Skills You Need to Thrive in Tech Sales
Pivoting into tech sales can be a little daunting, especially if you have no experience working in sales.
An important step you can take to make the process a little less scary is to do some research into the roles and the skills you will need. In this week’s letter, we will dive into the skills you will need to thrive as a Sales/Business Development Rep (SDR/BDR). We decided to focus on SDRs/BDRs because when starting a career in tech sales, the entry level role is that of the SDR or BDR. Now let's get into it.
First, let's jog your memory a little bit. In an earlier newsletter, we discussed that SDRs/BDRs are entry level salespeople whose primary focus is identifying, reaching out to, and booking meetings with target customers (prospects). Their main job is to connect with as many leads as possible and determine if they’re a good customer fit. What skills will you need to do this successfully?
Organization: As an SDR, you will be managing a lot of potential clients also known as leads. To keep track of them, avoid mistakes, and most importantly protect yourself from becoming overwhelmed quickly, you need to have impeccable organizational skills. Most companies will have a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that helps simplify the process of keeping track of your leads. A good step you can take is learn about current CRM software on the market and how to use them such as Salesforce, Hubspot, Insightly, Apollo.io.
Resilience: Talking to potential clients isn’t easy. First of all, reaching out to multiple leads in a day can be draining. Additionally not all of them will be interested in talking to you or listening to what you have to say. You need to have the resilience and drive to push yourself, stay motivated, and keep going.
Active listening: To sell something to someone, you have to understand their needs, and speak to those needs. To effectively do this, you should be a good listener. Listen to potential clients closely to fully grasp what they are saying so that you are able to call back to specific points they made and relate your product to it.
Curiosity: As an SDR, you are talking to people about the company’s product. To do this well, you need to be well versed on the product offerings. Your mindset should be one of willingness to learn. Talk to people on your team, people in the product team, marketing team and so on. The more you know about the product, the better you will be at talking about it. Curiosity doesn’t only apply to the product but to your leads as well. Be curious about their work and how they do it, ask questions to learn more about them and the insight you get will inform you about how your product can fit into their work and make it easier.
Creativity: Reaching out to 100s of people weekly can get old fast. Additionally, you want your cold calls to be successful. As an SDR/BDR, you should be able to think about new and interesting processes you can adopt to make your work more effective/impactful.
What do you think about these 5 skills? Do a skills audit to find out if you’re ready to work as an SDR and any skill you don’t feel confident you possess, you can always put in the work to develop them!
Curious about how to get started with a career in tech sales, then your best next step is to find out if tech sales is for you through our:
Free Intro to Tech Sales Course
We also offer a paid one-month intensive program where we take things up a notch.
At Kiso Intensive, participants:
Learn tech sales and job prospecting skills in live training sessions
Optimize their job search profile (LinkedIn, CV, Cover Letter, About Me Video)
Master their story
Identify links between their experiences and sales
Use their new sales skills to prospect for jobs
Prep for interviews for entry level tech sales roles (SDR/BDR)
Receive feedback and support on their work at every step
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Tech sales awareness education
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