Accelerate 2021 is a 2-day virtual summit that features 15 speakers including some of the most respected leaders from the sales tech industry and the most loved sales coaches we have all admired and learned from. Accelerate is on Dec 14th and 15th. Click here to register.

This is a blog series where we interview speakers from Accelerate. Today’s featured speaker is David Dulany, the CEO, and Founder of Tenbound.

David Dulany started Tenbound with an aim to solely focus on sales development - an area that still lacks expertise. With Tenbound, he pushes to provide sales consultation, training, and development - everything that’ll help the sales rep hit their pipeline on time. He’s also the host of the #1 sales development podcast on iTunes, which is filled with insights from the top sales leaders.

Here’s a short interview with David, to understand his views on the future of sales, his greatest win, and the topic he’ll be covering during Accelerate 2021.

 

Q. How do you think sales has changed over the past 5 years? What do you predict will happen in the next 5 years?

Over the last 5 years, technology has enabled sales professionals to automate many of the time-consuming and frustrating tasks of the past and has allowed people to free up their time to focus on higher-value activities. At Tenbound, we see this trend continuing, to the point where the drudgery of activities such as sorting, researching, and prospecting is taken on more and more by software and outsourced systems, letting salespeople focus even more on the human elements and soft skills that help them truly accelerate their personal growth and sales numbers. Ironically, technology will help people become more human.

 

Q. What is the one piece of advice you'd like to give to people who are just starting out in sales?

Set out to become an expert - know everything around your customers. Make it your mission to learn everything - their industry, about their company, and the main pain points they deal with on a daily basis. Understand their critical "jobs to be done" and unpack all the pain points they deal with in order to get those done. Deeply understand the vocabulary they use to describe those pain points. From that understanding, you’ll develop empathy for what they are going through, and be able to help them in the best way possible - the value you can provide after they purchase your product/service!

 

Q. Can you tell us a bit about your greatest win in sales, something that still motivates you to date?

I used to work at a sales training company. Yes, I was selling sales training. So, of course, we had to take all the courses, and there were a lot of them. They were all classroom-style courses, most of them included 2 or 3 days of consecutive training. Being early in my career this was tough to sit through. The training was very specific and prescriptive. We're talking about memorizing exact scripts, similar questions, doing the process exactly as it's taught by the trainer. It felt very restrictive.

However, after a few months of this, it became a part of my process, almost second nature. With one client, I took them through the entire sales process using the exact skills. I followed the process, used the scripts, the questions, the closing process, and, shazam, it all worked! The prospect became my biggest customer. For years. I was almost surprised; I used it again and again and it worked! 


Q. Okay, let’s pretend this is a cold call, what’s your go-to cold calling opener? :)

"I'm so glad I caught you- you are so hard to get a hold of!"

Everyone likes to feel important and special. They want to feel wanted and appreciated. Genuinely tell them how happy you are that they picked up. Very few people actually answer random calls anymore. It's great news that they answered!

Remember, your prospects are probably stressed out, busy, bored, sick, etc. Just assume they're having a bad day and do your best to help improve it a little bit.

Never come in weak or apologize for calling, ever. You're the best thing that happened to them all day! 


Q. What are some pointers to never miss while ramping up an SDR?

Time block your day with proactive sales activities. Otherwise the day sort of blends together into a swirl, especially while working from home. You start out all excited to hit the phone and research top accounts - and next thing you know you're ‘Netflix and Chilling’ at 9:34 AM.

Instead, time block your calls, emails, follow-ups, research, and then calls again into 90-minute sprints. Even time block veg time. Give yourself permission to zone out for a while, then get back to it. The difference between winners and losers is winners actually get back to it, even when they don't want to. 


Q. What will you be talking about at Accelerate 2021?

So at Accelerate, I’ll be talking about - ‘The Amazing SDR Trifecta’ You can find more about it here. 


Q. A book that you recently read and would recommend to others?

Oh, that would be ‘The Sales Development Framework’ by David Dulany and Kyle Vamvouris :)

Want to hear more from David Dulany? Make sure you’ve registered for Accelerate! Catch him on the 14th of December: Save my seat!