How to Advance Your Career as an SDR
Guest Author: Vinh Vong (Director of Sales Development at Panther)
Author Bio
Hi! I’m a cybersecurity sales leader that has empowered numerous SDRs and Account Managers to be the best versions of themselves. For me, leadership is about ensuring that those within your charge are better off because you had existed.
I've had the privilege of learning from some of the best sales leaders in the SF Bay Area. That experience has given me the opportunity to work my way through as a Sales Development Rep, Account Executive, Account Manager, leading Account Management teams, and leading Sales Development teams.
In my current role, I am responsible for the SDR GTM program at one of the fastest growing cybersecurity companies in the world, Panther.
How to Advance Your Career as an SDR
Congratulations! You’ve achieved something only a small percentage of humans on earth will ever do. You’ve landed a role as an SDR.
That in and of itself is a major accomplishment. But of course, your ambition hasn’t stopped there. After all, the same personality traits that got you the role didn’t just disappear once you got the role and so the question becomes, “What does life after SDR look like and how do I get there?”
As someone who has been the GTM SDR leader for multiple organizations and has helped numerous SDRs grow into the next phase of their careers, I’m here to tell you that the unhelpful but true answer to the age-old question of, “How do I get promoted?” is.….it depends.
Before I provide tactical advice on how to maximize your odds of advancing beyond an SDR role, here are the most common reasons why most SDRs don’t ever advance to begin:
You work for a leader that either doesn’t care enough about your growth or doesn’t know how to help you grow.
You work for a revenue department that isn’t hitting revenue targets and therefore do not have the ability to consistently advance members of their organization.
You were never given a clear set of objective benchmarks to measure your own skills against what the next role demands of you.
You're great at setting meetings, but only setting meetings.
Your lack of patience negatively impacted your performance and/or attitude.
To understand how any promotion occurs, here is a simple macro formula to remember:
Receiving your current manager’s blessing to exit their current team + Receiving your new manager’s blessing to enter their new team + A role being open = Solid Chance for Promotion
Something to note is that I have made no mention of “maximize discovery skills”, “kill your SQL numbers”, or some other verifiable metrics. In some ways, that’s because these things should already be reality or in motion. The tactical advice that I will be providing assumes that you have already mastered or are on your way to mastering many if not all of the tangible metrics that I had mentioned before.
Assuming that you’re crushing your verifiable metrics, here is some tactical advice that can maximize the likelihood of progression:
Start by Over-Communicating Your Goals
From Day 1, it’s important for you to over-communicate your goals and preferred promotion path to your leadership team on a continual basis. The reason this is important is because a great leader will put together a coaching plan and clear objectives as far as what they need to see in order to “receive their blessing to exit”.
In the event where you don’t work for a “great leader”, ask them to deliver on a coaching plan that will help you get from point A to point B and don’t be coy about it. Without a comprehensive plan for you to measure your progress against, you won’t ever truly have an understanding of where you stand within the organization and against your promotion goal.
2. Build a Relationship with your Future Manager
It’s common for most people to “receive a blessing to join their new manager’s team” through the recommendation of their current manager. However, I’ve found that the most successful SDRs will go out of their way to start building a relationship with their future manager long before they make that transition. After all, why would you solely rely on your manager’s word of mouth alone for such an important potential transition in your life.
Be proactive but courteous in setting up frequent time with your desired new manager. These syncs should include a combination of casual talk for them to get to know you better and learning/development. Your new manager should leave each sync feeling like you're yearning for more knowledge into how to develop skills that will translate in that new role. For example, if you were looking to be an AE, start setting up monthly 1-1’s with the AE Manager and bring questions to the table to discuss how to run more thoughtful discovery calls rather than just setting meetings with prospects.
3. Build Strong Relationships with Your Future Peers
Same logic as #2. Part of getting your new manager’s blessing should come in part from your current manager, your own display of potential through your communication with your new manager, and it certainly would help to get the greenlight from your future peers. Building a strong relationship with your future peers gives you a leg up into the skills you’ll eventually need to develop in order to master your desired role as well.
For example, if you’re looking to become an AE, start by scheduling time with the AEs you believe you’ll learn the most from and learn from them. Be curious and courteously use their time to educate yourself on life as an AE.
4. Start Doing Your New Job Before Getting Promoted
Now before you light me up…...hear me out. I’m not necessarily advocating for free labor. Sort of. There’s something to be said for the best way to validate your ability to earn a promotion is by already being able to demonstrate that you can do the role. There are a lot of extracurricular activities you can proactively sign up for that will allow you to exercise these skills. Let’s stick with the AE example again. Ask your future AE Manager if you can put together a full pitch presentation for them. Or perhaps have your future AE Manager perform role plays with you in mock demo calls, negotiation calls, or final closing calls. If you can get your AE Manager’s trust, perhaps get their permission to work a smaller deal. The point is, be creative and start advancing towards the work you’re asking to do.
Key Takeaways
If you haven’t yet started to consistently perform well against your objective metrics (Meetings target, Call and Email KPIs, or any other metrics that your leadership team deems as important) it’s advised that you focus your efforts on upleveling in those areas before focusing on any of the tactical advice given in this article.
Over-communicate your goals to your current manager on a frequent basis. If not, at best, they will plan it for you. At worst, they will fail to plan it for you.
Be thoughtful in building a relationship with your future manager and future peers. Half of the promotion equation relies on their acceptance of you as much as your current manager’s endorsement.
Be proactive in seeking out opportunities that allow you to exercise parts of the role you’re looking to advance towards. There’s no better way to show the org that you’re ready for the next role than by actually doing it.
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