Thinking back on my time playing professional football in the NFL, my family was always top of mind. Even when my teammates and I were pushed to our absolute physical and mental limits, our experiences and family environment, as well as solid coaching, united us into an unbreakable unit. Little did I know, but those experiences were teaching me critical skills to effectively run sales enablement in the future.
When I retired from pro football and launched a career in the tech industry, I wanted to find that sense of energy – that family – in my next role. Fortunately, I have exactly that with my team of BDRs at 6sense, who are my family. While we might not be running around the office trying to tackle each other, we still have to operate as a close-knit team thriving on supporting and learning from one another ?
Setting the T.O.N.E
Since family is so important to me and the team at 6sense (it’s the basis of our core values), we start each week reminding ourselves about it. Thanks to an amazing mentor of mine, Chris Castaldini, I learned how to kick off Monday with a special meeting that gets the energy flowing and reinforces our team culture before we get down to business.
The T.O.N.E. forecasting meeting is how our BDRs check where they are, determine where they expect to be, and outline how our team will reach their goals. We host an open dialogue to talk through struggles or new ideas or ask others for advice. We also recognize those who totally crushed it and lived their values the week before.
Here’s what goes into our weekly T.O.N.E. meeting:
Targets
The first step is to determine where our BDRs stand at the start of each week. What did your multi-channel prospecting strategy comprise of last week? How many meetings have been generated this month? How many of your target accounts are in-market for 6sense? Without a clear understanding of these data points, it’s difficult to create weekly goals that will enable each BDR to march closer towards their goals.
In particular, analyzing in-market accounts has been a game-changer for our team. When the team was not dialed into working these accounts, our BDRs were significantly missing their average quota per month. Once we doubled down and prioritized these accounts, they increased their quota by more than 50%. It’s why 78% of our bookings now come from in-market accounts.
Pro Tip: BDRs should track weekly data like how many meetings they’ve booked and their outcomes. For each prospect, they should know where they stand in the buying journey and what keywords and topics have generated the most interest from their buying group. When they gather for the T.O.N.E. meeting, each BDR should share their data and report on the keywords that resonated with prospects.
Objectives
This is where BDRs outline what kind of production they’re committing to each week. Whether it’s committing a certain amount of meetings or opportunities, each BDR’s commits are taken very seriously. With our focus on family, each BDR’s commits are his/her way of outlining how their efforts that week will contribute to the entire team’s goal.
While BDR teams often struggle with the commits portion of their forecasting meetings, we’ve enabled our team to accurately assess the strength of their commits by using the insights within our platform.
Pro Tip: During the T.O.N.E. meeting, each BDR should vocally commit to the next week’s objectives. They can use their collected data to predict which accounts are more ready to buy than others. This insight into intent will help your BDRs determine who they should target next and what those prospects respond to. Record these commits and revisit during the next meeting to track progress.
New
One of the most often overlooked characteristics of quota-crushing BDRs is curiosity. Enabling your team to constantly pursue this quality promotes the creativity required to always improve the outreach tactics and messaging necessary to succeed week in and week out.
During this portion of our meeting, each BDR comes prepared to talk through different outreach tactics they tested the previous week. We use both qualitative and quantitative data to assess new tactics’ effectiveness. If the results of a test are positive, others on the team then incorporate these winning tactics into their outreach strategy. Before you know it, the entire team is doing something completely new, creative, and effective ?
Pro Tip: As your BDRs run their cadences, encourage them to test one new iteration: fresh email subject lines, rewritten phone scripts, or trying LinkedIn double-touches. You can determine which tests each BDR should run, but leaving it up to them helps them explore their natural curiosity. They should track if new cadence steps increase their reply rate or otherwise affect their prospects’ intent or progress on the buying journey. Then they can report back on their tests during the next T.O.N.E. meeting.
Execution
This step is where we build our execution strategy to hit our commitments. BDRs share not only their individual plans to succeed that week, but also vocalize how they’re going to enable the entire family to achieve our goals.
To better understand BDR sales enablement, spending a day in your BDR’s shoes will go a long way. Plug into their research and calls so you can see the work they invest in it. You might not like what you find at first, but you’ll learn what tools they need to execute their roles effectively.
Pro Tip: To end your T.O.N.E. meeting, ask each BDR to answer this question: “What is my role to help our team execute this week’s plan?” They should include specifics like what cadence steps they want to champion or what tools they’ll rely upon to gather useful intent data. Record their answers and revisit them next week to hold them accountable.
Conducting a weekly T.O.N.E. meeting with your BDRs fosters a family environment that enables the team to come together to air concerns, establish accountability, promote creativity, and provide vivid clarity so the entire unit can succeed. This process has continuously proven that there’s no substitute for creating an environment in which the entire team is truly motivated and connected to win every single week ?
As the Sr. Director of Sales Development at 6sense, Ernest Owusu leverages his passion for helping others succeed as well as his insights from the field to foster a winning team. With previous experience as an NFL athlete, Ernest thrives in team environments full of high collaboration and healthy competition. Outside of the office, you’ll find him tackling the industry’s diversity problem by mentoring and empowering under-represented people so they can confidently grow their careers.
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