Demand Gen Roundtable: The Future GTM Structure
Should BDRs live in the marketing or sales org? Learn how two teams structure their BDR relationships and why it works for them.
All right, welcome to our demand gen round table.
Very excited you're all here.
We only got 20 minutes.
We're getting right into it.
Excited to have our two panelists here today.
Sarah McConnell, she's the vice president of demand gen
for qualified and Trinity win.
She's vice president of marketing for user jobs.
Thank you both for joining us.
- Yeah, thank you Matt.
Thank you.
- Awesome.
So I have a series of questions.
I'm gonna ask you guys, feel free to answer honestly.
Maybe start just by introducing yourselves.
And I know each of you have a different structure
for your team and how you think about demand gen.
So maybe like walk through a little bit
how demand gen is structured into your companies.
Sarah will start with you.
- Yep.
So again, my name is Sarah McConnell.
I'm the VP of demand gen at qualified.
I've been there for about four years now.
Our demand gen team is set up.
It's myself.
We have events.
We have content.
But then also our SDRs actually roll up under sales.
And I know that's what we really wanna dig into
during this conversation today.
Is that age old question of like,
where do SDRs lift in your organization?
So I'll preface this conversation
by saying our SDRs roll up under sales.
And I work very cross-functionally
with then and their leader.
- All right. Awesome.
Trady.
- My name is Trady Nguyen.
I'm VP of marketing at User Gems.
And to build on what Sarah just mentioned.
So for us from day one,
we've had ADRs, we call a account development rep
rolled up within marketing.
So it's a little bit unique,
but we start seeing the more and more companies
moving this direction.
And that's what we're gonna discuss here today,
the pros and cons.
- All right.
So qualified the BDRs report to sales
at User Gems, they report into marketing.
Trady, what have been some of the biggest benefits to you
and User Gems of having BDRs in the marketing function?
And what are some indicators of success
that you've seen so far in it?
- I think like the for us,
it just helps a lot with alignment.
I mean, I love working cross-functionally
but running from a program standpoint.
And for us, we've been running account based marketing
for ABX for one and a half years,
been with User Gems for almost five years now.
So from day one, so it helps a lot with alignment,
the type of accounts we're gonna go after.
And then it also helps with the orchestration.
So we can move in tightly lockstep.
So when the ad runs, the prospecting starts,
it helps a lot in that piece.
It's also helped like one step closer to the pipeline,
which is stage two for us.
So we can adjust alignment, everything.
This doesn't matter where it came from
as long as it becomes a qualified pipeline
and then revenue later on.
So that helps a lot in that piece.
- So Sarah, I'd love to have you talk about
that concept of alignment and the jobs to be done
versus where in the org they sit.
It seems like the playbook,
whether they sit in sales or marketing
can largely be the same.
What have you seen at qualified having the team
sit under sales, any particular challenges
or robots you've seen in terms of that alignment
and the seamless jobs to be done along the way?
- Yeah, absolutely.
I'll agree with Trinity that I feel like
the con that we see with having our SDRs
or BDRs roll up under sales is it is harder for them.
I feel like to be in the know of what marketing is doing
because we move so quickly.
We're always launching campaigns.
We have new things going.
We try to do a weekly call that's like a demand gen SDR call
where they all join.
We try to give an update on like,
here's the events that we're doing,
the ads that we're running to keep them aligned with us.
But on the flip side where I see really good alignment
for our BDRs is with their AEs.
So we have our BDRs aligned to reps
and they'll support a handful of reps
within our sales organization.
And since they're doing,
they're driving the pipeline for those reps,
they have a really good alignment with the sales reps
when they're rolling up under sales.
It's just harder I think to get them
to understand what marketing is doing when we move so fast.
And we try to work around that,
but it's one of those pros and cons.
Like the pro is they've got great alignment
with their sales organization,
with their sales team,
with their driving that pipeline form.
We wanna make sure that they feel
that they got that relationship with the AEs.
So they feel this sense of urgency to drive,
not only pipeline for them,
but like good quality pipeline
because there's a relationship there.
But on the flip side that con is like marketing
is trying to constantly like throw new stuff at them
and you can tell it sometimes hard for them
to keep up with all the stuff that we're doing.
Yeah.
- I know you both well enough to know
you're both revenue responsible marketers.
You're thinking in terms of pipeline contribution and outcomes.
But I would love to hear about the KPIs you each use.
Like are the KPIs different if BDRs or in sales
versus marketing and Trinity maybe start with you.
What are the KPIs you look at
beyond just lead gen and lead capture
that are reflect that collaborative app?
- Yeah, the number one for me in South Soclichae
is actually revenue.
So we just monitoring the revenue.
'Cause we're fortunate that we still small
where it's really like one team, one dream.
If the sales team doesn't hit it,
we can't celebrate over here.
So revenue is number one.
The one that we track on weekly basis
is the sales accepted pipeline.
So stage two, even though the handoff for us is at stage one
when this go completed.
So it's a little bit deep.
- Okay, sir, how about for you?
- Yeah, so we marketing particular looks
at a few different metrics every single week.
So one of them is all just stage one pipeline.
So stage one pipeline for us means
a meeting is on the books.
They showed some sort of interest.
There is going to be a discovery call
that is happening to us at stage one.
So marketing tracks that just generally
is one large number.
Does it matter where it came from?
It doesn't matter who sourced it, whatever.
We just look at that number.
Then we also look at stage two, which means,
I think Trinity, like you said, a sales accepted.
So the discovery happened, there is a need,
there is a real project it feels like.
Then it moves on to a stage two, a custom demo,
an hour long.
We look at that broken out then by stage two pipeline
from a general number and then also marketing source.
So is marketing driving pipeline
that's actually moving on into quality S2 pipeline?
And then we also look at revenue.
So we're looking at how much revenue we actually closing.
So those are like the four key metrics marketing
and a marketing call every single week looks at.
So one thing with having the BDRs
outside of the marketing organization
is they have a totally separate number.
Now we work really collaboratively with them
on that number and forecasting that number,
but the BDRs are held to a sales outbound number.
And then marketing has their own stage two number
that we also track independently.
- So our topic for this session
is sort of the integrated playbooks, right?
And I think it's important to sort of talk through that
because in a lot of companies,
what we're discussing today is what they think of
as the messy middle.
You have demand gen coming from marketing.
You've got sales that manages the opportunities,
but lead handoff, lead engagement can be kind of a mess, right?
It could be this like, thanks for doubling the white paper.
Would you like to see a demo?
Like Trinity, how do you manage?
I mean, you own the team.
And so maybe it's a little easier to sort of
to create that through line and that common narrative,
but how do you manage that messy middle
to ensure that the reps are successful and efficient,
but that the buyers feel engaged as well?
- So for us, so we don't have any type of lead,
so we don't really have like MQL, anything like that.
It's just a demo request.
So the messy middle for us,
it's actually between stage one and stage two.
So we have a lot of control and programs
to make sure people show up the right ICP accounts,
right persona, so the AEW will flip it over to stage one.
But then how to, what can we do to nurture from one to two
when it's now AEW territory?
So the mess in middle for us is right there.
Yeah, so that is different.
- Yeah, yeah, for sure, Sarah, how does that look for you?
I mean, I know it's something you're actively managing,
but talk about the keys to managing that well.
- Yeah, so I think there's a few different things
that stand out to me.
One, I would say messy middle or for us
where it really overlaps this like marketing
and sales team with our BDRs rolling up under sales
is our ABM motion,
which I think we found a really good cadence for
in Trinity, you kind of mentioned that earlier.
But when we are going after specific sets of accounts,
we've run very integrated plays on like
from all the way from advertising to direct mail pieces
to what the outbound messaging is going to be.
So we work really closely with the team on that
and we'll schedule a lot of syncs to give them data
and like here's the messaging,
here's why we're doing it.
So those take a lot more time.
And I think integration with the team
because it does span from ads all the way through
to that outbounding stage and booking those meetings.
And also after events, we get leads for events.
We do a lot of events.
So we work really closely with our BDR team
on what's the messaging, what did we talk about there?
Like we have to pass along the information of,
you know, what was said at the event?
What was the persona that was there?
So that's kind of what I would call like our messy middle
where we have to overlap a lot.
And then on the outskirts of those, under marketing,
we've got all of our inbound requests.
So like what is marketing doing to drive people
to our website and get demo requests,
whether it's through, you know, our meeting schedulers
or chatbots or whatever it might be.
And then on the other end of that is our outbounding.
So like the BDRs are going out and going after accounts,
we do have like MQAs, we don't do MQAs,
we do like at an account level
when they've hit a certain threshold of intent.
And that feels very separate from marketing.
Obviously we are doing everything we can to drive up
their engagement score for them to MQA,
but that sort of lives in that like outbounding world.
And then marketing still lives very much
in that like drive website traffic and demo requests.
And in that middle is like our ABM, our events
and anything where there's that overlap
between marketing and sales.
- So Trinity, having the BDR team report to marketing
has a lot of benefits.
But sometimes the sales, the BDRs don't feel like
they're part of the sales team and sales culture.
It can hard for them to see sort of a career pathing
sort of within marketing in that kind of a role.
How do you balance that with sort of having
that integrated approach as part of the marketing team
while still sort of supporting those reps
to feel like they're part of the selling culture
of the organization as well?
- Yeah, absolutely.
Like that's definitely, I would say that on the con side
and like Sarah mentioned earlier,
like the tight relationship between SDR and AE,
something that we see when they work well together,
the deal is accelerate a lot faster.
So that's a piece that as we kind of shifting that burden
to the SDR leader and the sales leader to consistently
like talking to each other, building programs,
putting them into pods in terms of career development.
I guess that's a good thing in bad things.
So for sales, part of the sales culture,
I think that's something that we need to build more
like the sales academy to make sure that the graduating ADRs
have all the skills and experience to become like an AE.
But the good thing is when they in marketing,
right now we have sales academy, CSM academy,
and like the other like marketing or like ops academy
where the career pathing becomes a lot more diverse
so they don't just have to go into one path.
So I think that's a good thing for those
who don't want to be closer.
But it's still a lot more work on the SDR leader
to make sure that we build out that bridge.
- It's more work, but it works, right?
I think that one thing we've learned,
sort of what you guys have learned,
what we've learned in the industry is that like,
there's no perfect path that whether they report
to sales or marketing, there are pros in there cons
and it's important to know what some of those,
not deficiencies, but know what some of those challenges are.
So you can proactively address them, the fact Trinity,
that you and user gems are working harder
in being proactive at building that relationship
between the AEs and your marketing driven BRs,
BDRs is important.
Sarah, one of your challenges is that you're giving
you have PDRs that you're not hiring, right?
The sales team is hiring these BDRs.
So what kind of guidance are you giving the sales team
in terms of the attributes and the nature of the people?
What are some things you're looking for
in a good BDR can't?
- Yeah, I think for us writing skills,
that's a really big one, like so much success
in our outbounding comes from the ability
to write really personalized emails.
We don't do a ton of like sequenced pre-written.
Sometimes we do for like, I mentioned ABM campaigns
or like event follow up, we'll give them sort of like templates
to use, but when our BDRs are doing like true outbounding
to like M2A accounts, they do a lot of really good
personalized writing.
And so for me, the main attribute is like,
can you write well because we're selling to marketers?
So as a marketer, I am always hyper vigilant
of like really well done content
because that is what I spend my day in.
So if our BDRs can't write well written content
out to our persona, who's gonna buy,
which is me or a CMO at another account,
that's a big problem.
So beyond that, obviously like the drive
and where they wanna go from a career path,
that is something that selfishly like
that falls on our sales team.
Trini, you kind of talked about like,
what's their career path?
Are they going to, do they wanna move
into a closing world?
Do they wanna move into an obstacle
because they're important to sales?
I think that is a conversation that gets had more with them.
So for me, I'm like, if you can hire them,
just make sure like we run projects before we hire them.
We're like, can you write a good, thoughtful email
that actually speaks to like a pain point
and gets me to open it and pay attention to it?
'Cause that is our main medium
to get people into our sales cycle
from an outbound perspective.
- I totally hear you on the writing.
It's really hard.
Not from work, too.
- It's really hard.
And to like cut through the noise,
the inbox noise with good emails,
it's a skill.
- You're so...
- Can we address, I think, what is sort of a common
misters perception about BDR management?
You'd be like, you know what,
I'm just gonna write their sequences.
I'm gonna write all their emails.
I'm gonna create everything in advance
so they can use that.
Like there's one, it's one thing to say, okay,
here's a guide book in terms of like,
what to say and if someone's at this stage
or this type of company, here's something to say.
But at once, I said, it's all isn't gonna work.
Talk a little bit about that, Trinity.
Like, break that foul.
- Oh my God.
It's actually the other way around now.
So now my marketing team's learning from the ADRs,
how to write emails that convert.
- Nice.
- So as a marketer, I used to like give them templates
and here's a messaging you put into your sequences.
And it's like a book.
Now I know better, been around the blog,
because I'm here and you're like, yeah, it doesn't work.
- That is so...
- That seems to evolve, right?
Instead of marketing saying, here's the better writing
for you that BDRs are like,
now here's what actually works in the field,
thank you very much.
- Exactly.
And we do have like a tool where we use Lavender,
I'm sure there are the tools out there too,
to kind of like, great,
to make sure that the email converts.
And now the marketing teams actually install the same tool
before we hit HubSpot, like blasting out,
like, do people want to read this?
So it's actually the other way around.
So we try to learn from sales team and what works
on their hands,
because they send out thousands of emails.
They know what works,
because let's pick up a few hints here and then
and bring into the marketing side, it would be better.
- So we got about four minutes,
I got a couple, I got a last question for you, Gee,
but I wanted you to be able to address
sort of BDR enablement here as well, right?
So our goal, we want BDRs to maximize active selling time,
like the most time possible in front of prospects.
And when they're in front of prospects,
improve the effectiveness of what they're saying.
So what are some of your best practices
for efficiency and effectiveness with BDR team?
- Yep, the best thing I think I can do for our BDR
is to make them more effective is good dashboards
and sales force.
Can they go figure out what accounts they should be
outbiting to in a really easy way?
And then can I surface any data for them that's relevant?
Do they need to know what they've been searching?
What have they been doing on our website?
So getting them intent data and that all comes back to ops
is a good dash forward.
So we have our account records set up well in sales force
so that they can see that data.
And then we've done like persona based training with them
of like, hey, based on personas,
here's their pain points, here's what they care about.
And we've just given them kind of like a card.
But to train you this point, we tested it enough to know,
like I'm not gonna write them sequences
or even sometimes template it sequences
because they don't get, I've seen the data,
like they just don't get the engagement we do
if they just write individualized personalized emails.
- Thank you.
All right, just a couple of minutes left,
I'm gonna ask each of you a final question.
Sarah, you, your BDRs report to sales,
turn into your BDRs report to you in marketing.
Once you be for people that are listening,
this is a I don't know which way to go.
Trinity, can you give one key benefit
and one key cautionary tale
for having BDRs report into marketing?
- The benefit is alignment.
So it sounds cliche,
but it makes a lot of things work really, really well.
All the programs will be run a little bit more, like easier.
The cautionary tale is you need to be more driven
and take ownership of your career development,
reach out to the teams that you want to move into
if you want to move into.
And that's all a little bit more on you, right?
And like, you know, someone else kind of gave you the three.
- Got it.
Sarah, BDRs reporting to sales,
one key benefit, one cautionary tale.
- Yep, one key benefit to me is
I don't have to learn sales tech and commission structure.
So that is something our sales team handles
is these BDRs are going to use a ton of sales tech tools.
I know I'd use some of them, but not a ton.
So that's something I never had to like add to my repertoire
and bonus and commissions.
That's something that our sales leaders set up for them.
It's not something that marketing has to own.
So I've found that to be a benefit for me in my time.
A con, I think to Trinity's point
is they aren't as aligned with marketing.
And that's just something we know
and we can set up workarounds like weekly meetings
and enablement, but they are going to be more closely aligned
with their AEs and they are going to be with marketing.
And sometimes that's just what you have to do
and that's okay.
So it just, I think it comes down to like,
what's the benefit for your business
and what do you need the most
when you decide where to put them?
- And cool.
So you guys answer those questions quickly.
We've got a minute left.
We've gone 19 minutes and we haven't talked about AI at all.
What, how is AI starting to help you think about process,
think about workflow?
I mean, I was told a year ago that BDRs would be extinct by now.
That clearly hasn't happened.
So what kind of guidance do you have for marketers
based on your experience, what you're seeing,
Trinity start with you just around the AI's impact
on BDR effects?
- I think it gets our BDR to be a lot faster
in coming up with personal lights,
funny, witty, heavy prongs.
I think we use a lot of the open AI on the marketing
and BDR just to kind of as like a sounding board
coming up with ideas.
So I think that's been really helpful.
I don't believe the AI will replace,
yeah, I feel like on LinkedIn everyone,
every month something is dead.
But it will evolve the role to be like less data entry,
manual, but more like elevating the role
to be a little bit more sophisticated
so that they partner to sales and not like, you know,
supporting them. - Yeah.
Yeah, I agree with you.
I think until robots sell the robots, which knows,
that might be coming.
Sarah, I think is, you know, AI is a tool
to make us more effective.
Anything you're seeing in terms of AI,
improving the process,
making us more effective,
we're better communicated.
- Yeah, I'll give a quick plug for our own product,
which I have to do only because AI
and how it helps SDRs is such a like key component
of qualified is we found where we have the best benefit
with AI in SDR their world.
It's just making them more efficient.
How can I keep them more focused
and make them more efficient?
Whether that's quicker responses, better responses,
being able to focus their time on other activities
like outbounding or for me,
it's driving more website traffic,
like if I can have AI,
help you do some of the other quicker responses,
and I can then have you going to outbound
to drive people to our website
to drive more conversions,
that's what I want.
And we actually have an event coming up on April 16th,
but we're gonna talk just about AI and SDRs.
So it's big for us.
That's like the only thing we're talking about.
- No, we'll put a pin in that for then.
I saw a stat about a year ago
that said that the typical AE spends about 25%
of their time actively selling.
I haven't seen that data for the BDRs,
but like 25%, that's terrifying.
Like so three quarters of their time is spent preparing to sell.
And so I look at that and they go,
okay, like AI fixed that.
AI go do that work
so that I can have my salespeople doing what I actually hired them
to do more effectively,
and they'll be happier as well.
So Sarah and Trinity, thank you so much
for joining us on this panel,
talking about integrated playbooks and BDRs management.