The Transaction

TT - 045 - Katherine Andruha
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Katherine Andruha: [00:00:00] you have to get this right. Because BDRs are hard to find. you have to take ownership of your career. And I think that's where a lot of BDR managers don't do that. what's super important as you're going into your new year is you gotta have everything locked and loaded You can't be wishy washy on the decisions that you are making For your organization going into the new year

Know your business. It's the only way you will be taken seriously and the only way you're going to advance in your career.

Craig Rosenberg: I was going to accuse you of being on AOL, and the only reason is because when I had bad internet, Matt and Doug Landis accused me of being on AOL.

Matt Amundson: it's true.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, it is very true. ​[00:01:00]

By the way, I just had to lead in with something really, uh, I think, I think instructive, Sam, for some reason is restricting all conversations to go to market. Um, but, uh, I don't know where that came from, Sam. Honestly, like, We have, today we posted about shoes, like, let's go. Um, so, Kat, um, asked me at our go to market dinner, she said, hey, is it cool if my daughters and I flock you? And,

yeah, hold on, stay with this. And, um, I'm like, um, What now we look it it was late in the evening as well. So there there was there that a lot went through my head [00:02:00] and she said well because You know, I don't like TPing which I appreciate from cat. So instead What we do is we go and we put flamingos all over your You know, you know yard, right?

So these little flamingos, okay, and it is So amazing. I still have about what 15 flamingos in my lawn We never took him out because yeah, it was It was so funny, and here's the thing that's amazing. There was a rash of teepeeing in the, let's just call it the local Catholic school, uh, uh, region of people teepeeing each other.

And, um, I got teepeed three times in seven days. And then I got flocked and the flocking was great. And it was, it

is.

everyone should take [00:03:00] note. That's a go to market innovation that I think Sam could put in the show. Wait, but before we go, Matt, your thoughts on the flocking.

Matt Amundson: Well, I didn't know what it was. I'm, I, you know, I, I, I was at your home recently and did see flamingos. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm, I'm into it. Yeah. But, and so I was kind of like, all right, well, you know, they're kind of going for a, I don't know, like a Florida vibe here, but I guess my question for you cat is how did the girls get past, um, the, the Rosenberg security gate?

I mean,

just it was incredible amount of, yeah. Hoops you have to jump through in order to get onto the compound.

Katherine Andruha: when something's open, I just go right in. So it was wide

open. We dropped the girls off. And then Craig's wife says, go run up and go get your parents. And Dave and I are like, Oh no, like she's probably pissed. Right? So I'm like, Oh, it's fine. Craig's wife is cool. And so [00:04:00] I walk up and I'm like, Hey, how's it going?

And my husband's like, Hi, I'm just driving these girls around. They're driving me crazy

Craig Rosenberg: Oh,

Katherine Andruha: just standing there.

Craig Rosenberg: funny because Wendy was like cat's husband. I think was embarrassed about this. Yeah, it was. Yeah, everyone take note that, um. The, the, uh, the new thing is flocking and I, I wish I had Sam, I'll get you a picture in case you want to do a cut on this. All right.

Sam Guertin: I do.

Craig Rosenberg: yeah, so second thing as they lead into the intro question for Matt is cat in the top five of people in B2B go to market that you a want to most hang out with B will most likely have an amazing time laughing and having fun with.

Uh, go.

Matt Amundson: I think saying top five is I don't think that's fair to Kat. I mean, I, I can't [00:05:00] think of like after a sale, after like a Dreamforce night, I can't think of a person that I want to find where she's at more than where Kat's at, like circa 1am post Dreamforce. Like wherever the party is, that's where she's going to be or whatever she's doing is what everyone else wants to be doing.

Yes. Kat is, she's numero uno. Everybody knows Kat. And. Uh, I always like to remind Kat of who I am when I text her because I'm sure so many people text her. So I always say, Hey Kat, it's Matt Amundsen texting every

Craig Rosenberg: you don't.

Katherine Andruha: mean, I think I do the same. Hey Matt, it's

Craig Rosenberg: actually love that.

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Katherine Andruha: you know, just so that

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. It is. awesome. So you're calling her number one.

Matt Amundson: Numero uno. She always knows where the action is. She's always doing something fun. Uh, yeah. I mean, obviously she's a great professional. She's awesome at what she does. Everybody would be lucky to have her on their staff. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All [00:06:00] that. But, like, uh, Kat's just a blast. So, there you go.

Katherine Andruha: Thank you. So were you.

Craig Rosenberg: I was so excited she said she'd do the pod because we, we just have so much fun doing it when, and especially if the guest is fun. And if you're number one, I, you're right. Top five was frankly, but if you don't mind a little flexibility, like a two top three, I could see you.

Number one. Um, but like I could see you at number one. I got to think about it by the end of the show. You guys can ask me. So, um, so here's the thing on cat. So cat is, um, how many years of experience do you have with SDR teams?

Katherine Andruha: think it's like we're coming up

Craig Rosenberg: You don't want to do it. years now.

Oh

Katherine Andruha: Yeah. Like I but there's more to you.

Yeah. Yeah,

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. I'm sorry about that.

I shouldn't have done that to you. Huh?

Katherine Andruha: Did

Matt Amundson: Kat's experience can now

legally drink.

Katherine Andruha: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: [00:07:00] Oh

Katherine Andruha: I love that. That's amazing. Yeah. Kat's experience has almost graduated college. You know, like, we're, we're almost there.

Craig Rosenberg: my God, that is epic. Yeah, that was a good one. I honestly had never thought like that and I love that. Um, but, um, you know, uh, cat does a ton of work, uh, with me at scale at the portfolio and, and does a ton of stuff with overall demand gen. So it's a, there's years of experience in the toughest job in the go to market.

Plus, um, amazing overall perspective in pipeline, which is, by the way, the biggest, one of the biggest issues happening right now. And like, you know, as it gets, as it gets harder to sell, people don't understand, you actually need more pipeline. And because You know, if I, if the numbers are the numbers, you need more pipeline and sure you can [00:08:00] optimize, you know, everyone's like, wow, we got to enable the sales reps and it's typically.

Let's say it's a conversion rate of 20 percent. That means to get to 30, which is great, that's one.

Matt Amundson: Mm hmm.

Craig Rosenberg: And so it's like, what you really need is actually a more pipeline and better pipeline and that's why we want to have Cat on the show because she can talk about it from a wide range of angles here. So, um, that, Cat, you are our I can't believe we haven't had more pipeline discussions with you on the show because that is like topic du jour and frankly, and the other thing I would say about this as I was thinking about cat is there's a lot of really terrible.

Conversations on LinkedIn about pipeline,

Katherine Andruha: it's awful. I

don't even And

Craig Rosenberg: yeah, it's tough. Now you should engage with this show called The Transaction and [00:09:00] our content on there. But you know, hey, um, so these, but these days you are the VP of Bizstaff at Fivetran.

Katherine Andruha: yep,

Craig Rosenberg: and if you, um, in your background, years of experience in, you know, at simpler, right?

Uh, let's see. I can't even go down the line. Cloudflare, Coursera, Eightfold, Anaplan, Aptis, Sugar.

Katherine Andruha: I don't even.

Craig Rosenberg: Wow. Sugar, CRM. Why not? Why not? Let's go.

Katherine Andruha: You know, there you have it. I mean it's interesting. at each of those companies, you can tell the ones that have progressed by blind properly. They're the ones, there's some that are still in business and others that you're like, things that make you go, Hmm.

Matt Amundson: But some big wins, big wins under your belt, right? Like Aptis huge win there, uh, with the acquisition and a plan, massive IPO. Uh, I mean, fivetran, you know, it's hard to think of a company that's doing, yeah, Coursera's IPO, but like now at [00:10:00] fivetran, just like thinking of, it's hard to think of a, like a hotter company right now.

I mean, just absolutely killing it. So just a great resume and so much, so much experience. So yeah, let's dive in

Katherine Andruha: Thanks. All right. So diving in, we're going to, we're going to start with what we like to call question. Well, sorry, feature enhancement 2. 1 of the transaction brought to you by product leader, Matt Amundsen.

Matt Amundson: product

Katherine Andruha: You

Craig Rosenberg: I know I threw that in, um, is, You do? All right, we'll stay with it. So put that on your LinkedIn, will you?

Um, so, um, tell us, like, you know, I can't imagine. I'm actually, this is going to be an amazing one. The, uh, we asked everyone to just tell us an amazing go to market story. Um, it could be funny, heroic, like, instructive, whatever, whatever you want here. But we just, like, let's [00:11:00] lead with the story here.

Katherine Andruha: know, I thought about that and I'm like, I'm such a boring person. I don't have like something that's heroic funny.

Craig Rosenberg: Jesus, I'm such a boring p

Katherine Andruha: I'm just sitting there and I'm like, God, what story could I really, really tell? I mean, I have stories, but they're not like go to market, right? But what I will say is what I put some thought into is I know everybody right now is fiscal year planning.

If they haven't done it already, there's some people that are closing out their years right now. And then there's some that are just starting their. their fiscal year and I think what's super important as you're going into your new year is you gotta have everything locked and loaded and You can't be wishy washy on the decisions that you are making For your organization going into the new year and you have to give them time to progress.[00:12:00]

I mean I I have worked at companies where every single month something changes, right? And I'm not talking like little changes. They're like, and today we're now gonna go after, you know, the companies that sell to birds. And you're like, wait, what? Where do I even find

Matt Amundson: Mm hmm. Yeah.

Katherine Andruha: Like now I have to like build out a whole new named account list.

And everybody's doing whatever the hell they want to do because they don't know what to do. And so I guess part

Matt Amundson: Mm hmm.

Katherine Andruha: One of the biggest lessons, I'm not going to call it a story, that I have learned in my, you know, uh, baby graduating college experience is You just have to kind of have everything worked out.

And what that means is like you're sitting down with your rev ops leader. You're sitting down with your marketing leader. You're sitting down with your sales leader. You're sitting down with your systems leader. You're sitting down with your analytics leaders to make sure everything is speaking to each other and that you have all the data you need in order to [00:13:00] make sure something actually works because it will fail no matter what it is.

Hiring, onboarding, named account approach, um, outbounding, inbounding. Everything's going to break if you can't figure it out. And to tie in your pipeline piece, your pipeline's not going to progress through the funnel. And the most important thing you can do is sit down, map it out, and it's okay if it doesn't look great at first.

But you start whittling off all the checkboxes and the to dos that you need to get done. And I specifically, We'll call out, you know, rolling out a new process into sales and into SDRs. Isn't just one enablement call virtually. And then you're like right off into the

sunset and go find those unicorns.

You need to constantly be talking to your sales team about it. You need to be constantly talking to your marketing team about it. You need to be constantly talking to your BDR team about it. So, that's the lesson that I've learned is it doesn't take just once. You have to [00:14:00] continually keep talking and building out and reiterating that process so that your strategy is set to go for the new year.

Cause you're gonna, you won't be

able to produce

Matt Amundson: I mean,

Katherine Andruha: it.

Matt Amundson: I agree. I think the thing that, um, a lot of like SDR leaders get wrong is they, they sort of leave this in the hands of marketing or they leave this in the hands of sales. And I think like, if I'm hearing you correctly, like what you're really advocating for is for people in your shoes to like, you know, you got to do the work too.

Right? Like, and you are as important to the entire go to market motion as the people that are, you know, building campaigns and the people that are closing deals. And I think a lot of BDR leaders or SDR leaders or BD leaders, they'll shy away from that. And they'll, they'll You know, sort of shove that responsibility into other places and accept what ends up like kind of rolling down on top of them, which is either a plan that's totally impossible, uh, you know, going into a new market that you're totally unprepared to go [00:15:00] into.

And so having like, like being a strong advocate, not only for the team, but for the overall process of, of how the BDRs are going to work with, you know, both, uh, an upstream partner in marketing and a downstream partner in sales is. is one of the most critical pieces to like absolutely nailing a high quality GTM motion.

And to your point, it starts right at the beginning of the year with the planning. So people who are like, Hey, I'm just going to do what sales says or do what marketing says. And yeah, this plan stinks and there's no way I'm going to hit it. But you know, I, I, you know, my, my place is to just kind of, you know, be a cheerleader for it.

That's just, it's just a recipe for disaster.

Katherine Andruha: Yeah, I, I mean, you summed that up perfectly. I think the other, the other issue is, is to your point, BDR leaders, you know, a lot of the times they're, you know, earlier in their tenure of their career for trying to use this as a stepping stone. And they've never had anybody to guide them or to mentor them, or they're the first one coming in at a startup.

That's okay. You [00:16:00] have, you have like podcasts, like the transaction that you could be listening to. You can reach out to any tall, you can reach out to any, you know, big SDR leader on LinkedIn that's posting. And they're more than happy to, you know, sit down and chat with you for 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Just to kind of give you, you know, an idea of what you should or should not be doing.

But, you have to take ownership of your career. And I think that's where a lot of BDR managers don't do that. To your point, Matt, is they just sit back. No, know your data. No matter how many calls your team is making per day, how many emails, what are they converting into? What's the industry? What's the ICP that they're calling into?

Get your reports down, folks. Know your business. It's the only way you will be taken seriously and the only way you're going to advance in your career. And I, I just, it fathoms me sometimes when I [00:17:00] reach out and I'm like, so how many calls did your team make today? And they're like, uh, I don't know. I'm like, what do you mean you don't know?

Don't you refresh Salesforce all the time or Looker all the time? And they just don't like, what would you do all day then? What'd you do?

Matt Amundson: Mm-hmm

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah.

Katherine Andruha: You know? So you just have to be in it to win it, in my

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: I agree. And I will say that that was feature enhancement 2. 1. Um, because you, yeah, and um, and Matt did say it eloquently cause he is the product leader of the transaction, like, and subscribe. So the, uh, all right. So that was perfect. Yeah, we learned it. Cat GBT or GPT. Um, by the way, I free for the longest time now, by the way, guys, I've been saying GBT and Nisha used to, Like, when I, I did it probably for a week, [00:18:00] and then we're in a meeting and Anisha goes, Wait, guys, I just Look, can we just stop?

Is Crank saying G B T? And, uh, I'm like, wait, what, what is it? And she's like, it's G P T. But I still can't break it, so I'll just be, and I'll just be like, G B T. The other one I can't do is L L M S. I, and I have to talk about it all the time. Yeah, I'm sorry. I, why, why is that? I don't know. But, um, the other one that Scott has made, uh, wait, I gotta, um, oh gosh, I got to think of the one that Scott's been making fun of me for years, uh, where I've added an L into a word that's like basically my second grade son learned.

I got to figure that one out. I, I forget. All right. So, um, Let's do the big question that starts the show. Okay, so

Awful Onboarding & Problematic Pipeline Progression
---

Craig Rosenberg: what's something or some things that the market thinks they're doing right or is right? It could be an [00:19:00] approach, tactic, methodology, whatever. Um, and they're actually wrong. And what is it or those, what are those things?

And what should they be doing differently?

Katherine Andruha: Yeah, I think

Craig Rosenberg: We will stop and allow you to answer that.

Katherine Andruha: I mean, I have two so I can summarize both, but I mean, I definitely pe I think most companies are doing onboarding wrong and most companies are doing pipeline progression wrong. So with onboarding, you know, you hire amazing people, you bring them on board, and you spend maybe two weeks with them.

If you're even spending two weeks with them, you're throwing them in front of an academy, an LMS solution that is showing you videos, asking you to take quizzes, you're listening to recorded calls, which is Alright folks, let me, let me tell you something. No one's watching the videos, no one's listening to the mock calls, no one's really taking the quizzes.

Okay? They're like, alright, like this is the easiest job ever, [00:20:00] cool, deuces, woohoo! No. They're not doing anything. And I would say that the most important thing that you can do for your organization is really Like, triple down on the new people that you're hiring because you're hiring them for a reason.

And you don't want them to fail. And I see this all the time in BDR land. They're like, we've got, you know, James is joining the team. Yeah, James, he comes to us from DocuSign. He's done this for a year and he knows everything that he's doing. Awesome. And James comes in, he finishes the two week onboarding and then he's like, I don't know what to do. Like, I don't know what reports, I don't know how I should go through these processes, and then the old timers on the team are like, yeah dude, you don't have to do that, you just go through here, here, here. So none of your change that you're trying to implement in your company either is, is happening because you are not involved as a manager.

And the managers need to start stepping up and being more involved in the onboarding process. Partnering up with your onboarding [00:21:00] team. If you have an enablement team that does not have someone that is strictly focused on your department or just focused on onboarding together With the BDRs outside of sales, outside of marketing, you are missing the mark.

You need to hire somebody that's just focused on BDR onboarding. And it could be someone internally that was a BDR that's really great at spreadsheeting, that's really great at capturing videos, and that's really great at following up with the organization. But you have to get this right. Because BDRs are hard to find. It can be really expensive, not only for your org and not only for recruiting, but for sales, you will have pipeline gaps all over the place. And you as a leader are going to be hopping around making sure you don't hit one of those landmines, right? Because you set yourself up for failure. I'll pause in case.

Matt Amundson: Ye

Katherine Andruha: Does that resonate?

Matt Amundson: I mean, this is a great topic. [00:22:00] We we have not gone here at all. And I think that this is an awesome topic. And this is a place where I think a lot of, uh, you know, almost every company is guilty of this in some way, shape or form, whether it's in a department or holistically as a business, like, you know, you, I think oftentimes the real difference between employees that come on board and fall flat on their face and employees that come on board and drive real meaningful change in your business is how well they are educated as they come into your organization, how much time people spend with them. I can think back to all of my experiences regardless of You know, whether I was joining a big company or a small company, the companies that actually took the time to do real training were the companies where I had the longest tenure.

I had the most success. I made the biggest impact to the business and the companies that, you know, I joined and I was like, Hey, what do we do? And they're like, okay, well here's a water bottle and a t shirt go nuts. Uh, those are the ones where I had the shortest stints probably made the least amount of impact [00:23:00] and honestly probably had the highest level of personal frustration.

Katherine Andruha: Totally, because you're just running around in circles trying to figure out what do I do for you. And so, what we've done now in, like, within my own organization is, I have someone dedicated to my team for enablement. She rocks on as our onboarding specialist as well. I've given each of my directors a pillar for my org.

So I have one of my directors that, um, her pillar is onboarding. And so they have built out a three month onboarding program for our BDRs. And yes, are there videos in an LMS that they have to follow? Absolutely. But at the end of the day, they're following up with the manager to talk about that video.

They're not just doing quizzes and. It incorporates sitting on the floor. It incorporates listening to live calls. Recorded calls are great, sure. But listening to live calls. How do people react on the fly? What's their facial expressions? It's all about learning [00:24:00] when you're onboarding, right? How do I take notes properly?

And we also have incorporated, um, I have to get the name of the company. I feel bad that I don't know it off the top of my head. But we do mock calls with an AI tool. that you can speak into the AI tool and the AI tool gives you objections and tells you whether or not you are performing well. And that way you're not just calling actual prospects yet when maybe you shouldn't be.

Um, which I'm going to drop a mic here on this one. And I think everyone's going to be like, this girl is off her rocker and maybe a little bit, you're right. Um, I don't have new BDRs call until week four. And they are not calling, yes, any leads that are actual leads on week four, they start calling old leads.

They call leads that have been moved to trash. And [00:25:00] why? Because half of calling is knowing what you're looking at on your screen. Everybody forgets that when you're calling, you're reading Salesforce, you're reading the notes, you're clicking through their LinkedIn, you're looking in outreach, you're trying to figure out what template to send them, you're trying to figure out what their persona is, you're looking at their, their, what their use cases could be.

And then you get on the call and as a BDR, who's brand new, you're like, uh, hi, Matt, I saw that you downloaded our ebook. And you're like, what

is going on? That is not what we talked about in week two, okay? But it's not their

fault, because they never got to practice clicking through everything and getting acclimated.

And so this gives them the chance to get acclimated with the systems, to get, Confident in their pitches on people that we know will never answer their phone anyway or listen to their voicemails So like why not?

Craig Rosenberg: [00:26:00] Yeah. If, uh, let me ask you guys a couple questions. Um. So first of all, you did. I'm just imagining Matt running around in circles. I just think it, I, I don't know when she said that. I'm like, it's Matt. Are you talking

to Matt?

Matt Amundson: Yeah!

Craig Rosenberg: Cause

Matt Amundson: ha ha!

Craig Rosenberg: I, I don't know. why. Um, but, um, this, this, this is a great topic.

So for both, because Matt is also, I mean, I know, you know, he's a CMO now, but he, he, like you was one of the best in sort of SDR, uh, They had some of the best SDR teams and I guess I would say you still do you just you know, um, so One is cat. I hear you saying some things that are not just phone and I wonder if that's one of the unlocks too Which is do you do you guys train them on?

Uh, how to look at, I mean, I guess it's, you know, everyone say it'd be obvious that it's systems, but I'm not sure. I think people still [00:27:00] just do some kind of messaging training and then throw them out there and they just kind of got to learn by asking the person next to him. Um, and so you guys have both sort of said things that lead me to believe as we're thinking about onboarding.

Actually, let me ask it a different way, since I didn't ask it in a really good question. Do you guys, like, what are the, like, three to five sort of key things that we have to ensure that the BDR, SDR, uh, reps know, um, for them to be successful as fast as possible?

Katherine Andruha: Okay, so I will say this they

Matt Amundson: Cat, do you want to go rapid fire? You, you do one. I'll do one.

Katherine Andruha: Yeah, that works. Um,

Craig Rosenberg: Ooh! Oh, like a duet!

Let's, yes, let's do it as a duet. A

Matt Amundson: Islands in the stream. That is what we, uh,

Katherine Andruha: coming from afar, reaching for the stars. Um, okay. So the MQL [00:28:00] process, hands down, they have to know how to call through an inbound MQL if they don't know every single step on what they need to do. And I don't mean like, just look at it. We have documented step by step. What you need to do open MQL, de dupe MQL, look at account at MQL, research MQL for like 30 seconds.

It's like boom, boom, boom. Once you get used to it, it seems like a lot, but it goes really fast. What's the past activity. Where did, where did they inbound from? And this is mind you everything that they're, that they're looking at while they're dialing this person on the phone, whether they're using outreach or nooks or sales off, whatever it is, they're going through that.

And if they don't know how to look at all of that, once again, we go back to, Hey Matt, this is Kat calling. I saw that you downloaded that ebook. And guess what? They're not interested on the fact that you told them that they downloaded an ebook, like no kidding. So they have to know the [00:29:00] MQL process. Lock it down.

Go Matt.

Matt Amundson: Okay. I would say my number one thing is, uh, I mean, definitely cats cats, right? But like my number one thing is confidence. So to me, if you can create a confident BDR, regardless of like process, regardless of their ability to like know the pitch perfectly, if you can create confidence in a BDR, then like, you're well ahead of the game.

And a lot of that comes from the stuff that cat was talking about during an onboarding process. It's like, you know, Can you create environments that resemble the real world where people feel comfortable that they can fail and then they can learn from their failures as opposed to being just thrown to the wolves and being like, Hey, I'm on the phone with the CEO of like a target account and I just blew it and we'll never get to sell to them again.

So I'm afraid, right? If you can create training where. They can mess up on a call and get good coaching, and then they and then they can prove on the next exercise that they can do it. Well, they'll show up to that first day of calling, and they'll be so confident, even if they, [00:30:00] you know, mess up some data input in a field in Salesforce, like all that stuff, you know, you can train that away.

But can you create an environment where people feel comfortable actually working through them? process. And to me, ultimately, that's just confidence that comes from my sports background. It's like if you're confident you're gonna play well, if you play well, you're gonna win. The same thing is true for BDRs.

If they're confident, they're gonna call. Well, they're gonna send good emails and they're gonna win.

Katherine Andruha: Awesome. I would say, I'm teeter tottering. I was kind of like walking through a couple here and commissions came up, but like the behavior, what you want to comp them on, but that's, that's, one thing. But then there's also, I think what's really important. It's not like BDR related, but it's manager related.

You have to have an amazing checklist for a manager to follow on how to onboard properly. You could have an amazing director and you've got it. Five managers under that director and the managers, if they don't know how to onboard or if they don't have a checklist. That the director has put [00:31:00] together for them.

It's going to get lost in translation and everybody should be onboarding the same way. So there's continuity. I don't know what all there's, my God, I can't even say it now. I'm, I'm LMSing it, um, to Craig's point, so that there's some sort of consistency across your organization so that a BDR If somebody's down on the West Coast, they can cover for somebody on the East Coast, right?

Like, you have to be able to interchange them, but a manager also needs to have that confidence, and a manager needs to be able to have a consistent way of onboarding. It can't be loosey goosey, and it has to be scheduled out for them.

Matt Amundson: Uh, I would say my next thing is, is like you want BDRs who it's like they know when to ask for something as opposed to just asking for something, right? Like, I can't tell you how many times like you'll hear a BDR on a call and the person will be like, yeah, yeah, that's all very interesting.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. [00:32:00] Like, you know, they're trying to rush them off the phone and the BDR comes in with the. So can I schedule 15 minutes with you and my account executive? Right? Like, they just don't know when to ask for it. It's like, you have to be able to, to determine whether or not the person's actually interested, even if you've like, quote unquote, qualified them.

And a lot of qualification can be soft qualification. Like, I see you work at a company like this tour, you know, is that true? Yes. Um, but like, Actually knowing that they're setting up their account executive for a really high quality meeting as opposed to like sort of, you know, Attempting to get somebody on the calendar who begrudgingly doesn't want to be on the calendar or it's gonna show up and really not Know what they're walking into It's how do you get away from the like the?

You know, the, the happy ears or, or the shooting early to, to, to get somebody booked. Um, that's one of the biggest things that I think a lot of, uh, BDRs mess up on early and what it creates is a lot of distrust between, you know, the, the sales team and the BDR function. Right. Because they're like, Oh, here comes another meeting from [00:33:00] Matt.

And you know, he just books me with all stuff that is never going to close.

Craig Rosenberg: Wait, really quick, before you go, Cat, but isn't that Closing for the meeting training versus just asking one note. Okay. All right. Um, that's a good one. That's a, uh, it leads to lots of cringy

situations is essentially, yeah. All right, Kat, as part of your duet, what do you have for us next?

Katherine Andruha: I would say probably, I mean, and Matt, you mentioned the AE piece, but it's that handover to your AE and understanding what your territory is, taking ownership of your territory. It's not just about calling leads. If you have a named account list, you know, everybody at that named account list, you're telling the AE, I know that Sam comes in on Mondays and Wednesdays.

I'm going to only call her then. Or, hey, I think Ryan's kids play soccer with your kids. You should see if you see him out on the field or whatever. It's [00:34:00] knowing what's going on in your territory and guess what? It's also your job as a BDR to know how many calls you made every single day to hold yourself accountable every single day.

It's your job to know. What you're going to do on Monday when you walk in, make a list. It's okay to make lists, people. Like, know what's going

on. And it's okay for you to send an email to your AEs every Friday and say, I booked three meetings here. I put this many S0s into Salesforce. I have this much pipeline.

Let me know how it goes and let's move it along. That shows too that you want to become an AE and it also shows that you

have their best interests in mind. So guess what? Now you're handshaking with your AE and you guys are, are rocking and rolling. That is missing.

Matt Amundson: Yep.

Katherine Andruha: missing.

But what I will say. That comes with like that emotional, psychological piece too. Hey yo AEs, you used to be a BDR too. [00:35:00] Could you be nice to your BDRs and give them the time of day? I know you're a different pay scale, but like, come on people, they're going to be working for you. Be friends, make it happen.

Matt Amundson: yeah, yeah, yeah,

Craig Rosenberg: Matt, you got another one. That was a good one.

Matt Amundson: I mean learn to have a little fun with it. I don't know like it's got to be a fun environment Like you gotta you got to enjoy what it is that you're doing because it is such a grind So so learn to learn to enjoy the work learn to understand like when when when to make light of situations It's like if you can't laugh at it, then you're just gonna cry at it And you know, nobody wants that like being a BDR can be The most fun job in the world.

Like I, you know, I did it and I loved it. It was such a blast, but like it can also be a freaking nightmare, right? Because, you know, you're, you're being held accountable to all kinds of things. And, uh, you've got people that are, you know, that depend upon you for their own livelihood. So the, the stress and pressure they're going to put on you is real, but you know, enjoy it.[00:36:00]

Enjoy it while it lasts because, uh, you know, it's, uh, it's a fun gig and it's, if you work at a company that creates a great environment, like you should just enjoy it. So if you're lucky enough to be on one of Kat's teams, enjoy it while it lasts. Don't be in such a rush to be an AE.

Katherine Andruha: I was. I mean, I think that you're on the money with that. And also, guess what? I bet you could probably finish your day in three hours. Just call the leads. Call them, people. Like, just log in and make the calls. Like, I know you can make 30 calls using Nooks in like 3 minutes. I've done it. Why are you worried about calling the MQLs?

I promise they're not gonna hurt you. Just, and chances are they're not Yes. so just call the leads. Just call them. You know? Like, I don't get it, like, it's like 3pm and you see those leads sitting there since like noon and you're like, what have you done? There's been no meetings. I just, I just don't know.

It's like, [00:37:00] just call them. Just call them. I just didn't know.

Craig Rosenberg: I'm pretty sure that this one is going to make all the social channels

as a clip. Uh, gonna be a strong, this is gonna, unfortunately, I don't think TikTok will exist by the time we're cutting this show, but, uh, this would've been a great TikTok video. RIP,

yeah, it's gone. Um, hey, uh, Uh, what we, so one thing you should know about Matt, the, um, the show is that he is very concerned whether the guests will be able to quote unquote land the plane. So if they bring up multiple things that the market's doing wrong, um, uh, then you have to land them all. So I forgot what your number two was.

What was your number two?

Katherine Andruha: pipeline progression. One is onboarding and then the next one

is It's pipeline progression. Companies are doing this all wrong. Like there's zero accountability when it comes to how long pipeline sits in funnel, at which stage [00:38:00] it sits in funnel, why it's sitting in funnel. And for some reason, nobody wants to ask an AE, why is your stage two still sitting there after 180 days?

Like why is that a bad question to

ask? Like ask? the question. Like don't pretend like it's just sitting there. I'd rather have all my pipeline cleared out and say, hey, you know what? I had to start from scratch. Because these were all garbage for this reason. We'll re engage with them later, but We let stuff sit on the shelf for way too long.

And let me tell you something, no one likes to eat grandma's fruitcake from the freezer. Okay, so just thaw it and chuck it. Like, keep it moving, folks. Like, I just don't get it. You know, like, why is It's so hard to do. I mean, the best organizations have like Clary and we just look at Clary and we talk about the deals in Clary, but we don't really do much about it.

[00:39:00] And I think it's important to set up those automatic emails that are like, Hey, this has been sitting for 15 days without an activity. It just helps drive that behavior to remind people to call because they're busy. But. Sometimes this might go against what you were saying earlier, Craig and Matt, about we need a bunch of pipeline, but sometimes we don't need that much.

Because sometimes when we put too much

in, you can't eat it all. It becomes gluttonous, right? So you gotta, like, figure out

what that right pipeline is that moves through the funnel. Stop, stop saying you're going to test this over here. Fine. If you're going to test it, get a tiger team, but get the rest of your field locked and loaded on what they should be focused on and move it through.

It's okay to move it. know, that's it.

Matt Amundson: So, yeah, I mean, I've been, I've been like burning on this point for a while, which is like, uh, and I'm, I'm not ready to declare it actually true, but it's been something that [00:40:00] I've been thinking about quite a bit, uh, over the last several years, which is, I think if you're being asked to create more than five X pipeline, um, then you are essentially creating an environment where there's going to be so much, Yeah.

Uh, so many situations like this, which is like, you have to be realistic about how many opportunities account executives can actually, uh, action against, right? Like if you're like, Hey, you know, we have this 10 person sales team and we want to generate 1400 opportunities this year and you know. That's just not possible, right?

Because each one of those salespeople cannot work 140 deals over the course of a year. It just doesn't make sense. Maybe if they're transactional, their one call closes. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. But like, you know, there, there is, Hey, we have to have coverage and then we have to be realistic for how many human beings there are.

And I hear this a lot, Kat, you know, where, um, there's pipeline that's either sitting in a stage for too long. Or there's pipeline that goes from stage one to close one, you [00:41:00] know, even though it's been sitting in stage one for three or four months. So I think there's there's a level of high hygiene that has to occur there.

And, you know, at the last place I was working, I was I was talking to Craig quite a bit about this. You know, I was very cued into opportunity stage progression because I was trying to use that to determine. Did we have a product issue where we couldn't progress past a specific stage? Did we have a marketing issue

where like, you know, what initially brought them in was not actually, well, I mean, Occam's

razor, right? But

Craig Rosenberg: They might be they might be listening yeah

Katherine Andruha: Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. But yeah, I mean it's, it is. You have to know what's happening. Yeah. It always ends up happening that way. And anytime it's over six percent, or sorry, six times, It's an AE issue that needs to be fixed and it's not necessarily the human being, but it could be the sales stages need to be adjusted.

It may mean that one sales stage needs to [00:42:00] be longer than the next one. Or maybe you're asking too early these questions and we need to gather more information. Like it. There's things that can be reworked, but I hate it when the fingers start pointing and they're like, now we need 12 times the pipeline.

And I'm like, hold up. I'm not giving you 12 times the pipeline. Like I

Matt Amundson: Yeah,

Katherine Andruha: people in my org to do that for you.

Matt Amundson: yeah. Yeah. And you don't have 1000 people in your sales org to actually go sell those deals. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Craig, you had a point you wanted to make there. Sorry.

Craig Rosenberg: oh, thanks Matt. I

appreciate you letting me in the Oh no, it's okay. It's with you. It's fine. I was just trying to tease Matt. It was a very specific comment. There was, it was not a general comment. Um, so that actually makes sense. I wasn't sure where you're gonna go on that. Actually, Matt did bring this up multiple times in his last gig, but he brought it up actually on more of a proactive level, which is that [00:43:00] CMOs.

Right? In general, don't spend enough time looking at pipeline progression where they can help. Which is a more positive spin

Matt Amundson: yeah,

Craig Rosenberg: pipeline progression. Yeah,

and I think that's great.

Matt Amundson: Yeah, I would actually argue with Kat a little bit, Kat. I'm gonna, I'm

gonna argue, I'm gonna

Craig Rosenberg: finally! God, you guys have been so s Like, you're doing duets and shit, I don't even understand. Like, let's go, let's get it on. What do we got?

Katherine Andruha: What is this? I don't think this is a microsoft

Matt Amundson: Well, it's, I don't think it, uh, The, the need for an inflated pipeline, or the need for an increased pipeline beyond 5 or 6x is not always an AE problem. It actually could be a signal of a product level problem. It could be a signal of a messaging problem from the marketing department. It could be a signal of an ICP problem.

And like I was trying, I sort of had this hypothesis that I could figure out, like if deals were languishing in the early stages of an op, it meant that we were over promising something. In leading up to the meeting being [00:44:00] created, whether that was in the messaging or the way that our BDR team was talking to them, what was on the website, et cetera.

If it wasn't getting through technical validation, then I was like, okay, well, it's a clear signal that we've got a product issue here. We need to get as much of the closed lost information as we can gather to figure out what parts of the product need to be amended. Maybe that's, you know, uh, maybe that's like the.

The settings, the security, the, uh, maybe even the workflow, the speed, whatever, whatever it was, right? Let's figure that out. So like I, I do like to point fingers at sales teams quite a bit, but I, but I also like to be realistic and say like, Hey, you know, is there, is there a more nuanced story to this that we can figure out that's actually leading to this?

And it could be as simple as the sales process needs to be reorganized, but it could be as complicated as, okay, Man, we're just going after the wrong ICP here, or we're not building the product the way these customers actually expect it to be.

Katherine Andruha: Yeah, I mean absolutely. I think you [00:45:00] have to do a closed lost analysis. You have to look at your closed one and see the different themes that are there. And double down on the stuff that is closing, right? Super quick or is bringing in those whale deals if it's the right ICP for sure. Um, I just think that sometimes when you want more you have to make sure you want more.

Of the right stuff, right? You don't

want to just ask for more french fries because they taste good You want to make sure it's fueling something in there that that you need it to

fuel

right, um Um, is, and it's very easy, yes, to, to pick on the AEs for sure. I love AEs. I think they're great. I think they're wonderful.

Um, but I like to pick on Rev X now, um, and really blame them for their processes and procedures. That's my new favorite red headed stiff child.

Craig Rosenberg: Oh! Well, that's good. Yeah, we'll have to Well, that's the kind of innovation we like to [00:46:00] see here on the transaction. Um, alright, before, by the way, we got a couple minutes left. Um, I just, really quick, I have two things I want to do. One is, I just got a package, so I have to tell you guys, not planned. I'm not kidding.

While we're on this call, um, Corinne, who works, um, here comes in and says, you have a package and here's what it is. Are you ready?

Katherine Andruha: Go. Bro. Eat your

Matt Amundson: Oh, man.

Oh, man.

Katherine Andruha: Oh,

that's amazing.

Craig Rosenberg: from Sam!

Matt Amundson: Oh,

Katherine Andruha: Sam,

Matt Amundson: Sam is on the merch. Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: yeah, because I, and we made a comment on, and it was posted on LinkedIn, and I think Alan Berkson or someone said, hey, we should make that a t shirt or something, and Oh, Sangram, dude? Oh, jeez. By the way, [00:47:00] is it pronounced San gram, like that? Or is it

Sangram? What the hell?

Sangram, I'm sorry. San

Sam Guertin: I'm sorry.

Craig Rosenberg: I

Sam Guertin: I, I wish you had corrected, I wish he had corrected me when I met him in person.

Craig Rosenberg: Well, he's been dealing with this for years, dude, and but this is a completely new variation on a mispronunciation of his name. Um, okay. Well, thank you. I am. I love you,

Katherine Andruha: You can just call him G money. Just

call him G money and like

get rid of the first part of

his

name

Sam Guertin: okay.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, man, oh my god, that was amazing. Um, alright, so

Matt Amundson: Well, that was one thing I'm very concerned about you landing the plane here. Here we go.

Craig Rosenberg: I'm trying. I, you know, I shouldn't have led with this one. I, I, I shouldn't have. There's too many things that are coming out of it. Um, but one thing Kat has talked about in, um, you know, she leads a lot of the SDR councils for us. So we bring SDR leaders together here at scale.

And, uh, Kat's like the, [00:48:00] uh, peer leader of that. So, um, phone calls, you guys have talked about phone calls. I'm hearing this all the time. Phone calls are back. they're back, baby. They are them. I love them. Love them. Love them. I mean, I'm hiring a content manager just for my BDR org because our emails need to get better, but people are answering the phones and if they're not answering their phones, they're listening to your LinkedIn voice notes. Get your LinkedIn

Katherine Andruha: voice notes down, send a video in LinkedIn voice notes, leave a voicemail.

If I don't answer, I read the transcript on my mobile and I'm like, do I need to call them back or do I not need to call them back? The other thing that's really great that

I love is if you're going to call me and send me something cool like this. that I can totally like use. I love swag. I love swag that I can use and you can use that while you're [00:49:00] calling.

Hey, just wanted to have a quick conversation with you. Thanks so much for taking 10 minutes with me. Can I shoot you a Stanley? Yes, you can. Thank you so much. Like use it to your advantage. Let's go people.

Matt Amundson: Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: So, you know, that was actually worked out as an end. And by the way, I need you to send me a Stanley. Wendy, my wife buys Stanley's all the time. These things, I mean,

Matt Amundson: I need you to not send me a Stanley because there's like 35 of them in my

house.

Craig Rosenberg: That's true. We have a lot, but you know what ha yeah, we lose the top, like we wash it, and the top is somewhere else,

Matt Amundson: The straws.

Craig Rosenberg: Wendy just buys a new one. Yeah. Um, yeah, so the, yeah, so that actually worked out great. I was worried about that, but I did land the plan there, Matt. Um,

Matt Amundson: gotta, I gotta get a captain's hat, you know, all this flight or maybe the, maybe the batons.

Katherine Andruha: Yeah.

Sam Guertin: Yeah,

Craig Rosenberg: yeah, with the orange vest, you just

Matt Amundson: [00:50:00] Yeah. The

Craig Rosenberg: just, yeah. Um, you, uh,

Katherine Andruha: go well with my headphones.

Matt Amundson: Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: oh my god. That is, there's a, there's a theme emerging. Um, alright, well, I, you know, I now have regrets that we haven't had this type of conversation earlier. That was, I think Probably, uh, highly actionable, very topical, right? We just, it's, you know, uh, I feel like it, the reason there's these SDR influencers and pipeline influencers, because we're just kind of forgetting like the, everything that from like a year ago gets lost.

And so like, it's really important to have these conversations and talk about, um, uh, really specific, frankly, tactical things that we need to go. Get done. So cat, I'm so glad we had you on. And that was really fun and funny, even though, yeah, but there was a delay. The only, you know, I was really worried because there's a little bit of a delay and, uh, but [00:51:00] we were able to be funny.

More importantly, even with the delay, you guys were able to do the duet and that

that duet. I mean, gosh, man, losing tick tock hurts on that. We need that duet. Craig, I

Katherine Andruha: mean, you

Sam Guertin: we'll fix it in

Katherine Andruha: this is going to be the Matt and Kat show here soon, So. just be careful.

Matt Amundson: So.

Craig Rosenberg: Oh

god, I mean, I, yeah, that, that would be, that'd do well.

Katherine Andruha: founder,

Craig Rosenberg: let's do like a podcast

op.

Sam Guertin: Ooh. We'll do a whole bracket.

Katherine Andruha: oh, oh, I will. Well, I don't know with cat. I can't lose.

Why are you going to

Craig Rosenberg: yeah, yeah, you need cat.

Katherine Andruha: Let's go. Come on, we don't lose.

Matt Amundson: but so is Craig. Craig's a sneaky athlete. Number one. Number two, Craig, Craig is like the master of the social posting. Now

it's just like,

Craig Rosenberg: I don't know about that, but, um, all right, well, Kat, thank you so much for doing this with us. We're going to do it again [00:52:00] soon, and I'll see you out there. All right, guys, good work. Take the rest of the day off.