right? You know, our entire talent is the ability to use words in the right way and the right tone and the right timing. But the reality is, is people mix up simple and easy and you know it's not right. It's you know what we do. You're right. It's very simple. We actually all we do I labeled it as a professional and producers. Right. We get one person introduces someone else and we have them talk. And hopefully business can be done. From that point of view. It's a very simple process, but the complexity and the difficulty of doing it at scale for large business to business companies who are, you know, trying to target the right people at the right time to make maybe, you know, multi-million dollar annual contract deals.
Gabe Lullo
00:03:36
It gets very sophisticated, for sure.
Lee Murray
00:03:39
Sophisticated. And it's really an art. It's an artwork or an art form when it comes down to it. And there's a lot of, like you said, data and, touch points that have to go along the way. You have to have systems, you have to have processes that make it scientific. But I think when it comes down to whether it works or not, is if you have that touch that you put on top of everything else, and then and, you know, and training those people to identify what that touch is and, and, and cultivate it and make it, you know, grow I think is the key. So let's, let's look at this. What what kind of companies do you normally work with. And I'll phrase it a different way. What kind of companies do you see being a good fit for needing to build out a sales team?
Gabe Lullo
00:04:22
It's an interesting question because, you know, we're not like every other company that has a very defined ICP and it's very, very, you know, focused on this and only this.
Gabe Lullo
00:04:31
You know, I always say our sweet spot is we have a no sweet spot. And what I mean by that is, you know, we have companies like peloton, Zoom Info, Adobe that, you know, utilize our SDR campaigns and they're very big companies. And then we have two guys that just got a couple hundred grand from Shark Tank. And they're literally employees of two. Like the whole company is two people. And so they're bringing bringing something brand new to the market and everywhere in between. I would say the one thing we do specifically and what we don't do is we don't work with product led growth companies. We don't really work with companies that have a huge inbound, you know, lead generation, you know, set up we're looking for if you have a discovery call or a demo that is live, in nature, in your sales journey, then we are absolutely a fit, no matter what scope, vertical or size you are.
Lee Murray
00:05:24
Yeah. That's good. Okay, so that's a big range from the two person to zoom info.
Lee Murray
00:05:29
And that's great because I think that will sort of frame out our conversation. as I'd really like to get your insights on the two person company and how they should be thinking about it. And as you scale up, you know, to five, ten, 50, $100 million companies that have different dynamics going on. but before we do that, let's kind of get some fundamentals out of the way, because I think this is very important to, wherever you are in that process of building a sales team. What separates a good SDR from an average one?
Gabe Lullo
00:06:03
Yeah. Well, I break it down into five CS, and this is what we look for when we're looking for SDR. And by the way, we do not hire new stars. We used to a decade ago when it was still a very new role. And there wasn't any stars to to go find and source. But now our I mean, our clients expect immediate results, immediate turnaround. We don't have the ability to have like a one year ramp when you're hiring someone brand new out of college.
Gabe Lullo
00:06:29
Nothing against those people who want to use this as a starting point. But we're looking for people who have the experience. So the big things is curiosity. You got to be curious. You have to be good at asking questions. You have to be good at probing. And that's really where qualifications come into the STR rule. The second is coach ability. You can't have a chip on your shoulder. I want you to experience, but I don't want you arrogant. so you have to be willing to be coached and trained and mentored. And then thirdly, you have to have courage. You have to be willing to call the CEO of a fortune 500 company. And that is it sounds easy like we talked about, but you have to have some balls to do that, and you have to be courageous to do that. confidence is king, right? That's the fourth one you got to come through and your tonality and your your level of of business acumen and your ability to deliver the message has to be very strong, especially with the prospects you're talking to.
Gabe Lullo
00:07:21
But the I think the most secret sauce is the fourth one, which is consistency. You know, you got to be coming to your A game every day. You can't you can't you can't take two days off of of a week and expect to see the same results. Right. This is a performance sport. it's a contact sport that he or she contacts the most. Wins, typically. And so you have to be on your A game every day.
Lee Murray
00:07:45
To that last point, do you find that, people that come in to, to fill this role, they either really love that competitiveness or they just aren't about it. Or is there some middle ground?
Gabe Lullo
00:07:58
Yeah. I mean, you know, we absolutely see it's a kind of a black and white scenario, right? You know, some people are just not wired for this. And, you know, it's okay. Yeah. you know, I have a cousin who's been working at the same accounting firm since he graduated college, and it's been a couple of decades, and he'll probably retire from there.
Gabe Lullo
00:08:16
And it's very, you know, retirement. And it's just not the same environment in here. It's ever changing. And, you know, your performance is very it's very competitive. Not cutthroat but competitive. Sure. So I look at it as like sports, you know, are you a are you going to be on the chess team or are you going to be in the football team? Both are, you know, things to do, but are very strategic, very different type of person. And the the landscape and the culture of a sales floor is extremely different than you would if you're working, let's say, at a consulting firm.
Lee Murray
00:08:51
Yeah, yeah. So knowing yourself is going to be key there. okay. So then that frames out really well a good SDR. Now you put them on a team. What separates a good team from an average one?
Gabe Lullo
00:09:05
Yeah. Collaboration and communication and sharing. You know, things that are going wrong. We always say failing forward right. We're a big believer in in you know everything every every failure and mistake is a learning opportunity.
Gabe Lullo
00:09:18
and again, going back to being cutthroat, you know, we don't want someone coming in and just being cancerous. And culture when it comes to just being, you know, taking things from people. Right? We want to just continually level people up. We deal with a lot of negativity. You hear the word no more than you hear the word yes. It's like baseball. You're going to strike out no matter how good you are. more than you are going to hit the home run. So you have to come to the plate every day, with this level of optimism and and positivity. and so that is something that we, we foster and we look for in a team environment.
Lee Murray
00:09:52
Yeah. Okay. And then one last question here for the fundamentals. What about where do you go to find this kind of a player, you know, unique personality type of person.
Gabe Lullo
00:10:03
Well I think past performance is a great indicator of future results. And so if you've done this before and you've had success, you've cut your teeth and you don't feel like the phone weighs £1,000, that's like step one, right? Yeah.
Gabe Lullo
00:10:17
And then you'll have you hit your KPIs and metrics. Have you hit goals and quota. That would be step two. And and are you, you know, able to actually have strong communication skills. And are you prepared to answer anything that's thrown your way now we figured it out like so. We figure this out down to like literally a mathematical equation. We know that no matter what is being said, ten things are going to come back to us. So no matter what happens in the in the pitch, we're going to get ten different categories of responses. And so we enable our reps to be ready and prepared to hear that and then respond accordingly. So if they can have some of that built in already, we definitely want to hire a higher out of people who have that experience.
Lee Murray
00:11:04
Okay. Perfect. All right. Let's jump into this, this sort of two man to zoom info, right. We start with the small companies. Yeah. you know, there's there's a lot of trepidation behind spending money on something like this, right? Whether they're trying to do it themselves, DIY, or they're trying to hire an outfit like you guys.
Lee Murray
00:11:25
kind of with that lens, right? Like we're spending the money and we need ROI, right? how would you advise a company that's small to get started with their first rep?
Gabe Lullo
00:11:37
Absolutely. So if you're doing it in-house, I would be very like, again, it's not self-serving, but think about it like this if you're a brand new startup, are you going to have an accounting department in-house? Are you going to have, you know, a marketing department in-house? Day one most likely not. Most likely. You're going to outsource that to agencies. And when you put that hat on, you're like, oh, that makes sense. No different than when you want to outsource it to an agency. Now, the hard part is finding the right partner, because there's a lot of companies in our space that attempt to do what we do, but no differently than a marketing agency or an accounting firm or an HR firm handling those departments for you. Day one. Here's the pitfalls, right? Most companies founder led sales two guys with an idea.
Gabe Lullo
00:12:21
They hire a VP of sales day one, and they think that that's like the best way to go. It's the exact opposite, because that VP of sales first job is to not go out and sell. Typically they want to go build a team. So then now you're paying a very high priced VP of sales who then wants to take more money of yours to go hire a team that reports to them. So that's the wrong way of doing it. The best way to do it, in my opinion, is to outsource it because the just the cost structure alone. Because keep in mind, it's not just the rep. You got to have data. So now you got to go buy data from these data vendors. Now you have to have a dialer. Now you got to go buy a dialer. It's a one year contract. They're not going to give you a deal, you know. Then you have to buy an email tool. And then you have to have someone integrate and manage that. And then you have to have a reporting functionality.
Gabe Lullo
00:13:07
So just that piece alone is starting to get extremely expensive. Then you have to do payroll and commission and then hopefully educate and train. So when you start looking at all of those costs, it gets insane. Bridge Group came out last year with $152,000 a year it will cost to support and pay one SDR, and that's with them making 50 to 60 K. so the other half is just the support and the data and the tech. Long story short, my version is outsource. But I also recommend being a founder led sales organization. If you're the founder, if you're the two guys running the company, you're also the salespeople. You don't have time to go prospect, have someone else prospect for you. Let them fill your calendar and you be the seller. And you're also going to learn so much about what you need to be doing differently, or adding to or product market fit or features and functionalities like you're going to learn so much by being on those sales calls as the founder, and then you'll figure out some secret sources and some product, you know, market fit information, and then you can scale from there.
Gabe Lullo
00:14:15
That would be my recommendation.
Lee Murray
00:14:17
I like that. And, you know, I like it because as a young company's founders, they wear a lot of hats. So taking that hat off and investing in an infrastructure that can support them, and then they can sit in that sales seat, to actually, you know, meet the client and the clients, you know, they're going to have a higher rate of sale. you know, conversion there because they are the founder people looking. Okay, well, I can trust you to do this thing. So, you know, versus the them being on the phone as the first touchpoint. you know, I think that that that makes so much more sense. Yeah. any other advice you would give to that small company in terms of, you know, tools, you know, how to think about data like anything?
Gabe Lullo
00:15:05
Yeah. I mean, I think if you did decide to, you know, spend money on anything, that would be a supporting mechanism for this function would be good data, because you can do a lot with that.
Gabe Lullo
00:15:16
And it's not just cold calling. You can do email campaigns with that. You can do webinar campaigns with that. You can do, you know, LinkedIn connect connections and content with that. So really determining what your ideal client profile is and finding data that is in your total addressable market is definitely the first thing that we do to determine to build a campaign. So it would be the first thing we would recommend anyone to do, to do all the things we just mentioned, because there are some other ways of outreach versus just email and phone, right? So data will always support all those go to market strategies. And I would say your first thing you would want to invest in is a strong data partner to help you supply that data.
Lee Murray
00:15:57
I like that. And with the data come along with the Outsourcers or is the data separate, some kind of separate tool?
Gabe Lullo
00:16:04
With us, we supply data with all of our clients. Not every agency does that. because it's very expensive, but due to our size and scope, we, you know, data is inclusive, fully inclusive.
Gabe Lullo
00:16:15
Now, companies sometimes come with data already and they go to trade shows. They do this. They have a mailing list, they have some sort of data. We can take it and then enrich it and then use it and use it in ways that is still best in class and updated daily. But we don't require any data at all when a company comes to us.
Lee Murray
00:16:35
Love it. Okay. So going but you know going beyond the two people. Sure. Two man company. Let's say, you know, now we're at the maybe 5 million, $10 million mark, second stage growth. They've got product market fit. you know, maybe they've done a lot of selling themselves up to this point. and followed your advice. but they have been doing a lot of the front end stuff, too, and they're kind of getting worn out. Yeah, yeah. You know, what would you say to that, that that second stage company.
Gabe Lullo
00:17:07
Yeah. For sure. So that point then you want to start owning more of the enablement piece if you're getting to we look at it as a headcount for us.
Gabe Lullo
00:17:14
So if you're at the ten SDR mark, it starts to make sense to start owning a lot of pieces to this department. Okay okay. So ten is essentially our tipping point. And we supply services for the larger companies who are at that 1050, even 100 or more stars. But we don't we don't do the full management piece of it. So they now could afford an SDR manager. They can afford a CRM that is, you know, powering an SDR capacity. They can start affording a dialer that allows them to have everything in their ecosystem. So it works with their systems more effectively. What we would then do then is come in and we're more essentially the the people side of it. And the STR on demand, we call it we call it plug and play essentially as our program where it's you don't have to worry about recruitment and turnover and interviewing and, and backfilling because again, this role, it's not as transient as, as, you know, working in a restaurant industry. But it's pretty close.
Gabe Lullo
00:18:12
You know, the average SVR is yeah.
Lee Murray
00:18:14
Is pretty high.
Gabe Lullo
00:18:15
Yeah. Turnover is pretty high. So our plug and play model is essentially our people. Best in class rep's plugged into our client's ecosystem who are at that 10 million plus mark. And we manage the people side. They manage the actual data day to day operations in the technology side. And then that's a great partnership for as big as you want that to go. And so that's how we that's how we support our enterprise clients.
Lee Murray
00:18:42
Okay. So you've got your, your your recommending that they hire an SDR manager. What what's the title of that role? typically is that a sales, VP or.
Gabriel Lullo
00:18:54
So the.
Gabe Lullo
00:18:55
Way I mean, there's many orgs that just have literally SDR managers as the title itself. And then they, they report to a VP of sales. And so again, a lot of companies are unfortunately, they blend account management and account executive training into the SDR function because they've never done it before. I mean, here's here's a pitfall I see all the time, a, a VP of sales who has new some new stars are training them Bant qualification.
Gabe Lullo
00:19:20
Right. So budget authority need and timing and they're literally telling their stars to ask for budgetary qualification questions. And an initial cold call. That's horrific. Don't ever do that. Right. Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:19:32
That doesn't make any sense.
Gabe Lullo
00:19:33
Doesn't make any sense. But it's being done. And so the reason why is it's no fault because they're, you know, thinking that this is just a junior army. It's not. Yeah. They're appointment setters. They're qualifiers. And their their job is to fill the calendar not close deals. So you have to treat them differently. So that's why an SDR manager is best there for training, management and the right KPIs and metrics and expectations to be had.
Lee Murray
00:20:01
Gotcha. Okay. So as you're working with these companies of of of any size, I have to assume that you have some type of playbooks that translate, you know, you can kind of not not to, to pick, you know, piggyback off the plug and play service that you titled. But but they will plug and play with different, clients.
Lee Murray
00:20:22
Is that true? And if so, how does that work?
Gabriel Lullo
00:20:24
Do you.
Gabe Lullo
00:20:25
Do you mean how the reps plug into the client's ecosystem.
Gabriel Lullo
00:20:27
With the.
Lee Murray
00:20:27
Playbook, with playbooks? I assume you have playbooks, you know, and you were talking about enablement, so I assume you probably have some playbooks.
Gabriel Lullo
00:20:34
Yeah, it's.
Gabe Lullo
00:20:35
Part of every one of our campaigns. So we actually do a three week onboarding. And that entire three weeks is to design the playbook. so we we do a very robust intake form. We're asking it almost every question you could think of. We take and ingest that information, and we turn around a playbook in three weeks and that it goes from down and it's fully on brand and highly customizable to that specific brand and company and offering. And so the playbook itself, yes, is something that we provide. And if it's a client that started with us from its inception and then we grew it and then they took it over, then we would be using that playbook that we designed in in that role.
Gabe Lullo
00:21:12
Or if it's not and they don't have a playbook and they want us to plug in, we require a playbook in order for that to be successful because it won't be. And so that that is that is absolutely the way we do it.
Lee Murray
00:21:24
Yeah. And and so maybe this is what you're saying, but to me. Not necessarily an SOP, but like if you're plugging in to an organization and they're managing the people that you're recruiting, I would think that there's some gray area there. There was hard to have that overlap go swimmingly every single time. how does that relationship work where you have the internal people managing kind of an external workforce?
Gabriel Lullo
00:21:53
Yeah. So we treat.
Gabe Lullo
00:21:54
It like, you know, a software developer contract or any type of contract or such as like an STR contractor plugging in. But we still are very co-management world. So we do a weekly sync with their SDR manager, to review their KPIs, metrics, pitfalls, things that are working. We check in to see if they're if the stars are, you know, adapting to the coaching and performing on expectations.
Gabe Lullo
00:22:18
And then we make decisions from there. So we're we're meeting with them weekly as opposed to almost daily in our other campaigns. And, and it is co-managed and it's as clear as it can be, because you're right, it is a little bit of a two Chiefs in the kitchen, if you will. Or two cooks in the kitchen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's not as, it's not as of of a free for all with the, with with regards to the playbook to your point.
Gabriel Lullo
00:22:42
Yeah.
Lee Murray
00:22:42
Okay. yeah. It's, it's, it's that that's the part that I was kind of worried or not worried about, but wondering about. because like you said, two chiefs in the kitchen is not, not going to go well at some point. So is the playbook kind of that middle ground where everybody looks at the playbook and that's where your agreement happens.
Gabriel Lullo
00:23:02
Exactly.
Gabe Lullo
00:23:02
You own these things. We own these things. It's agreed upon in advance. we do qualify and then figure out what they're missing.
Gabe Lullo
00:23:10
And we have to tell them, hey, this is not something we're going to do, because, you know, you need this, this and this, from your side. And we get to a point where we both agree, and then we go into it. I'll give you an example. We're fine with the sharing clients. You know, peloton is a great example. Like our reps sit in Peloton's entire ecosystem. It's been a phenomenal relationship. Another one is strict sign in Cleveland golf. If you're a golf fan out there, you know, we were there inside sales team, for eight years. And just recently they brought it all in-house and hired our entire team. so yeah, so it is definitely been something we've done for many, many, many years with many clients. And it's always been a successful one. Once those, you know, playbooks are fully, built out. And we all know what we're our job is and what their job is just like any other.
Gabriel Lullo
00:23:57
Right.
Lee Murray
00:23:58
Well, so I'm curious about the sharks on account.
Lee Murray
00:24:00
And feel free to, you know, not say what you can't say. But, to me, that that seems like it's a consumer brand. you know, and so they want to sell to the public. How would an SDR team be deployed there? You know, strategically, like, who are they calling and emailing to get in front of?
Gabriel Lullo
00:24:19
Yeah.
Gabe Lullo
00:24:19
So great point. And I have no problem sharing. case studies are on a website. It's not what you would think. It was like you mentioned. So they have something called a Greengrass program, which essentially is they're selling their products and services to golf courses across the country. So we're not we're not calling DeCSS. We're not calling consumers. Right. We're not calling, you know, you know, play it against sports or whatever. That's still in business. Right? What we're calling is we're calling all of the all of the golf courses and the pro shops in the country, and we are executing those campaigns on on that company's behalf.
Gabe Lullo
00:24:53
And so our reps are reaching out and say, hey, this is Gabe Erickson. We see that, you know, we're in your pro shop. And then they also have an outside sales team. So we're essentially supporting their outside sales team. And we're running the inside piece. And that's what we did for for eight years with that company until they, until they took it over.
Lee Murray
00:25:09
So if you take a company like that in a, in an application like that, more so. Yeah. I would my guess is that those calls would go pretty smooth because those pro shop? you know, the golf pros are probably not getting a ton of sales calls. This is my guess, right? Maybe they are, but, they're probably going to pick the phone up and listen to a pitch, probably, you know, 80% of the time, 70, 70%. So I would think those calls would go well. Right. Like getting to the pitch. curious how that went. But also, you know, how does that compare to other industries that are, not so easy? assuming that one is.
Gabriel Lullo
00:25:56
I don't know.
Gabe Lullo
00:25:57
I mean, your definition of easy may be different than others. Yeah.
Gabriel Lullo
00:25:59
That's true.
Gabe Lullo
00:26:01
was it successful? Yeah. What were we, the first golf company to on their behalf to do it eight years ago also? Yeah, right. It was very, very old school people face to face coming in doing so. Our build of doing it from an inside sales piece, we're essentially pioneered it. and, you know, we were responsible for selling approximately $10 million worth of golf products a year just on our, you know, sales in regards to the initial conversation. So, yeah, it yeah. And but there are some scenarios in that space specifically like Titleist has like a lot of exclusivity with a lot of these pro shops. So when you're going in, you're going against companies that have exclusive situations. It's a timing scenario and there's constant follow up. And you have to yeah. And you have to get them at right times and then ask them not to do that. So there's a lot of nuance there and it's a lot more about timing.
Gabe Lullo
00:26:52
But you know guys are going pro shops. You know they love to talk. So and when they and they pick up the phone. So it was a definitely a fun one for sure. And it's a lot different than call cold calling cybersecurity people. You know. So it's very it's every every campaign is a totally different beast. And and they all have positives and they all have negatives. But yeah that one was a good one for sure.
Lee Murray
00:27:16
So then how do certain stars or teams that you build a map from one client to the next, right. Like if you're you know about golf, you may be a golfer and you happen to be on the SDR team calling. Well, that's probably going to go a little better because you can talk, you know, the talk. But if you get on the cybersecurity team now, it's like, well, I don't care about this. Like, you know, how does that work?
Gabriel Lullo
00:27:39
Yeah, we.
Gabe Lullo
00:27:40
Source candidates in new hires. Says a lot to do with their background and experience based on what the client is doing.
Gabe Lullo
00:27:47
We are not a fractional SDR space where we are, you know, our reps are calling on 5 or 6 different campaigns a year, okay, our reps are dedicated to that platform or that product or offering for a period of time that is at least six months, minimally. And so when we're hiring, we're looking for people who can speak or have experience in talking to that persona. Now, case in point. You know, the Steelers job is to not have 30 minute conversations on the phone. Their job is to have 3 to 5 minute conversations to get them excited enough to talk to somebody, to have a 30 minute conversation. So you don't want to be that knowledgeable whether you are or not on the phone about the product, because now decisions are being made on that call when they should be actually made on the demo. Right. And so we we still want to be hesitant about how much information we're supposed to be, you know, sharing on those calls. I the my analogy is really simple.
Gabe Lullo
00:28:46
Were the trailer to the movie, you know, you don't talk about the middle and the end of the movie and the trailer that is, you know, ruining the movie. So we're the trailer to the movie. Yeah, we're the teaser. The preview. Exactly. And that that's what we want to be. And so we have to we know our role, we know our space. We know what we're not. And we're not trying to pretend to be experts, even though, you know, we do want to know a lot about the product.
Lee Murray
00:29:09
Yeah. this has been a great conversation. Thanks, man. as we wrap up here, what kind of, first steps or, you know, kind of like takeaways, or pieces of advice you would give to both, both of these different, first stage and second stage, like looking at the first stage. You know, what would you tell someone who's going to basically hire their first SDR and they're kind of ready to do that? They know it's time.
Lee Murray
00:29:37
what would you tell them?
Gabriel Lullo
00:29:39
Well, if you're if you're going to.
Gabe Lullo
00:29:40
Be hiring your first star, my recommendation is take a pause. And in that out some agencies like ours and see what they could provide you. there are opportunities where you can do this at even smaller price points than what you would pay. you know, an SDR yourself. Yeah, exactly. And, and also have all that support. So that would be my, my immediate thing. But if you're going to do it any way, make sure that you are trying your best to get as much tech or data and enablement in place for those reps to become successful, or you're just going to be burning and churning through reps, and it's going to be a a recruitment nightmare. And so that that is my first, I guess, advice for someone who is starting off in this space for the big companies out there, you know, another thing to think about is a B testing, right? And launching new territories and launching new markets and launching new regions.
Gabe Lullo
00:30:33
you know, you don't want to distract if you have an SR team already with what they're currently doing when you're trying something new. And so to outsource that piece to it alone is a great idea. And then you could provide, you know, a B testing, you could have friendly, healthy competition with your internal team. And you can launch new markets. So it allows you to do things on a flexible level. And so you're not like, again, you know, distracting your current team and pivoting them all the time because then you're never having anything successful. There's no consistency there.
Lee Murray
00:31:06
Yeah, right. Awesome. Hey, thanks for being on the show.
Gabriel Lullo
00:31:09
This is basically.
Lee Murray
00:31:11
Yeah, man, I feel like there's an opportunity here to get some, some a lot of the sales experts I've had on the podcast together and maybe do a panel. I think that would be kind of interesting talking about enablement and, buyer's journey and those kind of things. So we'll have to have we'll have.
Gabriel Lullo
00:31:27
To put us.
Gabe Lullo
00:31:28
All in a room. We'll have some fun.
Lee Murray
00:31:29
I know, I know, it would be. It'd be interesting for sure.
Gabe Lullo
00:31:33
Sounds good.
Lee Murray
00:31:34
I'm down. if you want to send people your way, where do we send them?
Gabe Lullo
00:31:37
LinkedIn. you know, our my LinkedIn. I post every day. We give a lot of free content. Again, if you're doing this yourself, you can you can go there and get a lot of resources and figure out how to do it yourself, I'm sure. so we we will definitely connect, and respond and communicate if you have any questions, we're there.
Lee Murray
00:31:54
Okay. Yeah. We'll put that link in the description. And I can also underscore that too, because I've seen after we met, following you guys on LinkedIn, your whole company is on there creating content, sharing valuable information, all really good stuff for whatever stage you're at. So definitely check them out there.
Gabriel Lullo
00:32:10
Thanks, Lee.
Lee Murray
00:32:11
Okay. Thanks a lot.