People are undoubtedly the most valuable asset of any organization. As more and more companies are investing in sales development groups, they're realizing that finding high quality Sales Development Reps (SDRs) is not easy.

Here are 3 big takeaways that will help you find your next standout SDR.

1. Always be looking

To find the best candidates, don’t stop interviewing - even when there isn’t a hiring class or open req. I've made it a point to do a phone interview every single day. If possible, I try to bring in a candidate for a face-to-face interview at least once a week.

One of the best parts of my job is talking to entrepreneurs in the sales technology space. The other day, I took a call from a stealth-mode founder with a bold vision.

Here’s his pitch:

If you’re generating inbound leads and are focused on setting introductory meetings/demos for sales reps, technology can replace your entire SDR team.

Provocative, right?

He argued that for many inbound SDR organizations, all they do is push the meeting. They send email after email and answer every question a prospects asks with “you’ll find that out if you take the meeting.”

In a way, I agree with him. Far too many teams are doing little more than identifying the guy, checking for a pulse, and closing on the meeting. There’s little-to-no vision creation or pain/consequence discovery. This approach can work beautifully when the goal is "getting more and more at bats” for the sales team.

I don’t think anyone would argue that the quality of the executive who leads your Inside Sales team makes or breaks its success.

A few times a month, companies will reach out to me looking for a “rockstar” Inside Sales Manager. I’ll ask a few questions about what the person will need to accomplish and, quite often, suggest they set their sights on a Director-level candidate.  Better to spend more in compensation than to hire someone who lacks the skills to get the job done.

There is a real difference in aptitude and attitude between the two. Here’s my take:

We all know that ramp time is a KPI for inside sales organziations. From our 2015 inside sales research, we also know that the percentage of companies with 5+ month ramp time has tripled since 2010.

Online survey software company Qualtrics takes this seriously. And judging by their Glassdoor reviews, they are nailing it. 

Recently, I had a chance to speak with Charlie Besecker their Head of Sales Development, Sales Enablement and Professional Development. I asked him a few questions that I thought would be of interest to the inside sales community.

When did onboarding become a mission for Qualtrics?

When given the assignment of revamping our onboarding process, I asked what our ultimate goal was, "How will we know when we’ve been successful?" The response was daunting: “You know how Xerox, IBM, and Pitney Bowes, became synonymous with world class training and are spoken about for decades to come? Like that.”

As cheesy as it is, we started with a