Learnings from an SDR Director: Part 1
The SDR Newsletter recently sat down with Vinh Vong, Director of Sales Development at Panther, to get his insight on a variety of SDR-related topics. In this article, Vinh provides tactics and knowledge on getting into the SDR role, interviewing tips, how to get promoted, and more!
Tell us about yourself and how you ended up in SDR leadership.
Hi! In a nutshell, my Linkedin header does a really great job of encapsulating who I am (Director of SDR at Panther, People Builder, and Immigrant).
In my current role, I’m responsible for the strategic road map and execution of all things SDR over at Panther. When I think about what all of that really means, it simply comes down to the people I am responsible for. If I’m consistently focused on building up the folks on my team, everything else will naturally fall into place.
Being an immigrant in the United States means you’ve been exposed to things that very few people will ever experience. For example, growing up our home always served as a halfway house for aunts, uncles, and cousins who freshly immigrated to the states. In other words, families would come live with us for a few years to get familiar with the new world that they signed up for and hopefully be set up for success.
And this is exactly how I view the SDR program. It’s my responsibility to build a home where people can be set up for success and be on their merry way after a period of time. With that said, it’s sort of no surprise how I ended up in SDR leadership because in many ways I’ve been socially conditioned to this since I was in grade school.
Interviewing as an SDR
What are some of the most important things you look for when hiring SDRs and what can an SDR do to stand out in the interview process?
The answers to this question can take up an entire chapter in a sales book, so I’m going to talk in depth on what I consider the most important attribute: Curiosity.
First, let’s talk about why curiosity is so important. In my opinion, curiosity is what allows an SDR leader to gauge how much a candidate cares. And generally speaking, SDRs that care more about what they’re doing are more likely to be successful in the role and make it further in their careers. One of the earliest questions most SDR leaders ask themselves during interviews with prospective SDRs is, “Is this person going to materially add substance to our team or will they simply take up a seat?” Be the embodiment of the former.
Now let’s talk about practical tips that you can use to best express your curiosity. When thinking about how to best express your curiosity, it all comes down to the quality of the homework that you’ve done prior to the interview and the quality of the questions that you’re bringing to the conversation during the interview.
While I’m not suggesting that you spend every waking minute of the next 5 days learning anything and everything about the company you’re interviewing with, I’m also not saying that you shouldn’t do that? I’m a big believer that a candidate will find a way to put in the right amount of effort based on how much they care about the opportunity. When in doubt, spend more time doing thoughtful research beyond just going on the company site. Read some blogs, stalk some of the employees on LinkedIn, and come into the interview with as much context as possible.
When it comes to the quality of the questions that you bring to the interview, this is where all of that great homework you did really helps. Much like what you’ll eventually be doing in the SDR role, it’s important that you take the research that you did and marry it together with the questions you plan on asking in the interview. Based on this strategy, here are some examples of what I consider Poor Interview Questions and Strong Interview Questions even if we were planning on using the same intent:
Poor Interview Questions:
How do you like it here?
Where do you see this company in several years?
What’s the day in the life of an SDR here?
Strong Interview Questions:
I noticed you left your most recent company X and have been here for a little over a year now. What are some things that continue to motivate you at this company?
I saw that you all recently landed a massive Series C round. Congratulations! What are some reasons as to why this company has been seeing so much growth over the last x amount of years? What are some things that could potentially stall your growth?
I see that your SDRs are pretty active on LinkedIn! How much success are you all seeing from doing that? Are you seeing any activities that aren’t yielding as much result for your team? Why do you think that is?
What would you tell candidates who are having trouble landing a role?
I am going to gear my answer towards folks who are looking to land their first SDR role with little or no experience (seeing as how SDRs with prior experience aren’t going to have as much trouble finding a new SDR role).
Here is a play by play of what I would do if I were to start all over:
The first thing you should do is create a baseline copy resume and recognize that each one should be slightly adjusted and submitted based on the vernacular being used on each unique SDR job req.
The next thing you’ll want to do is compile a baseline cold email and then slightly adjust each one based on the company you’re applying to.
Then what I would do is go onto LinkedIn and identify which SDR leaders are hiring and the ones you would want to work for. Introduce yourself and why you’re messaging them, send them a copy of what cold email you would send if you were an SDR on their team, and then a copy of your resume. If you do this enough times, you’ll get some replies simply because most SDRs aren’t doing this. In the number of years that I’ve been leading SDR teams, I’ve only ever come across 3 SDRs that ever did this.
Fun fact: I’m currently mentoring an SDR that did the exact same thing to me^. I didn’t have a role open at the time but we now text several times a week in which I provide additional tactical advice.
Once you get the interview, the hardest part is out of the way. You’ll now want to prepare your framework on how to research the company you want to work at and create the right tailored questions to best express your curiosity. When in doubt, ask thoughtful questions.
Rinse and repeat. You’ll eventually land something.
You have to work really really hard to get a little bit of luck. The real question is what you do with that luck once you get it.
Career
What advice would you give to early-career SDRs just starting their careers?
The best piece of advice I can give to early-career SDRs is to be ultra aware as to what type of manager you want to work for. In some extremes, you’ll potentially get more value working with a great leader at a bad company than a bad leader at a great company. It’s up to you to decide what is great and what isn’t.
In order to begin building awareness around what types of leaders might best align with you, it’s important to clearly understand what you want from a mentor/mentee relationship. And I don’t necessarily mean coming to the conclusion of, “I want a leader who can get me to AE.”. To have the best chances at controlling your success, it has to be more granular than that.
In other words, start to build your IMP (Ideal Manager Profile). Identify traits, coaching styles, communication styles, desired experience, and preferred leadership style. Then map all prospective leaders that you interview with through those filters.
It’s rare that a single leader checks off every box and each box will probably be weighted differently. But the importance of this exercise is to begin building awareness around what might work best as opposed to taking a complete shot in the dark.
What advice would you give to SDRs who are looking to get promoted?
Stay Patient.
Now before I get vilified….hear me out. Promotions are a misunderstood concept for many early-career employees. I was certainly no exception. Let me explain:
Most SDRs I speak with regarding promotions only understand promotions from one side of the equation that can be personified by the following belief, “If I crush it in my role, I’m going to get promoted.”
While you certainly need to do well in your role to be considered for a promotion, doing well in your role is only half the equation. The other rarely spoken about half of the equation can be personified by the following question, “Does the business have a need for the role you’re looking to get promoted into?”
In other words, even if you have demonstrated that you’re ready for the next level in your career, the organization you’re part of may not have a need for the role that you want at that exact moment in time.
As a result, how often have you seen this exact scenario play out?
SDR crushes it for 9 months
SDR Leader continues to tell the SDR to be patient and their time will come
Recruiter from a different organization reaches out and convinces SDR to join their company because promotions have been happening every 6 months.
Now don’t get me wrong, there are certainly Cinderella stories where things work out in the SDRs favor depending on other unknown variables. But more often than not, I find that the consequence of not staying patient enough can oftentimes add more time to your SDR journey.
Where can people find you?
LinkedIn or Email (Vinhvong@me.com) works just fine! I genuinely enjoy chatting with current and future SDRs as well as other leaders who want to bounce ideas. I’m very grateful for the people in my life that have spent the time to help me, so naturally I want to pay it forward as much as I can.
Be sure to be on the lookout for the second part of our interview with Vinh coming out in the near future!