#127 The SDR DiscoCall Podcast - Connor Grimes

Welcome to the SDR Disco Call Vidcast and Podcast, a show designed for brand new sales reps working in the world of tech sales. I'm your host, Neil Buyen, and I'm going to be taking you on a journey on the SDR Disco Call Vidcast and Podcast. Did you know that you can watch this show live with the guests on YouTube? This show is available on YouTube at happyselling .

io. Hello listeners, watchers, fans and subscribers and welcome back to another chapter of the SDR Disco Call Show. This show is about the world of sales, predominantly around tech sales and there's a function called sales development which is at the beginning of a sales cycle and within this job we're looking to get prospects interested in what we sell and get them into the actual sales cycle journey and I think it's one of the toughest parts of sales in my own opinion and what I love to do is go find really interesting and cool people from across the world.

globe that work in this industry to figure out you know how did they get into this industry how did they get into the role what lessons have been learned to either inspire you to come into this industry or if you're already working in this industry to get a bit of perspective as to what is it like for other people and my name is Neil Booyan your host A big ask is if you're listening to this in your local podcast platform, do us a massive favor and make sure that you give the podcast a rating.

It helps us get our message out to more people. And similarly, if you're listening to this or watching this on our YouTube channel to help out with the algorithm, make sure that you give us a like, comment and subscribe down below because you're telling the algorithm this is good content. And again, it will help us get our message out there. So with the guests that we've got on today, this is somebody that I've known online for a little while.

And we actually met back on the cold call power hour. hosted by myself coach and this is an individual that when i used to see him come through i used to bring a smile to my face and we've actually figured out that we've got some similarities when it comes to kids and the ideas of how we want to be as dads so as another sales dad bringing on to shard wanted to introduce connor grimes how you doing today connor hey neil yeah uh i'm doing good thank you uh looking forward to this chat been uh excited to listen to calls of art listen to the podcast so i uh i know you get to become a Love it.

And welcome aboard Connor. So Connor, could you tell us whereabouts in the world are you based? What is your role and what company do you work for Connor? Yeah, absolutely.

So I'm actually based in Stoke -on -Trent. Yeah, glorious part of the Midlands. I actually work for a business called Willow. We're a candidate screening platform specifically designed to cut recruitment time in half, ideally for like high volume recruitment, usually selling to like HR talent leaders predominantly.

Love that. And thank you so much for setting the scene there, Connor. And Connor, as a question I like to ask with all of our guests, like outside of sales, what things do you like to get up to? What are your passions, hobbies and interests, mate?

Well, as you mentioned, I'm a dad. So a host of targets taken with my kids who are five and three, definitely a handful. Big football fan. I also play volleyball as well.

Yeah. but most of the time is spent watching Arsenal because we have problems there enjoying volleyball playing with the kids being my fiance as well we got some nice water and food and that but yeah that's kind of kind of me I love it thank you so much so if I get that right so you're based in Midlands and you're an Arsenal Guna fan is that right? Yeah, glory unto that, aren't I? First game I ever watched, my dad was, he's a big Leeds fan and my grandad were.

They told me they wanted me to watch Leeds like them. First game, Leeds versus Arsenal about 25 years ago. And Arsenal, the team in red, 4 -0 that day. So I then asked him and my grandad, do I want an Arsenal kit for Christmas?

I still have a lot of love for Leeds, but yeah, I think since then, Teddy must have about six Arsenal kits now. Wow. Yeah, so it's good. Thank you very much.

I'll be totally honest with you, I'm not really a football man per se, but I'm what we call an honorary gooner or Arsenal supporter. The reason for that is when I was growing up in my teens and I was working at my local pizza hut, all of my mates were Arsenal fans and the only reason we went to the pub, I went to play pool, hang out with my mates, but it was for them to watch Arsenal games. so i kind of became an honorary gooner as well so there we go cool so everybody's learned a little bit something about neil as well but at this point of the show what we like to do is go to our guest linkedin profile to kind of figure out like what was their story so with connor uh his linkedin profile will be in the show notes in the podcast if you scroll down on spotify or apple podcasts or if you're watching this on youtube you'll find it in the youtube description So with Connor's LinkedIn, if you want to connect with him, reach out to any of the topics that we've spoken about today, or perhaps pick his brain on things that he's gone through, feel free to reach out.

But Connor, if we go like way back in the day, you've had a colorful career working in different companies and obviously with industries as well. And if we look way back in the day, I think you've worked in the likes of retail, you've worked in like hospitality as well. but you've worked at super dry you've been a restaurant and bar manager you worked at radius you worked at friendly james who i'm familiar with in the world of recruitment you've worked at thrive q and most for the past year and a half you've worked down at willow as well so connor we'd love to know like what is your story dude like how did you get into sales where did it all begin and tell us more well me and my dad um was a sales director account director at bt for a long time And he actually met my mom when he used to work at Xerox.

The printer people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My dad always provided for myself and my sister. We used to go on family holidays all the time.

He had a nice house. He drove nice cars. I was thinking, well, that sounds like an interesting career. And he didn't go to university.

So I thought, let's see, how do I get into that? But before all that, like you saw, I started up Superdry at hospitality. I just passed my driving test. I would have been about 17 years old.

My dad was like, you've got a car, you need to run it now. So I became a car washer at the local pub, which isn't the most glamorous, but it pays it. Yeah, and it's funny now looking back, I was on like £5 an hour. That was literally just beer money and fuel money during the hours.

Then I turned 18 and then I became a barman, which was a lot more fun, I think. You get a bit more of a social side than being the head of the way in the kitchen. yeah but i enjoyed that and to be fair there's times when when you've had like a heavy day or every week or month in sales like when you work remotely all the time you don't get to have that sort of collaboration or just like you know team spirit go like socializing that and like when i was yeah i had some happy memories working at the bar restaurants i worked some weddings as well at slaters and then when i moved away to university i got a store temp job at super dry god that was a different experience of itself yeah tell us more mate what was what was different it was exciting and very interesting the interview process quite funny actually we had to do a styling case study we got paired up into it was like an assessment day for about 10 people they were going to hire two funny enough i actually got hired which is pretty cool i got paired with a girl who's doing fashion design it's a degree So I thought, I'm quite lucky that I've been paired with you.

So then I was like, you know, you do the styling and I'll present it. Like I can do presenting. I'm fine with that. And it worked really well.

We had to like, we had to staff like a 40 year old man. He was a dad and goes out and about and super dry. You can't know what their clothes are like. They are very much outdoorsy as well, but quite comfortable as well.

And then, so I got the job and then a couple of months in, Justin Bieber was on tour in Manchester at the time. Wow. Store locked out because he came into the store. No way.

Higher jacket, which is pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That time growing up, Bieber was obviously very big. And I was like, yeah, a bit fanboying.

I was like, yeah, that's Biebs. That's Biebs. And I was like, yeah. They bought this Idris Elba jacket, which was like 500 quid.

Nice jacket, to be honest. Then he walks out and they open the store again. But for about half an hour, 40 minutes, it was just him, a few of his guys that he had. And we were just like, best behavior.

Just abnormal. So how do you know? With a big celeb coming in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Biggest person in the world right now. But it was such a cool experience. And then unfortunately, because it was Christmas time. I also kind of got fired from that role because they had some uplifters in Trafford Centre.

The protocols that you got arced and do, I just instantly thought, there's this kid running out with a 400 quid bit of kit. This time I was chasing him. So I just ruppy tackled the guy. That's apparently not what you're meant to do.

Shock horror. I mean, I kind of got a well done for retrieving the stock. So you got it back? Got it back.

Yeah. a lot of trouble because he was like what are you doing you can't just yeah yeah customer i was not a customer it's a thief really yeah yeah no definitely mate i think that was like you said so you're working in that shop you're you're with your partner like you're doing like all the design element with them and then you get this massive celeb come in and like you said you had to act normal you know like you said this was like a temp sort of role but then seeing beebs and seeing a big celeb coming all right we need to act prim and proper and just as if he's nobody but like support the guy but they shut shut down the shop but then that's a bit sad like you know you showed your loyalty to the shop by chasing a thief and getting the stock back and they're like so what they just cut you uh i got a i got invited into a meeting like the day or so after like the next time i was on shift and like real manager of like the northwest came and someone from london came up and spoke to us and like yeah kind of like it's just that's not that's not okay oh What was going through your mind as a young kid of like, wait, but I just saved you like 400 pounds worth of gear.

I think I was 19 or 20 years old at the time. So yeah, it's about nine years ago now. I was just kind of like, I thought it's the right thing to do. If the beepers haven't gone off, the guys have clearly done it very well.

They've stole this. But you know, I'm doing my job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I only worked like 20 hours a week and it was really hard to get to because I lived in the city center.

for as a student and i had to go to travel center which i don't know if you know manchester that well neil it's really pain to get to travel center from the caesar i haven't been but funny enough i'm actually going to manchester in about two weeks for like some sales training bits so it's going to be because i've actually got family in manchester that i haven't spoken to in about 30 odd years um but yes i'll find out because i wanted to do a bit of shopping because i've been told like the christmas markets around manchester are kind of elite right yeah yeah yeah The Manchester market is unbelievable.

I'm actually going out with the kids next weekend. And then we've got our Christmas works due in Manchester, which I'm sure we'll end up at the markets after anyway. Yeah, the city centre is great. So I wish I kind of, in hindsight, you know, if I knew my bearings of Manchester before moving to the city for uni, I would have thought I'd jump the Arndale because then just one bus train to the city centre will get into the travel centre at five o 'clock.

During rush hour, it was a disaster. It was a good experience anyway. I mean, you know, I met Justin Bieber, so that's pretty cool. And then after finishing university, I was kind of like, well, what do I want to do?

I don't want to get into sales. I mean, I was scared shitless of answering the phone. I mean, if I had a home phone rang, it was like my auntie ringing or someone asking for my whole dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hey, yeah, yeah, okay. And they just put the phone down. And my whole dad would be like, oh, who rang? Oh, for God's sake.

I still want to take the message. And I was thinking, what the hell? And my dad was like, well, this is like sales. You've got to get married.

It must have been weird though, like having two parents that worked within that industry and then they're looking at their kid like, so what's going on? Yeah, surely it must be hereditary. You must get. Then it just, it was, yeah, an absolute car crash.

But then I got a job at UK Fuels Radius, which is what they all are. But actually it was under like their SO arm at the time, which is like a different brand, but it's all the same. group um and my first for the first few months i was like a sales coordinator really much just lead generation just calling a list of people to you how do you buy fuel do you have fuel cars blah blah and it'd be a bloody hairdresser it'd be a vet they don't fuel cars they're not out on the road all the time do you know what is so strange connor so um i can't mention their name but i've recently started working with a sales rep like i'm one -to -one coaching and they've gone through different sales roles and we caught up the other week and i said no so i've started working at a company again can't mention them um but i'm selling fuel cards And I need some help.

And I kind of said to them, I was like, this is not my world. I've not, I sell in tech. I help with software, but I've never done in fuel cards. And this person was saying to me, it's a completely different world.

So they're having to find businesses. And, you know, and she said to me, like, what advice would you give? And I'll just say, like, who are your main customers? She said, it can be anybody with a car.

I was like, okay, well that really knows it down. Right. But I said, it's more businesses. Right.

And she was like, yeah, but I had to kind of use a bit of chat GPT. And it was like, we look for cars that have fleets. Right. We have people that have their teams going out onto the road.

And I basically had to build a mini sales process and structure, but you've lived in that world. Could I just ask for somebody, she had sold software before. Now she said in this, what kind of tips would you give for that person that might be listening to this? That's enough for that.

I think it's definitely tenacity and instantly go after, like, what I would already tell my, if I started now, I was there for a good three or four years, so I knew, I learned from the guys that were doing it before me. Go after, like, application decisions on the Gov website. Everyone that's applied for a votes license, HTV license, because HTV, that takes a minimum of 200 litres of fuel every time. So that's 200, 300 quid every time they're filling up their HTV.

If you've got a fuel card and you can save them 20, 30 PLA, it's a no -brainer for them. You call them straight away. These are brand new businesses. They've not been called by everyone else already.

They may not have a fuel card. And you've got about 30 leads that come in every week that are new people. Ring, ring. And straight away, you get through to the owner because it's always either the owner or the transfer manager that you get hold of.

They're sometimes sole traders. Sometimes they might be limited businesses. But straight away, you're in there. And it's just so quick.

Like, Neil, how are you currently buying your fuel right now? If they say they get it delivered into their site, they're bunkering the site, okay, well, that's fine. We can't actually help you right now. But, Neil, do you ever find yourselves short of fuel on the way back?

Do you need to fill up sometimes? Oh, yeah, I need a credit card. Okay, well, this could help you save your money there. That's really the sort of track that I singrave into my team that I managed.

just your clue is your clue about two or three deals a day just by that but it was so price driven it's such like but it's just that's what it is like yeah But that would be what I'd say to the, if she's listening, definitely that. Love that, mate. So we've just stepped back in a bit of time and definitely my next coaching session with that person, I'm like, right, I've got some advice from you from somebody that actually did it and managed teams as well. So you was living that sales life and, you know, I was looking at your LinkedIn where you can see like you hit good, really like you overachieved on targets, mate, and you had some really impressive numbers and stats.

So would you say that was kind of like your first real taste of sales? yeah my first real taste of success like i mean the first three months where like you can see i was just doing lead generation i got really close with some of the guys i liked in top performers i'm still really good friends with now but they've gone to do different stuff as well and they were like god i can't do not call these people like they're setting you up to fail call logistic call haulage firms delivery dpd call that sort of stuff yeah yes it's like obviously yes that absolutely do it and again so they're all the accounts that had obviously kind of gone dry and that they won't use it anymore it's like if you want a quick win i want you in the big team now don't stay in there because i was on like 16 i think i was on 15 grand was my base salary about that and it's getting like no commission unless obviously i think it generated like 20 leads a month which was pretty easy to do but it was cut to like 250 quid but then i lived at home with my dad i had no commitment so that was fine that's enough beer money in a car.

I don't think I have people as close as I am there. But then when I, when I kind of, like you saw there, like it started to hit target, it was because we're just asking, like asked for advice from people that are doing it. I hate you all a lot. They were lovely people, but they were just kind of getting bums on seats.

And it was, it was a high attrition rate because they weren't being all told. Well, I luckily got told from my close friends, like you need to. go after these mate or you're not gonna do it and that was yeah like first real taste success like getting some nice commissioning like i was kind of getting like a grand to two grand commission every month and it was like what the hell this is mint like going on nice holidays and that i went to caribbean that year thought why not that's lovely yeah so you were kind of seeing the life that you saw mom and dad doing with like the nice cars and like okay connor's actually doing it cool so so then what happened i got Got promoted to become like a team lead, pod lead, which was interesting because very, I'm not going to say any names, but it was a very Wolf of Wall Street kind of ex -lads doing coke in the cars.

We had like our group chat that would be sharing KPIs and numbers. And then one lad would share a screenshot of what his dealer sent his offer for the week. So you can't share this and that. And I needed this pod and it was just so difficult to have that.

you know that sort of like when you get back back to business or this is not a work chat like this yeah don't care what you do outside of work don't do it during your lunch hours and that yeah it was it was dead difficult and it was during it was kind of i think that kind of that tailed off around the covid time during lockdown and at the time ted had just been born so my my eldest he was born december 2019 So then a few months later, obviously we went to lockdown. And I'd never worked from home before.

I'd never had that. Like, you know, I tried it for a bit. I was like, God, this is really hard. I was just at home with like Molly, who was on maternity leave.

We had Ted, who was four months old. And he just, you know, it's easy just to just sort of sit back and just chill, cuddle, and just be around and that. So I then did make a decision to work in the office. Like we made the office very much like, you know.

Purple. face and all that bubble and that it looked terrifying if you looked at it now it'd be like full -on like i forgot what was what was the word they used to call it quarantine it's like full face it looked vile everyone was in like bloody hazmat suits it was ridiculous but i just thought i couldn't do the cold call in and the call time and all that work at home because i just know i didn't have that space like we lived in a flat it was a lovely little space but it wasn't a work from home space it wasn't like it never needed to be that and then i then luckily got promoted because it just performance wise and just spoke to my manager i don't really want to leave this to you anymore i want to go in the field store from like you know go after fleets and like tender process and that which is quite cool you know so i got nice look i'll say nice pay rise it now looking back in tech it's not pay rise but it was good at the time especially yeah um got on the field doing a lot of face -to -face stuff which is quite interesting you know meeting transport managers at like garages truck shows and that kind of stuff and just being like you know neil you know we are but i know you've got you probably got a whole wallet full of fuel cards what are you actually using right now i'm using these they're offering me 98 .

2 for diesel that's a good price i was like it's not a very sustainable price though is it because right now fuel's costing That's like cost price. So they're not making any money on you using that. And the guy would be laughing like, I know Connor, but it's the game, isn't it? And it's like trying to understand the ways and understanding different stuff and then giving them a bit of extra value.

And it was great. And then I got to about, it was at the turn of the year. So in 2021, I think it would have been. I was thinking, I said to Mars, I've been doing this for like three or four years.

I think there's more. I've just. kind of burnt out at the fuel market no pun intended i'm just fucking burnt out and i just thought i'm i want to find something different but i don't know what to do and instead you haven't got sass really we haven't got software there's vodafone bet365 and fuel like they're the three big employers they pay good money but it's not like i just i wanted to do something different and then i made the resale to a friend of mine who's now actually lives in dubai He was in recruitment and introduced me into, he was like, well, yeah, you do sales.

Like this is like sales recruitment. But I had to do the candidate side first, which I really didn't enjoy. And just, just like to pause you there. So like, you know, you had been living that life, like selling the fuel cards.

You had gone up to like managing a pod. within like sales leadership right and then you had this world of covid and the pandemic coming about you've just had your first child like you said hazmat's in the office like you couldn't really do that because the reason i bring this up is my last guest that we came on we started speaking about the world of covid and that person had literally like done other jobs and then they like went for interviews got the job and then all of a sudden they went into lockdown and they got furloughed like for a long period of time and it like working in the world of sales like my experience was like i was a face -to -face sales trainer and then it wasn't face -to -face anymore and i had to turn into remote and that's how i launched the podcast and all this like we had to adapt and change but like you went through an element of reflection of you had a bit of a breathing moment and think is this where i want to be for the rest of my life right and then you panned into recruit because i've met a lot of people that work in tech that came from recruitment and then went into tech sales but you said a key point here said you were on the candidate side and you didn't really like that but for the listeners that aren't aware of the world of recruitment what does that mean like the candidate side yeah yeah absolutely so that's more like the placement side of things doing the head -on thing dealing with like offering that giving the offers out setting up them interviews and really just getting them excited for the role and i'm not sure about some of these listeners i've definitely won before like your candidates or the full picture oh yeah i'm only speaking to you i've only got one interview with you xyzm the back burner and that's totally fine but it's so great in it you uh you bash your head against the wall a couple times for it but you know it's still when i was able to hit my number i was able to then do the bd side really enjoyed it when i interviewed into recruitment i remember my manager at the time james he was saying like when he was hiring me my only concern is you've done sales for a long time bad habits but you also obviously got that you want to do the bd side we don't do that here just yet we want to make sure you get the recruitment before doing the bd which some ways i kind of get some ways also i find it a bit strange that kind of bd's that burner but it then gave me that exposure as well and whilst bd i loved it It was so much more fun.

And what opened my eyes during that time at Find the James was these people I'm putting roles in, I was doing the same role I'm placing in fuel, but their salaries were like double. And I was like, hey, look at that. Like, why am I not doing that? Like, how am I going to get a SaaS software tech role right now?

Like, you know, we used to commute five days a week to Manchester. on like a very low salary. It was costing us loads of fuel. But Molly knew I wanted to do something different because it kind of went back to, like when Ted's like growing up, what does your dad do?

Oh, he sells fuel. That was kind of what I thought. That was your thought? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see it, I see it, I hear it, yeah.

What did we say to his nursery lady? She was like, oh, that's nice. And nothing against it because it was a really good role and it's taught me a lot. So when I finally got on my feet and there was a company I was hiring for, Thrive.

Placed a couple of SDRs in there. They then opened an office in Manchester. I actually got an interview from one of your old guests, Holly. Holly Allen.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sales at the time. And so she interviewed me.

Give me a bit of a grill in like time. I don't think you understand what the SDR role is because I kind of went in. Really? I was like, I mean, I can do it.

It's not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've done it for like four years, not as an SDR. I did full sales cycle, but.

Then again, it wasn't tech. So then I went back and looked at myself and thought, how about in that? That's such a dick. Also, I walked out and kind of got the job ready.

Like, what an idiot. So I obviously didn't get it. And then stuck at recruitment again for a couple more months. And then I landed it.

She actually then, I think she went to something different, did something different, became like an AE somewhere. And a new head of sales came in. And we just clicked like that. And if you see our LinkedIn.

He was at the SGR Awards that we went to at Sales Conference a couple of years ago. Yeah. Really good, really great guy. I learned a lot of things from him as well.

Things, ways of pausing in cold calls, asking just deep diving questions. Like we started, it was all about vanity bookings, just getting shit loads of meetings. But wow, why are they not attending? Why not qualify?

Because you're booking shit. So then it was like having better conversations and we instantly just saw such a shift. Things were qualifying, things were closing. It was like, when I got that first close, one is a sass sale.

I was like, fuck, it's mint. It was like, commission came in. I was like, but yeah, this is nice. And if I can, if I can pause you there, cause there's so many things kind of that I want to unpack there, if that's all right with you.

So like, like on that stint of recruitment, so obviously he's candidate side, then he's going into BD side. And you're doing really well in that. And you're seeing like the earning potential was double like what you was earning with fuel cards, right? So you started seeing this trajectory of extra cash coming on top, right?

And I can remember myself of when I went from telesales, when I was working at RBO, it was like 18K a year. And then I went into my first tech role and like the base was 45 K. I was like, bloody hell, bro. Like what the hell?

And I thought at that point that this was a scam company and this isn't real. And like, this is going to end at some point soon, bro. But like, yeah, you're going through those different earning levels. But I think what the cool thing is that you're experiencing it because some people may just come out of union, just jump straight into it and they haven't got anything to benchmark it against.

Right. And that's why a lot of people like, um, I used to teach my SEOs financial intelligence. Like when you start getting these big bumps in your paycheck, like what could you be doing with your money? Cause like same way with me, I worked in London, Covent Garden.

I was spending money every lunch break, bro. I was like going to like, you know, Massimo DiMutti and I was just like buying just these clothes and everything. But then somebody said, no, like. Put something in your pension, put something like, you know, saving, like maybe invest into something.

So that was a key thing for me. But you said something that really intrigued me was you were placing candidates in these SaaS companies. And you were then asking yourself, and as Molly said, you want to do something different. Why aren't you going for those sort of jobs?

And I have met a lot of, I think I had a guest on this show once who used to work for Prime. I think they do like recruitment as well. And then she was placing candidates and she did like an SDR assessment day. um and then she said to herself why am i not doing that thing so again before we move on to the next topic if the recruiter is listening to this podcast and they're thinking about taking the jump of going into tech what advice would you give to them i'd say i'd tell them to seriously consider it like think about you know the companies you've been placing candidates for you get to tell them yeah you tell your candidates do the due diligence like check like what they're doing what the product is and that kind of stuff and then really just throw yourself in and maybe have a few test interviews with people that you know i'm not about time wasting but there's gonna be some roles where you can hit easy upon linkedin but you may get conversation it's also sometimes good to help just like kind of like role play it you know you're never going to get that one interview one hit wonder and if you do fair play you must be a great candidate yeah and that's great for you but it's good to kind of have that and like really just think about it.

And then if it doesn't pan out, you know, like it's, you know, you never know unless you don't know. Just jump straight in. Like, you know, I just turned 29 a couple of weeks ago and I'm glad I've had some of the, some of the experience in the past and then like look back on, I would just obviously dive into it, thrive, like some mistakes that have happened, but again, they actually kind of shape you and make you a bit better anyway. So yeah, I just, I'm just going for it.

thank you so much for sharing and that's really juicy info because again i've got i let you know not every now and then but sometimes i get people hit me in dms when they've worked in the world of recruitment and they're thinking about going because they can see the earning potential but obviously i think in the world of recruitment what you're selling is candidates or you're selling companies candidates but now you're selling a product and a service to like decision makers so it's you're kind of doing the same thing but you're selling something different right but it's kind of a similar process um but then as you mentioned like uh you like went for an initial chat with holly allen and she said nah not happening bro you haven't got this so like you took a step back which is fine but then you went for it again then you met that person um that you know you learned a lot from and you came into this company and you thrived at thrive and like looking at it your linkedin it says voted number two uk sdr in 2023 at the sales confidence awards yeah if you're right here there we go that's what i love to see man and it says on your linkedin you generated 514k of qualified pipeline awesome source so like what was it and and you said like you were booking shit but then you like double down on focusing on the quality conversation so what was that transformation like because you know as a former manager i used to say to my teams like you know it used to sound contradictory but i don't give a shit about booking meetings But I want you booking meetings that convert into closed ops and one deals.

That's what I'm looking for. So, you know, if we've got that newbie SDR that's booking high volume and perhaps things aren't converting as much, like what did you learn and how did you get that mind shift, bro? Well, I think what happened was when I brought out, when I joined, I joined with another lad at another SDR during a couple of weeks after we did. So about three of us started together.

And Faisal's first task was really like to improve the output of the SDRs. How many meetings are they booking? So straight away it became like, I'd be calling you, you'd be like, Con, I can't really speak right now, but I can speak maybe on the 28th of Jan. Okay, great.

Yeah, I'll put a placeholder in. That's not a meeting. But like we'd shout on the Slack, shout on the WhatsApp, meeting bought, boom. It's like, great, but it's not a meeting.

You can have a placeholder there and reach out closer too. The attitude was more about, let's just get holders in. Let's get holders in. Got holders at HelloFresh.

So all that great businesses, but they're not in buying mode at all. There's no real pain there, I think. So I started to double down on quantifying the pain and actually qualifying these leads as if they were inbound. So you'd want to give the aid up.

You'd want to sit at a meeting. Instead of the meshing, are they going to join? Is this worth my time? You don't want a bad relationship with the AEs.

it became really good where you get a shout out so we had hello fresh came from a whatsapp uh from a linkedin voice note and then yeah it was great and like she came out like oh god i'm actually about to start looking at platforms now to replace you with who we look to leave but she wasn't even on my radar like what is thrive um we went down to the final three but i think um we kind of missed out but it's still it still felt pretty cool anyway to even get it that far yeah But then, you know, fast forward a bit, it became really good and a lot of things were going really well.

And then, like you mentioned, I came second in the sales confidence awards, which was pretty cool. It was just completely out of the blue. I'd never even heard of sales confidence before you can go into that. I was like, I got a message from Faisal the day before my birthday.

Connor, we're going to London next Wednesday. I was like, oh, are we? Yeah, you've been nominated for an award. I've got your train, got your ticket.

Boom. Okay. And then won it. And then a couple of weeks later, actually about a month later, I made a catastrophic error.

It was bad. I used to have a really bad relationship with alcohol, very bad. I used to think that was my personality. I used to think I need this to be this guy.

And I went way too far and said some very offensive derogative, even slightly. Yeah, I think I even said a few racial slurs. Singing, rapping or whatever. A lot of content behind it, but it got quite aggressive and quite nasty.

It said it in front of the CEO, the founders, a lot of people. A lot of people heard. A lot of people were disgusted. I was disgusted when I found out in the morning what happened.

I was like that blackout drunk and I just got kicked out of the party and went back to the hotel room. In the morning, woke up, it was so hard, as you can imagine. call from Faisal oh hey how you feeling I was like I feel a bit rough mate I'm on the way into the office he was like yeah let's let's not do that then we got well the fear must have been going through you bro beer fear was awful and then yeah then it I got on a we got on a zoom call and then he just laid out to me he was like I've got to fire you mate I've got to cut you off I was like he was like telling he was relaying everything that happened it didn't stick to my stomach.

It was about a week before Christmas. So it couldn't have been a worse time. But yeah, it hit hard. And obviously I didn't want to tell Molly, my fiancee, didn't want to have that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was all, how was the Christmas do? How was it? I was like, yeah, it was all right.

And I just like, I just played it down. And obviously I had to hide the fact that I was shipping my laptop back to the headquarters. oh wow where's your laptop going they gave us a stupid excuse i'll again do one so it's getting replaced and that was that was a horrible horrible time and it was hard very hard and then i had a good couple months where i was like in limbo really like what am i doing like what well i'm not working right now i've got some good savings in a minute but i need to do something i then come clean to molly about a month or so later because she was like you've not been to that the office like i told her she was she was obviously really really upset very angry as well as you can imagine and then she just said like you need to get something straight away so not sure i don't know if you know the market neil when it's like january february time everyone's looking for a job or everyone's looking for strs it's either one or the other it's not both um and then i luckily landed on my feet acute which um was kind of a lifesaver it was a remote role str and just doing high volume outbound So Connor, thank you very much for sharing.

And that could have been, you know, I can imagine it was a very scary point for you, you know, with the alcohol, not being able to remember having a blackout moment, having that chat with Faisal the next day. And then, you know, you're a dad and you've got a partner and a kid to look after and they're telling you you're done and the laptop's being shit and you're having to hide that. for an element, right? And like, again, for full transparency, like we're not all angels, right?

And I had a very similar experience once at a software company. I'm not going to mention names or go too much, but the same thing sort of happened to me where, you know, I feel very guilty for this and this is a reason I'm bringing it up today as well. So thank you for sharing and helping me come out with this. But I was working for a software company and there was like a party that we all had one place on an offsite.

And when I drink, Well, when I did drink and this comes stems from my music days, right? I would drink to excess because as an MC and a rapper, when I used to go do gigs, I would get free alcohol and I could drink the equivalent of four people's worth of alcohol and be totally fine and perform and everything like that. when it came to the world of sales and working in a professional setting I had to be very well I wasn't mindful and I could I would drink the same amount thinking yeah you know if I can do it here I can do it here but apparently there was this one incident where we was at the staff party on the off site and there was another member of the team where either I was trying to flirt with them but they had a partner and apparently I became very dismissive and rude to both that person and the partner and I remember having the drink with everyone like cheering and then everything went black.

And then I woke up in the room as the party was going on, sitting on a chair slumped and just like going to myself like, where am I? So what had happened was I was at the party I was drinking. From the moment of drinking, I then blacked out and didn't remember nothing. And I was still at the party when I woke up like an hour or two later.

I remember getting up, just feeling a bit more refreshed and then going around people and everybody just gave me the dirtiest look I'd ever seen. And I was kind of like, what's your problem? you know but kind of the response to that was like no what is your problem i think you need to go home and i was like anyway went back to the hotel room and then woke up the next morning and then my vp came to me and said bro we need to have a chat and i was just like well he says do you remember what you said to such and such and i was just like no and when it was relayed back to me i was like that's not me i don't do that yeah but obviously i did right and i you know And they kind of said to me, like, we can just squash this and just like, forget about it now.

But when we get back, you know, we need to have a bit of a chat and you need to be very careful. And at that point I asked them, like the VP, can I talk to those two individuals? Right. They didn't want to talk to me, which is understandable.

Right. But later down the line, like a week or two later, they allowed me to sit down with them both. And I profusely apologized for my behavior. And the fact that I tried to chat somebody up and then cuss their partner in front of them, bro, Neil, what the hell were you doing, man?

But from that point on, you know, I'm very lucky they did forgive me and they were very understanding. And it was a stark awakening for me that like, bro, you could lose your livelihood because of this shit. So that's where I made, from many years ago, I've made a conscious effort that I don't drink with work people. right from that lesson it scared the bejesus out of me that i would never do it again so when i have been you know to team meetings or off sites or like stuff with you know clients they're like no what do you want to drink i'm like i don't i don't drink but this year you know i'm almost coming up to a year of being sober and not having any alcohol whatsoever it wasn't the sober wasn't because of that thing the sober thing was because i was reflecting on life and it just didn't do nothing for me so i just i don't like drinking anymore but that incident is what scarred me bro and that's why i wouldn't because even in my music days i would have those examples told back to me the next morning and it's like you said a magic word the beer fear i've never heard that one i've heard the heebie -jeebies and like the sunday scaries or the monday morning like you know but yeah i you know but it happens right and it's not excusable and again i'm very sorry and if those people ever listen to this like That was a different Neil.

That was in my early thirties. Right. But you said you had a saving grace, which was Q. Yeah.

Which helped you out. Right. My saving grace was they forgave me. And, you know, I went on to my next client after that.

But like, how did Q come to the rescue? How did it queue up in your life? You actually did because, you know, like I mentioned, it was such a bad ending at Thrive. But then Josh, our CSO, he reached out to me and was like, you know, Connor, you're a fucking sick SDR.

Like you're a really good SDR. I hate that we've had to do this. And obviously, that's how I was really apologetic and just fucking hating myself. I'm like, that's not me.

I'm not like that. I can have my books and that, but I never mean anything. He was like, these guys are hiring. He was like, I want to put you forward for this guy.

They're one of the competitors at Thrive. They were growing an SDR team, but they wanted to be in London two minutes a week, so it didn't work out. But then he was connected with a guy that was my then CEO at Q. It was like, speak to this guy.

And obviously I had a really good conversation with him and it looked like it really just, in sync, it went really well. Yeah, I enjoyed my time at Q. It was fully remote. We had an SDR team all across the UK.

We had three SDRs. But the platform itself, you know, I don't want to slam it. It just probably wasn't ready for the UK market. It was doing great in South Africa.

During that time, I was able to kind of get my mojo back in sales. I felt more confident again. Went away with Molly and the kids. i was able to just like you know felt more like myself again as a confident sales again being a bit more just being a bit more deliberate as well i didn't go for drinks with them like we met in london a couple times at q did exactly what you did it seems just didn't drink i was like i've driven to the train station i don't want to i don't have a beer you know oh yeah that's fine not a problem but actually i was fucking shitting it that i'm i just don't know when to stop because i mean i love a pint I mean, I've kind of gone off my love of beers over the last sort of probably six months.

That's when it snapped in. But realistically, I've just, I've always enjoyed a good pipe. But then, you know, I was kind of loving, I've been at Cube for about six months. I was doing really well, but we were targeted differently there.

It was just targeted on meetings attended. So you get 50 quid a meeting attended. So you could make about 500 quid minimum commission every month if you book in. you know more than 10 meetings that's that which you know it's good money but you want to be you feel like you want to be a bit more involved in the sales process in the sales cycle like how many of these closing i don't care i've got my commission so it's yeah wash my hands and see you later um then jazz my ex head of sales at willow reached out to me i want to grow an outbound team we briefly met the sales confidence awards and again sure i was drunk at that i don't remember meeting her that night it was me um good and we obviously were local and then so I had a chat with her it was really good and it was back in the HR talent space that I've been selling into at Thrive I was like yeah this is this seems good went in built out the function which has been really good really exciting and got some quick success like we met with Heineken Chelsea FC not a Chelsea fan but it's still pretty good getting a football team what would you football?

And stuff like that was like, okay, wheels of motion here. They'd never heard about it before. And our other founder, Woody, was a big fan, enjoying getting these big logos in front, like Willow in front of that. And then at the end of the year, we grew the team.

So now I have three lads reporting to me. It was like BDR manager, which felt really cool. During that whole time between September to December, I'd not had a drink with them at all. I even decided to leave the Christmas party early last December.

I did the meeting and I just fucked off. It was booked on Ted's birthday too, so I was going to go for a piss up on Ted's birthday. So I just went, I came for a team meeting, showed my face and just went. They were a bit upset, a bit confused.

Oh, do you not want to party with us? Honestly, you don't know why, but they do know now why, because we had a skiing trip in March. which is an unbelievable experience and i was on a very long chairlift um with our ceo just me and him when this chairlift felt like an eternity and it just fucking went on and yeah the way to know is like i don't know you know it's been it's good seeing you've like kind of let your hair down there's like this week like you know obviously you know it was shame we didn't see it because there's party that much because he's based in glasgow i just seem like i've got a really bad relationship with alcohol and work I didn't want to fuck up my role here, bringing the old self out.

I've got self -control, but I just didn't want to put myself in that scenario again. Fucking hell. I was able to let my head out of a few beers at the apres, which was good. It felt nice.

But then skiing down the mountain at the end of the day, fucking very odd. And then after that trip, it kind of went a bit shit. My leadership style was very questionable. I was very much more poly with them than...

about really hot on KPIs and that kind of stuff because I hated being micromanaging my back in the day. Yeah. Then I was like, hang on. I'm well ahead doing my meetings, but the team are, fuck, I need to now kind of reverse back and not be the pal, not be the mates, which is very difficult.

And then unfortunately we dismantled the BDR team. I felt really guilty for it. It took a couple of weeks where I felt really... really down and really depressed about it i think now hey i've not led these guys right i've failed these guys one lad bless him he got promoted to 80 so that was a that was a kind of silver lining of that but with the two lads i felt like such just a dick like i could have helped you guys more or for your case and then you know the last six months have been a bit different and now we're here so it's been a it's been an exciting journey deal but it's been a fucking weird one at times as well And I love the honesty, Conan.

Thank you so much for being honest and sharing these insights because I think there are a couple of sections that I would love to bring into the episode today and if you're comfortable to do so. But I'm going to preface this by saying everybody has a choice in what they do and this isn't coming off as like a preach. This is just coming from a place of experience, right? And talking about alcohol, substances within the world and ecosystem cells because I know it happens, right?

Um, but it's not something I've really discussed, um, openly before on this show, but I do think it is something to bring into just like, not so much as a warning, but something to be mindful of. Right. If I like kind of see it from my perspective as to what I've seen over the years, like in the last decade and a half, um, because let me put it to you this way, dude, when you were earning like that 18 K. and then you're going through different waves and hitting higher ceilings of earning, it brings you into different social circles and the way that people celebrate within those circles.

And I saw that, you know, like going from telesales to working in my startup, like when we smashed the quarter or, you know, smashed the year, I had our VP or a Vermeer bringing out bottles of Dom Perignon at like 12 o 'clock in the afternoon on a Friday, like pouring everybody a glass. And for me back then when Neil was drinking, Neil had this rule of you don't drink or do anything until the sun's gone down. In other words, you've done your job and responsibilities. You can do that before bed.

So that was, but it was like, if you didn't do it, you felt like an outsider to it. And then, you know, many a time when I was working as that BDR role, my team said like, Neil, you need to come out with us to socialize. And I lived with my parents at that point. Right.

And they're God fearing Muslim people that don't drink. Right. But. For me, it was a little bit fearful because like, you know, I'd finish work at five and then we'd go into Covent Garden where we'd go for a restaurant and then you'd see like a Stella come out.

Then you'd see more beers coming out and then it turned into a JD. And there were many times that I had many funny like experiences of getting fucked up with them, but it felt like I had to do it. And if I was the guy that said, oh, I need to go home because, you know, I need to be home by a certain time and I've got work in the morning, I've got leads to call. No, man, you need to like socialize.

There was this pressure to socialize. And I think over the years, like going into other companies where I would see, you know, some people taking substances, it would happen. And when, I'm not saying I'm an angel here, right? I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not an angel.

But seeing some people getting caught up in that shit, like they would always want to go out for drinks. They'd always want to go to the toilet. They'd always want to do this. And, you know, sometimes I was privy to some of that sort of stuff.

I'm not going to lie. But sometimes when I... come in as a coach or as when I was a manager and I'd see these new people that come out of uni or they'd work in a different industry and coming into tech and they felt that pressure that they had to be part of the party party and when I see people like going out for drinks and stuff like that there's a part of Neil that's like bro I don't want to go down that road because I've been there and I know it goes but at the same time I can't be too preachy preachy to people you know but I think the other thing that I want to bring in is because as mentioned I've been nearly sober for a year and when i say sober i'm not saying i had a problem with alcohol i wasn't an alcoholic i just made a choice of i don't want to drink alcohol anymore somebody on my linkedin that i was prospecting the other day they're like a head of sales uh said are you looking for any coaching he came i said no we're all cool on coaching but he did say i've been seeing your linkedin post about your sobriety journey and i just wanted to say well done mate and i was oh cool thank you very much appreciate it but he then kind of said he said um He said, I've been five years sober myself, Neil, and drink always used to take me to substances and it cost me my family, almost cost me my career.

But I just wanted to say, keep going, mate. And that kind of touched me. And I was like, yeah. And I think it's one of those things that's a taboo in sales.

Like it happens, but we don't open, obviously we're not going to talk about on LinkedIn. You know, we're not going to put out a post and stuff like that, but. I wanted to ask you from your point of view, like you've been through experiences, you've had the fuck ups, we've both had the fuck ups, but what kind of like advice would you give to that newbie that's coming to sales where, you know, they're asked to go out on the Friday after work or, you know, they're privy to like being brought into the inner sanctum circles.

Any advice for them, dude? It's a difficult one, isn't it? Like you want to, like when you join a business, depending on where you are in your career or where you are in like your personal self, you can... about joining and fitting in so you don't want to be the outsider but also then you feel like you're probably told on you by people above you it's not what you know it's who you know yeah i want to be in that circle i want to be around them people but then i don't want to fucking do go to the bathroom and have keys of beak i don't want to do that absolutely but then i don't also want to be looked at oh yeah you're not boring you still work you're not play it's a difficult thing to be i think it's more just being confident in yourself You know, I'm not boring.

I just, oh, I've had two. I don't have another one. I'm driving. That's sound.

I'm an alcohol -free one. They don't have to see it. So many times I've just ordered lemonade. Oh, it's a vodka mixer.

So they're not going to analyze it. Just a lemonade and a straight blast. They don't check. But it's so difficult.

I think it depends literally that way. You just ask Daniel where they are in their career. 18 to 21 it's so difficult you're like you know i'm 29 now if someone asks to go for a pint i'm not feeling it well yeah i'll call the pub with you if you want to chat yeah yeah then i'll have to listen to you right well i'm not yeah yeah and thank thank you for the advice and i agree with you like um i've kind of learned this in recent years well um Whereas before when somebody said, oh, do you want to go for a drink?

I said, oh, I'm not drinking today or, you know, oh, I've got something tomorrow like that. What that implies to people is that it's like an objection handling sort of thing. You hit with the objection and they're trying to get you and convince you to go the other way. But I've learned a way to shut down the conversation is I don't drink.

And they're like, okay. And it kind of stops them there and then versus, oh, I'm not drinking today. I don't drink cuts the conversation. And that's helped me a lot.

And I think what's really surprising for me is with going on this sobriety journey, I've now got to the point where just drink doesn't even come to my head. Like I have no need or want to go to a pub or, and I say, and a lot of my friends, there are two sides of this. Like some friends are like. oh Neil do you want to come to the pub but are you okay with that because I know you're on your sober journey and I'm like no bro I'm cool I can go to a pub and not have a drink it's fine but I appreciate where that's coming from then the other side of the side of this is that they I've got others like oh Neil mate almost yeah like well done but you know it's almost Christmas bro like let's go to the pub like you're gonna have a cheeky drink there and I'm just like no I don't drink but trying to convince me to drink and I'm like no and it's that pressure but like you said being confident in yourself to kind of say no.

And I think the whole thing of fitting in and like when you're younger, because I've seen it like when I've worked with different teams and there are younger SDRs in their early 20s and they've had a couple of drinks on a team outing and I see that glazed look on their eyes and I'm like, yeah, I know where you are, bro. But I've kind of got to this thing where I can go to an event and if people are drinking, I'm not uncomfortable with it. But the moment I see the glaze over that person's eye, I say to myself, it's time for me to go home.

because sometimes here's the other thing where we both have said oh that's not me when we're told about those drunk experiences actually that is it's our subconscious that doesn't come out and where our normal face and mind keeps that side of ourselves not for the general public but what i don't like is when somebody's had a drink and they become cocky and confidence and they really tell you about why they don't like you and i've been in those scenarios yeah um so if we get on at work and you get a bit wasted and you tell me how much of a mug and you don't like the way i do i'd rather not hear that so that's a signal to me that when i see a glazed eye or i hear a slur and especially something that icks me out is when people drink red wine you can see their teeth go a different color And you see it on their lips and I'm like, yeah, bro, breath reeks.

I'm going home. Lovely to see you. I hope everybody has a good time. And then normally what I'd find is when I'd go back home and you come back online the next day, you get such and such was messed up.

I'm so glad I'm not that person. But thank you for helping me open up this conversation. And for anybody out there, if you've gone through these sorts of experiences, if you want to reach out, ask for tips or anything like that. Again, this isn't preaching.

It's just experiences of fucking up. and sharing it but the other side that i wanted to ask was you know you was coming back into the world of selling towards hr and you're at willow and you know you're getting help from jazz a question that i would love to ask you and this is coming from a place of somebody who's a sales coach and a sales trainer so historically i used to work with recruiters to build str teams and you're somebody that's built an str team and i used to get a little bit annoyed with recruiters when My VP of sales would say, Neil, you need to get X amount of headcount, a black call.

And he says, you need to work with a recruiter. And the recruiter could find the SDR candidates, but they could never find the DNA or they could never explain the role to the SDR because that recruiter doesn't work in that world. And similarly with HR, when we was trying to get a candidate signed, they were like, so why are you offering this commission, that commission? And I kind of came to this conclusion of you're the recruiter, but you don't really know what it is to be the SDR day to day.

And the HR person, when we're trying to get this contract signed, you don't understand like the MBOs, the commercials, the KPIs and how it's all built. They don't have like the context because they work in their respective departments. And I had this one example where I was trying to hire like for three months, I was trying to hire and build out a team in Amsterdam. and the head of sales just kept rejecting every candidate i put forward but they kept accepting everybody that the recruiter put forward and the people that got hired because of the recruit and the head of sales liking eventually got fired out of probation because they just couldn't perform but the people that i hired somehow passed probation and got through so where am i getting to at this point is what advice would you give to like my advice would be to hr recruiters sit down with that head of sales development like see what it is like for a day as an SDR, like get a bit of context.

Here's an SDR playbook. This is how they work. This is how they pass vibration. What advice would you give to maybe the HR and like the recruiters out there?

Cause you've been the recruiter and you've gone into SDR life. What would you say to them? I think literally just said that, you know, like just spend a day saying a few hours, different times a day, what the SDR lead does, what the SDRs do. Like some is so different, like some SDRs, like some teams are wrong.

tailored messaging very heavy email heavy linkedin it will do calls as well i've always run the preset just cold call like i'm very i don't want to do loads of emails to be honest yeah we get a few people in speaking to our sales team a lot lately and they've been asking me i can't look to your hubspot you don't send a lot of emails do you but you do all so i'm like yeah correct because my first sales manager when i worked back at radius said you don't sell an email I wrote to that prospect.

He spoke to X haulage. Yeah. He's responding to my email. They just be like, so you haven't done.

And it's the whole office. It just laugh and be like, fuck. Okay. Yeah.

And I've just kind of, I've taken that small bit of grilling, but quite useful hell. And just using that. It's so true. Just get on the phone.

I'm not discrediting emails. There's definitely some good emails out there, but for me, I've just never really bothered. So feedback to give to these recruiters and HR people is, yeah, understand what they're doing, what are their day -to -day. And you can ask them straight on the phone, like, Neil, appreciate you looking for this role.

You could be a good fit. What's your opinion on co -pulling? How many would you say you'd do in a day? Oh, I'd do about 50 a day.

Okay, looking at that in your eyes, the team are doing probably 80 plus. Some days it might be less. They've got a lot of meetings on. is that too much for yourself or would you rather be doing elsewhere?

Actually, I like doing a lot of emails. Okay, that's great. You might be a good fit for something else. Probably not for what I'm doing here.

And that's really just understanding because there's not one shape fits all. There isn't for SDRing. I mentioned Holly already and there's some great guys on LinkedIn that they get so much work from LinkedIn leads and emails they do. Fair play to them.

I've all got my meetings. I've got seven this week in a short week all from Cold Balls. just enjoy doing that it's just easier so yeah that'd be my feed that'd be my advice if it's sort of hidden in there just call yeah yeah i love it and think and you're right there isn't a one -size -fits -all and everybody has different ways to success like for me cold calling isn't my thing right i hosted a power hour helping sdrs and i help people with scripts and all the stuff like but my favorite channel is linkedin dms and videos and voice notes and funny enough i taught Holly Helen, how to do videos and voice notes.

And, you know, she's been successful in it. But I think another thing to add on for any HR personas or recruiters that are locked in for today's show, something that really helped us when I was trying to hire that team is I created what we called an open day. So with the recruiters, we found a whole bunch of like people on LinkedIn that could be the potential role. And we invited them to an open day.

And most open days that I went to Connor were just selling about the company. and what they do and here's your opportunity to work with us and build your career but what I actually did was 20 % of the open day was that why does this company exist what's the story behind it but then I gave them like a 101 and what is SDR life about so I said you know coming into an SDR this is what it means to be an SDR here's an outbound here's an inbound This is typically the way that they reach out to people through prospecting, emailing, what normally happens after the first 12 months of being an SDR.

And then saying, you know, there are four different roles you could go in after. You could be an AE, you go into CS, you can go into marketing, you can go into product. And then I kind of gave a, like my story of, you know, 10, 15 years of working in tech sales and all the different jobs I've been in. And here's the funniest thing.

Our recruit in the head of sales tried three months to hire, got nobody. Within that open day, I hired seven people. And all of them stayed and passed their probation. So I think, but here was the opportunity that we got the recruiter in.

And at the end of the day, and love to Rose, that recruiter that I worked with, we've got a really strong relationship. She just said, I didn't know SDR did all this shit. I just thought they booked meetings. It was that preconception of what is an SDR.

And I think having that bit of knowledge then. helps them hire and find the right people for that role once you know what that job entails and it was the same way with my sdrs rose rose's opinions probably similar to mine when i walked into that interview with thrive first yeah i fucking yeah what the role is it's not that hard yeah it will like well i think like there's a lot more to it And then just booking meetings. Yeah, yeah. But I think the other side was, you know, the point that I made with my SCRs when I was a manager, the first week of onboarding was not learning about our products and not watching demos and not sitting with salespeople.

The task was they actually had to go meet the head of every department in our company from sales, customer success, marketing, engineering. And what I tasked them to do is every time they met with a leader to ask them what was their story. why what is the department's goals and how does that department work with sales and what's the relationship like and it did two things one it gave a little bit of inspiration to the SDR because I was actually doing a dad thing of you could have your career there if you like the sound of that it was giving a little bit of inspiration but secondly it built a relationship because some SDRs or sales people come in they just talk to sales people and they just stay in the bubble But, you know, to really be successful in sales or in companies is to be able to talk into different departments and have those relationships because those people are going to help you out with deals.

You know, like what is it going to be looking like once they sign the order? What does the customer success onboarding look like? Right. Or with marketing, what campaigns can we do to build pipe and all of this stuff?

I'm going on a ramp because one of my biggest blockers are HR and sometimes recruiters when I'm trying to come in to deals. So this is coming from a bit of a selfish point. But this has been a beautiful chapter. I've learned a hell of a lot.

You've helped us share a lot of good insights and learnings for people out there. So thank you so much for coming on board. And the question that I'd like to ask is, you know, if you could go back to that young guy that was working in Superdrive before he stopped the thief, right? And he's about to embark on this career of sales.

Stop the thief now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What three bits of advice would you give to that young Conor Grimes? First bit would be...

ask as many questions like you know i said i went to that first str interview like i already knew everything like you don't you don't know anything research man and again like and it also goes back to when i was a radius like until i spoke to the guys that i was become friends with i would have carried on fucking ringing hairdressers and pet shops trying to get so it'd be that just asking questions of building their relationships the second one 100 would be don't get into that place again with like the alcohol 100 % it's not don't drink it's more just no and your limits very self -aware like yeah that was a horrible experience and yeah it's cost some friendships it has and then the third one I think would be don't don't say don't hear all the noise that you see on like LinkedIn like I commented on a post yesterday actually about like you know move they don't always have like a linear career it doesn't never happens like that anymore like you have to try different things if things don't work out don't hide away from it it's like it's a learning experience i just keep you know you're gonna get to that north star wherever it is and like yeah for me back in the day i thought it was because i was i didn't want ted to go and tell all these friends at school our dad sells fuel i now it's not that sells tech like it's not that much fun so they might might just also i just call people and just tell so my youngest just thinks it's Daddy just phones people all the time, which is great.

But yeah, it's more just like, you know, if you enjoy what you're doing and passionate about it, like for me, I'm passionate about cold calling outbound. I just do that. Love it. Thank you so much, Connor.

Great lessons and nuggets of wisdom there. And are there any shout outs or kudos that you'd like to give out on today's show? Yeah, I've got quite a few. Big shout outs to all my friends, my close people that I work with, you know, Ed and George, the lads at Willow, they've just hit target again.

Josh, lad of promote to AE. a while three lads are doing really well jazz x head sales woody um and even yeah my old managers dunning carl from radius back in the day and feisel as well even though i appreciate our relationship kind of filtered because of my thrive issue so a lot of respect the guy has told me a lot my bro thank you very much and a big thank you to all of our listeners and watchers today for joining us on connor's chapter on the sdr disco cool show and what i'm also going to say is with a couple of the topics that we've spoken about today if if it has you know touched you in a certain way or perhaps got you thinking about things i'm going to be putting some links for support on some of the topics that we've discussed today within the show so feel free to check them out as well But again, if you're listening to this in your local podcast platform, please make sure that you give us a rating and share this with somebody that you think could benefit from listening to this episode.

And if you're watching this on our YouTube channel, please make sure that you like, comment, and subscribe down below. Perhaps you've got a question for Connor, or perhaps you've got some feedback of your own experiences. Please let us know down in below. But Connor, as always, it's a pleasure to connect with you, dude, from one sales dad to another.

Thank you for being on the chapter today, and I wish you an awesome weekend, my bro, and happy selling. Awesome. Cheers. Have a good one.