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.

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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

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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?

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The head of Sales Development for a $50M SaaS company recently shared some interesting team data with me. Excluding recent hires and the team currently in place, the group had 55 terminations, promotions, transfers, and quits over the last three years. A little high, but not too far above the median.

Breaking down the individual data, I found the following:

Roughly 60% of his SDRs were promoted or internally transferred. That’s great stuff! But on the flip side, and a concerning note, nearly 40% of the SDRs promoted to an AE role had been terminated. That surprised me.

I wondered if these results were above average, below average, or to be expected. I couldn’t find any public data on the post-promotion failure rate for SDR-to-AE transitions, so I turned to LinkedIn to do my own research.

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