If your company markets to, sells, or otherwise engages prospects in Europe, GDPR should be on your radar. 

I know these conversations are taking place in legal and IT departments, but I  haven't seen much awareness for SDR or AE VPs, Directors, or Managers.  So, this is your polite wake-up call. If you haven't paid much attention to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), that is likely to change. And soon.

This brief post is my attempt to give you an assist.

High Level. What's GDPR?

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets out a new, unified privacy law for Europe. The new law is relevant not just to businesses established in Europe; it will also apply to entities worldwide that provide goods and services to individuals in Europe, and online platforms and other website operators that are accessible from Europe. - McDermott Will & Emer

Net-net, GDPR applies to any organization that retains, processes, or profiles the data of individuals in Europe. Broadly, this seems to include the European Union and the European Economic Area. As you might suspect, prospecting (including cold, outbound emailing) most certainly involves profiling, processing, and retaining individual data.

Last July, I posted a survey on this blog. My aim was to learn how most sales organizations are handing vacation for their selling reps.

• When a rep takes a vacation, are they offered quota relief?
• If yes, what are the policy specifics?
• If no, how are leaders ensuring reps take successful vacations?
  
  

I thought a few dozen companies would respond and I'd have some interesting results to share with the community. It turned into something bigger. Over 200 sales leaders (team leads, managers, directors, VPs) and 340+ individual contributors (AEs, SDRs, CSMs, etc.) participated. I combed through more than 250 individual, anonymous comments. Additionally, I interviewed seven senior leaders on the topic—four on the record and three off.

I’ve compiled the results in our new ebook PTO and Sales.

BDRs, LDRs, SDRs - whatever you call them, the metrics that drive the SDR role are always in demand.

Today, I'm excited to launch our latest research focused on Sales Development organizations. This is our seventh round of research since 2007. The key themes we'll explore include:

• Rep profiles: experience, tenure, ramp time, career path
• Structure: in/out/blended, headcount, territories
• Compensation: base, OTE, regional variations
• Quotas: average quotas, components, % attainment
• Technology stack: categories, adoption, impact
   

We worked hard to make this year’s survey easier and it will take roughly 4-5 minutes to complete. If you lead a sales development group, please participate

A few weeks ago, I shared my research on the failure rate of SDR-to-AE promotions. (Executive Summary: 26% of SDRs who take on an AE role fail. The shorter the SDR tenure, the higher the failure rate. The post-promotion failure rate for SDRs with 11 or fewer months experience was 55%.  The failure rate for SDRs with 16+ months experience was just 6%.)

A few dozen InMails and 1.5K+ social shares later, I’ve concluded that this topic hits a nerve.

The most common feedback I heard was “Yes! I’ve seen this too. What can we do to address it?” I wanted real practitioners to share advice so I reached out to Kevin Dorsey, Head of Sales Development and Enablement at ServiceTitan, and Natasha Miller Sekkat, VP of Demand Generation at ClickSoftware. Rather than post the full transcript, I’ve grouped their thoughts below.

Why risk promoting SDRs to AEs at all?