Building High-Converting Teams with Sean Murray of LeadIQ

This week on the Revenue Insights Podcast, Graham Smith speaks with Sean Murray, Senior Director of Sales and Sales Development at LeadIQ. In this episode, Sean shares his journey to tech sales, discusses his approach to building high-performing SDR teams, and explains why quality outreach trumps quantity in today’s sales landscape

Sean Murray is Senior Director of Sales and Sales Development at LeadIQ, a pipeline generation platform focused on delivering high-quality contact data. With over a decade of experience across various sales roles, Sean has transformed LeadIQ’s sales development approach from a volume-based to a quality-focused strategy. Before LeadIQ, Sean held positions at Salesforce, Conga, and Meltwater.

Sean Murray on LinkedIn
LeadIQ website
Graham Smith on LinkedIn
Ebsta Revenue Insights Newsletter 

Time Stamps:

• 00:00 – Introduction
• 00:55 – Sean’s career journey
• 04:42 – Role at LeadIQ
• 11:22 – AI in sales development
• 17:46 – First steps at LeadIQ
• 21:58 – ICP focus and results
• 27:32 – Building successful SDR teams
• 34:55 – Origins of coaching passion
• 36:34 – Looking ahead in outbound sales

Highlights:

Quality Over Quantity in Sales Development

Sean transformed LeadIQ’s sales approach by shifting from high-volume outreach to strategic, targeted engagement. His team reduced monthly call volumes from 3-4,000 to around 385 calls while achieving significantly better results. One rep hit 280% of quota with this focused approach. Key to this success was thorough research, understanding customer challenges, and developing relevant points of view before outreach.

Bottom-Up Prospecting Strategy

Sean advocates for a unique “onion” approach to prospecting, starting with individual contributors closest to daily challenges rather than immediately targeting C-suite executives. This strategy allows reps to gather real insights about pain points and challenges before approaching senior leadership with informed perspectives. The approach has led to impressive conversion rates, with some reps converting 50-60% of their connects into meetings.

Career Development as Core Motivation

A key insight from Sean’s leadership experience is that SDRs are primarily motivated by career progression rather than just monetary rewards. He emphasizes creating clear advancement paths and providing comprehensive training to prepare SDRs for AE roles. By focusing on career development, LeadIQ has built a strong internal pipeline of sales talent, with former SDRs now succeeding as account executives.

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Transcript:

Sean Murray – 00:00:00:

Your reps are in the field every single day talking to prospects and hearing these challenges and hearing what’s working and what’s not. You need to give them the skill set so they can take that and then write their own messaging, write their own talk tracks. And that’s how they’re going to be successful.

 Intro – 00:00:20:

Welcome to Revenue Insights. Every week, we’ll be joined by revenue leaders from some of the most successful and highest-growing companies. Together, we explore how they built their revenue teams, the journeys that they’ve been on, and the lessons they have learned along the way. Revenue Insights is brought to you by Ebsta. We’re a revenue intelligence platform designed to help revenue teams to build more Pipeline, close more deals, and retain more customers.

 Graham Smith – 00:00:55:

Okay, so on today’s episode of Revenue Insights Podcast, we’re thrilled to have Sean Murray on the show. Sean is a Senior Director of Sales and Sales Development at LeadIQ. Sean brings a unique perspective on levering technology and strategy to enhance Pipeline generation. Welcome, Sean.

Sean Murray – 00:01:19:

Thank you so much, Graham. Happy to be here. Super excited.

Graham Smith – 00:01:22:

Fantastic. So, Sean, it seems as though you’ve had quite a diverse career in sales and sales development across multiple organizations. Can you share a bit about your journey?

Sean Murray – 00:01:33:

Yes, absolutely. So I started my career actually a little bit different than most in the software space. I started my career in home remodeling, believe it or not. I used to sell Windows, siding, roofing, doors, attic installations. So I started off there, first started off as just a sales rep, where I was on a 100% commission role, right? So if I didn’t sell, one call closed. If I didn’t sell that day, I wasn’t making any money, right? Quickly got promoted into a team lead role there in my second year. And then in my third year there, I got promoted into a manager role where I managed a team of 10 sales reps. So decided at year three, I’m either going to have to sell Windows the rest of my life or teach people how to sell Windows the rest of my life. So I decided, you know, that’s not what I’m passionate about. I’m going to make a transition in careers. And I got into technology sales. It was actually a pretty rough transition. It took me probably 50, 60 interviews to actually land a role in software. You know, so I was pretty persistent. Landed my first role at a company called Meltwater, starting off as a business development representative. Quickly moved up to an account executive role there within three, four months. So back in the day where SDRs were only in seat five to six months. And then moved over to Salesforce, where I had to take another step back in my career and go back to being a business development representative. Did that in the enterprise healthcare provider space. So I was on the HLS team at Salesforce, working specifically with providers. Really enjoyed the healthcare space, actually. And then moved into an account executive role at Salesforce. But realized, you know, when I was BDR at Salesforce, where I was spending majority of my time, I figured out how to do the job in four hours, right? So where I was spending that additional time was coaching my colleagues and my teammates and really focusing on their career development. And that made me realize, like, my passion is truly in leadership. So made the transition actually to a sales development manager role over a Conga. They took a chance on me without any, so to speak, leadership experience in SaaS, right? Even though I was a manager in the home remodeling industry. And figured out that’s what I was passionate about. Coaching, career development, really just helping others. You know, seeing other people succeed is what really gets me going. Back in the day, it used to be closing deals. Now it’s helping people close deals is what really gets me going. And then made the transition to director of sales development over at here at LeadIQ. So pretty much was tasked with rebuilding the team over here at LeadIQ from the ground up, shifting strategy, everything like that. And now I just got promoted into a senior director role of sales and sales development where I’m managing our SMB and commercial team as well as our sales development team, inbound team and expansion team here at LeadIQ. So that was a long-winded answer there, Graham.

Graham Smith – 00:04:36:

No, no, that’s brilliant. There’s a couple of questions that come out of that. So first of all, maybe you could tell our audience a little bit more about LeadIQ.

Sean Murray – 00:04:44:

Yes. So LeadIQ, we’re a pipeline generation platform, right? So we’re focused on bringing the highest quality data. So that’s where we’re heavily investing our dollars. A lot of data providers are now focusing on being a one-stop shop, a sequencing tool, a dialer, intent, all of that, all of that in one tool. Whereas we are investing all of our dollars in contact data. We believe that contact data is the backbone of outreach. So you need to have accurate data in order to reach the right people, right? So not only do we have the highest quality contact data, but we also provide relevant insights that help you personalize and tailor your messaging to make sure that it’s relevant. So you stand out from the noise as well as the most efficient workflows in the marketplace here today. If you’ve got tools like Salesforce and outreach and SalesLoft.

Graham Smith – 00:05:36:

Yeah, very often when I join companies, I’m told that they have fantastic data. Normally what they mean is they’ve got a fantastic volume of data, not that the data is actually, as you’ve pointed out, quality data. And let’s be honest, data comes out of date so quickly. I think the average tenure of a senior executive is anywhere between three to five years. So if you’re not updating your data on a regular basis, you end up wasting your time because very often that guy that you thought was not senior enough, well, that was three years ago. Now he’s been promoted and he is actually the one that you should be contacting.

Sean Murray – 00:06:19:

Yes, definitely, Graham. I mean, and I think it’s been exasperated in the last few years. I’m a firm believer there’s no such thing as employee or employer loyalty. So back in the day, we used to see people stay in seat for 20 years, 30 years, right? So nowadays, like you mentioned, actually the statistic is that data decays 70% year over year, right? Which attributes to close to 15% of your revenue loss, right? So it’s essential that you have the most up-to-date contact information. And that’s why LeadIQ takes the agile database approach. So we’re updating our database in real time as folks are using our tools. So instead of calling a database that gets updated every 6 to 12 months, we’re actually calling our data providers and finding that contact information in real time and then updating our database. So we’re taking a little bit of a different approach to data than majority of the data providers out there.

Graham Smith – 00:07:18:

Yeah, because it adds to one of the things that we do, first of all, is to actually cleanse our clients’ data. Because we know very often that it’s not in the shape that perhaps they’re even expecting or believe. And so one of the things that we first do is to go in and cleanse their data and make sure that it is actually in good shape. The other thing that I wanted to pick up on was the fact that you’ve spent much of the early part of your career at the business end of selling, actually doing it yourself. Do you think that that gives you a definite advantage when it comes to training because you’ve not come from the sort of traditional training background?

Sean Murray – 00:07:57:

Yeah, I totally think so. I think when you think of the BDR role, right, majority of people think, oh, yeah, you know, you want to be a BDR to earn some money and make good money out of college. 

Graham Smith – 00:08:09:

Yeah.

Sean Murray – 00:08:09:

Of course, everyone wants to do that. But realistically, you’re doing it to build the skill set that is necessary to be successful throughout your career in software, right? This is where you’re learning the foundations of how to sell. You’re learning business acumen. You’re learning the personas you’re targeting, what they care about, their challenges. So if you really focus on just trying to understand business as a whole and understand what these different personas do within an organization and what they care about. You’re going to be very successful and be able to position any sort of Technology if you can build that business acumen. And that’s where I think a lot of BDR teams make the mistake is they’re trying to be pipeline engines and this this wheel that keeps on turning. Where I’ll create the sequences for you as a BDR leader. I’ll create the talk tracks for you. I’ll do everything for you. And then all you have to do is this mind numbing, where you just follow tasks, right?

Graham Smith – 00:09:11:

Yeah.

Sean Murray – 00:09:11:

And that’s where I think a lot of reps struggle, you know, especially getting promoted into that next level. So that’s what I think is essential for building the team the right way is you need to build those skill sets. And actually teach them, which which creates an environment that allows for creativity and collaboration. Your reps are in the field every single day talking to prospects and hearing these challenges and hearing what’s working and what’s not. You need to give them the skill sets so they can take that and then write their own messaging, write their own talk tracks. And that’s how they’re going to be successful. If you’re setting everything up for them, not only are they going to struggle because they’re going to have to do more volume, so to speak. Take the volume approach rather than the quality approach. But more so, they’re going to struggle getting into that next role. They’re not going to be able to create a point of view prior to a discovery call. So they can create a compelling business case when they’re talking to a client. So I think it’s essential that teams build up those skills. And then let your team and give your team the autonomy to go out there and trust them to do their job.

Graham Smith – 00:10:21:

A couple of questions on that, because AI is obviously spoken about quite a lot. And whilst we all probably agree that AI can do some of the more mundane tasks very well, there is a danger sometimes that if you use AI totally for outreach and there is no real understanding on the part of the seller of the needs, wants and pains, particularly when you get to C-level. I think C-level can spot an automated message of mine off. And I do feel as though whilst, like I say, AI can deal with some of the more mundane tasks, you talking about personas, what we found with the research that we do in our B2B sales benchmark report is that the top performers are not afraid to reach out to C-level because they have done that research and because they can provide a very relevant and personal, outreach message. What’s your view on that?

Sean Murray – 00:11:25:

Absolutely. I mean, I think artificial intelligence, I wish I had it as a rep, right? For things like research. So now you can compile 10Ks, news articles, podcasts, all of that information in a matter of seconds, right? What used to take me 30 minutes because I took the approach of quality over quantity my entire career and that’s how I coach my team, right? I’m all about outcomes. I don’t care what you’re volume looks like. I care about what the results look like. So I’m never going to bash anyone for being efficient, right? So I think the best reps are going to be even better if they leverage artificial intelligence. But I think the folks that don’t understand the foundations of what they’re doing, what they’re selling, the challenges that they solve, who are facing those challenges, why would they even care about it, right? Where to identify business priorities, business challenges, how to find that information, right? They’re going to really, really, really struggle. And they’re going to just think, okay, I need to hit my number. So I’m going to use AI to write this email. Okay. I’m just going to make 150 calls today and use a generic talk track and hopefully it hits. So that’s what I think the mistake is right now. You’re seeing auto dialers come out, right? You know, with parallel dialers that can make 200 calls a day. I mean, 200 calls within an hour, right? I think that’s where the issue lies is like, it’s not all about connects. It’s about when you connect with that person, how often are you converting them? I would rather see a rep make a hundred calls a day and talk to six people and convert three out of those six, then make 500 calls a day, talk to 30 people and only convert one, right? It’s not about conversations. It’s about how you’re able to take that conversation and actually convert.

Graham Smith – 00:13:20:

And I think there’s an argument around the damage that is done by a poor call. The damage that’s done to your brand that maybe next time round, they won’t actually take the call because the first call was so poor. It wasn’t relevant. I didn’t actually learn anything from the call. And it was quite clear that you didn’t understand my company. And I think that the damage that can be done is quite significant.

Sean Murray – 00:13:48:

Yeah. I think it’s really hard to come back from oftentimes, especially with a C-suite, right? So, when I was coached throughout my career, everyone told me the top down approach, right? Start at the C-suite and then work your way down, right? Because they have the most power in making a decision. And if you get them on a call, your AE is going to be happy and everything like that. However, I’ve taught my team to take the opposite approach, right? Because how I view a business is like an onion. And at the center of the onion, you’ve got the core problems within an organization. And the first layer closest to the center is going to be individual contributors. They’re the ones that are actually experiencing that specific pain and those challenges day to day, right? The further you get away, next is going to be managers. They know a lot, but they’re still missing a little bit because they’re not in the field every single day. Then you go to directors. They know a little bit less, right? And then you go further away to C-suite. They know the least amount, right? So I have my team take a bottom-up approach. I have them calling ICs, and I have them calling managers, frontline managers, right? Because they’re going to have those conversations. They’re going to identify those challenges, right? And then we take that point of view, and then we go target that C-suite. Hey, I was talking to your team. These are the challenges that they’re facing. Here’s how we’ve helped so-and-so, right? So I think that is the right approach nowadays, because look, you might only have one chance with this account when you make a cold call, right? You need to be able to convert, right? So that’s where my team is really seeing success. I’ve got reps on my team that are converting 50, 60% of their connects, right? So one out of two times they’re booking a meeting. And that’s solely the fact that when they’re trying to book that meeting, they have that strong point of view that’s relevant. Like you said, they understand the business, they understand their challenges, they understand what are the priorities right now, where is the team’s focus, because they’ve gathered and spent the time, especially at those upper end of the market accounts, right? When you’re talking about enterprise accounts, right? You need to have that strong point of view and do your due diligence by going down. It’s not going to be through research. You can infer and you can hypothesize, right? By doing that research, but you need to hear it from the horse’s mouth, right? So worst case scenario, not every single time you’re going to be able to talk to ICs, right? But then you’ve got to do your research and try to understand that business, their goals, their challenges, their specific pain points, right? And create a relevant point of view and hypothesize what might be happening just based on similar customers and what they were experiencing. And I think that is a stronger approach than just making those dials and just trying to get someone on the phone and then just pitch slapping them, so to speak.

Graham Smith – 00:16:47:

Yeah, I mean, it’s an elevator ride, isn’t it? Rather than parachuting straight into the C-suite, you go from the ground floor up. And as you move through those floors, you’re learning each time because there is a limited amount of information on anybody’s website. And no one’s going to publish on their website what their major pain point is right now. No one’s going to do that. The only way you’re going to do that is by having a conversation with numerous people at various stages. And as you say, when you arrive at C-suite, you’re fully armed with the information and you know what their needs, wants, and pains are. So yeah, I applaud that approach. So when you did start at LeadIQ, interestingly what was the first thing that you did?

Sean Murray – 00:17:38:

The first thing that I did, well, first was learn, right? Like I didn’t want to come in and say, I know better than you guys than my team, right? So I just kind of shadowed and I just took the approach of, hey, I’m learning from you guys. I want to hear how you guys are doing it and everything like that. And I understood their strategy. And when I took over the team, they were very, very focused on high volume, right? I had reps making three, 4,000 calls a month, you know? And that’s when I took a step back and I said, okay, I’m going to just make noise here and try to make a change. And I put them through a two-week enablement session to really understand the space and the personas and the challenges and customer stories, right? I think the best reps, the best SDRs are storytellers, right? The best sellers are storytellers. I mean, especially for a company like LeadIQ, I’ve worked at Salesforce, right? When you mentioned Salesforce, it’s automatically you earn credibility, right? You’re lucky enough to have the brand name. But when you’ve got LeadIQ, you need to leverage your customers to build that credibility. You’re not going to build that credibility. You’re just an SDR. They’re going to see you as just an SDR. You’re definitely not just an SDR. You are a big fundamental part of the business, right? But that’s how your prospects are going to see you. So you need to tell it from the story of a customer perspective, right? So I got them a bunch of customer stories. I helped them build those stories up so they could tell them on the phone, right? And then I took the call volume down significantly. I was really, really focused on objection handling. Like I said, building that point of view, making sure that they’ve done their research, right? And what we started to notice, right? The last calls we made, the higher conversions we were starting to have, right? So last month my top rep made probably 385 calls, right? And hit close to 280% of his number, right? It’s not about volume, it’s about, can I, when I get someone on the, am I calling the right people first and foremost? Am I calling the right accounts, right? I mean, it all starts there. You need to make sure you’re picking the right accounts and calling the right prospects that are within your specific ICP, right? I think that’s the first approach. I think targeting is very, very tough for a lot of SDRs when they first come in, knowing who the right person is. So if you’ve built that foundation with the prospecting side of things to begin with, right? Then when you get someone on the phone, it is the the right person on the phone that you want to be speaking to. And you have that strong point of view. Now there are some times, right? Where you can’t take that bottom-up approach and you have to build that hypothesis, like we said, right? So we still want to be reaching out to those folks if we can’t reach out to those lower level folks with that strong hypothesis. And I think that all starts with building that story and that point of view, like we’re talking about.

Graham Smith – 00:20:42:

But it is important to build relationships with the buying team because-

Sean Murray – 00:20:48:

Absolutely.

Graham Smith – 00:20:48:

Yeah. Because although you may get lucky to a certain extent and that call does go through to the C-level person, but then they’re going to consult with other people within the company. And if the response from them is who? Like never heard this company, then that’s going to make it a little bit more difficult. But I just want to expand a little bit upon ICP. Because I think for a lot of companies, when they initially embraced the idea of ICP, what they see is as a narrowing of the opportunities. Because we were approaching everyone and now all of a sudden we’re only approaching these. And that can be a little bit scary for a lot of companies. Did you get any pushback, if you like, when you decided to really laser focus on ICP?

Sean Murray – 00:21:41:

I would say, yeah, I got pushback on everything, right? You’re always going to be get pushback in terms of whatever new strategies you bring to the table, right? But you’ve got to produce. If you’re going to change the strategy, it better work, right? Or else you’re out of a job. So, I mean, actually.

Graham Smith – 00:21:57:

Well, you’re still there.

Sean Murray – 00:21:59:

I’m still there, right? So, so I trust it. I mean, I trusted my gut and I trusted what I knew and I pitched it to our executive leadership. So what I did was I really took a hard look at our current customer base. And I started to identify similarities. Okay. So I started to identify, okay, we work really well in the software space, but can we get even more narrow than that? You know, there’s plenty of sub verticals within the software space. So we narrowed down to our sub vertical. And then we started to look at specific data points like technographic information, firmographic information, geographic information, all of that information and started to score our accounts. And we just actually moved into a named account model from a territory model. So due to how we’re, how we’re building those accounts. So back six months ago, my team would have had seven, 8,000 accounts per rep. And each AE would have seven or 8,000 accounts within a specific location. Now each rep has two to 300 accounts. So you’re talking about narrowing size, right? And what we noticed pipeline dramatically kicked up ACV. We’re starting to close a lot more business, right? Because at the end of the day, your message is not going to hit everyone. It’s not going to, it’s not going to work for every single, and some we’re in a very highly, we’re in a highly competitive industry. We’ve got ZoomInfo, Apollo Seamless, like there’s a bunch of different tools out there. So we need to focus where we know we can win. So we know where our data is the best and within what specific ICP, because like I said, we have an agile database. So as folks are prospecting within that specific ICP, we’re getting even better and better and better data for that specific ICP. So when we reach out to those accounts and we get into a data test, right. We almost win every single time. Because we know the data is good in that space. You know, like test it, you know, I know ZoomInfo is a billion dollar company, but just test the data. Contact data is the backbone of outreach. You need to make sure you have accurate data, right? We get into a data test, not to mention our workflows. If they have a SalesLoft Outreach, Salesforce or HubSpot, right. Those workflows combined is going to get those productivity gains. But at the end of the day, we have identified what accounts would be the best fit for elite IQ by really looking at our customer base. And that’s where I would recommend starting off. If I was, if I was to build an account model or try to start doing territory assignments or account assignments within my organization is take a look at your customer base. It’s not about how many accounts they have, because realistically Hannah rep reach out to 5,000 accounts in a year. No, nor should they, right? Like you’re going to get spam blocked. You’re going to get it. You’re, you’re, you’re not going to get the pickups, right? Your numbers are going to get blocked. You know, it’s going to create really, it’s going to look really bad on your brand, everything like that. And I think that’s, we’re talking about brand a lot, but I think that’s where B2B is really moving, right? I think buyers are way more aware. So you need to have that strong brand, right? You need to be known when they see LeadIQ, they need to think of LeadIQ as the best contact data, right? And that’s what we’re essentially trying to build. So I think that’s, we’re moving, we’re seeing B2B move closer to B2C late. These last actually, since honestly, since ChatGPT came out, that’s when I started to notice the complete shift in the marketplace, you know, one in messaging, but then now, okay. You know, email’s not working as well. Connect rates are down, right? How are we going to drive outbound demand? And that’s through, you’re seeing a lot of IC starting to post on LinkedIn, starting to build their personal brand, which is driving prospects to that specific brand, right? So if you’ve got a team of sellers and SDRs that are on LinkedIn posting all the time, they’re seen as leaders within the industry, right. And have a really strong brand themselves, right. It’s going to drive demand into your business. So you’re seeing that at Gong, right? You’re seeing that at Salesforce, you’re seeing that at these large organizations. And I think that’s where it’s shifting.

Graham Smith – 00:26:22:

Yeah, I totally agree. And it’s interesting that when you do narrow the ICP, what happens with the sellers is that they become experts within that market because they’re spending so much time in this narrow corridor that they naturally pick up industry news and they can bring that into the conversation rather than trying to be an expert in a wide range of industries. And I think that there’s definitely an advantage there. So during your time at LeadIQ, you’ve obviously overcome some initial challenges, but what would you say was the golden moment for you at LeadIQ?

Sean Murray – 00:27:03:

You know what? What I truly believe makes a sales organization successful is, you need to create an environment that allows for creativity, collaboration, but most importantly, career development. I think that’s the biggest issue we’re seeing in software right now. SDRs are sitting in seat for two, three years, not getting promoted into positions. And that’s because they’re not getting the training to be successful, to be promoted into those AE roles. So as an SDR leader, my job is to create the talent pool for the entire organization. Number one for the sales organization. But also, you know what? Not everyone’s going to want to be a seller. And that’s okay, right? But if you create the proper training, give them access to the right things, they’re going to work hard and seat, because that’s where a lot of leaders get it wrong. SDRs are not motivated by money. They are in a sense, right? They want to make money. But what motivates them is that career progression and that career development. So you asked the golden moment for me is setting up that career progression. And now I’m actually leading those SDRs that became account executives on my sales team now, right? So creating that farm, I hate to say farm, but farm system, that brings them up through the organization. And think about it like this. In five years time, my AEs that are on my team right now that were my SDRs will be enterprise sellers. Now we’ve got people that have been part of LeadIQ that have lived, breathed, sold, prospected, talked to so many customers within our specific ICP selling at the enterprise level, right? That’s what’s going to create success within the organization, right? Is if you’ve got sellers that have done it from the very start. When you hire folks externally, sure, you could get a really great person that comes in and just absolutely crushes it. But from my perspective, I would rather have the person that I taught how to prospect. I taught how to build the point of view. I taught how to demo. I taught how to run discovery from the ground up getting promoted, right? So I think that’s the golden moment for me. It was now I’m seeing my team’s hustling. They’re driven. They’re motivated. They weren’t when I took over the team because they didn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. You know, they’re like, I’ve been here for a year. What am I going to do? Like, where am I going to go? And I was like, I totally get it. You know, I would be frustrated too. So let’s focus on making sure that you’re ready for that next step. So a big part of my enablement towards the end of their career is starting to work on that skill set, right? You need to work on, they need to be able to do the job before they get into the role, right? Because when you get promoted into that position, you do have less training. I got no training when I got promoted from BDR into account executive role at Salesforce, right? You sure you got enablement and stuff like that, but no official training. They trusted their BDR program so much that when they promoted people into the account executive program, they knew that they were going to be successful. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to build here. So I’m trying to take everything that was amazing about Salesforce that I can and bring it to the organizations that I work at. Because you know what? They know how to do things right over there and they teach their people really well. And their training programs are exceptional and I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t have them. So I’m trying to create that for other reps.

Graham Smith – 00:30:32:

Well, it’s interesting. You should say that because our platform that the Guy Ruben, who’s the CEO and founder is very passionate about the idea rather than moving on your B and C players. Why don’t you give them the tools and the knowledge to be able to come on A player? Because we all know about the effect of a revolving door for the B and C players. You know, that becomes infectious that everyone thinks, crikey, am I going to be the next person that is asked to leave? Whereas if they actually see, as you’ve very eloquently pointed out, if they see that there is career progression, that you’re actually going to take those B and C players, show them what the A players are doing and ask them to emulate that behavior, creates a completely different culture. And also you don’t have the quite frankly, ludicrous expense of having to pay to hire new players because you, you move on your B and C players and then you keep your fingers crossed that the next person coming in is going to be an A player. Sure, there’s an interview process, but you never really know until day one that they’re sitting in the seat. So I think that very much aligns with, with our view of the world and certainly with Guy’s view of the world. Nurture those B and C players so they can become A players.

Sean Murray – 00:31:55:

Exactly. And I have a great story. You know, I had a rep that was struggling when I took over the team. Sat down with her, making cold calls with her for two hours. Guess what? She crushed her number the next quarter. It’s just a lot of leaders don’t want to do that, right? So a lot of leaders shouldn’t be in leadership, to be honest. They think it’s the next step, right? But realistically, to be candid with you, if I wanted to make more money, I’d go be an ICN. I’d go sell. I’d go be an enterprise seller. You make a hell of a lot more money than a leader does, right? So what I see, you have to be passionate about coaching and you have to be patient and you have to not just say, oh, this person doesn’t get it, right? If you put in the effort and you give them the time and they still don’t succeed, right? Then of course there’s times to part ways with folks, right? Some people are just not cut out for it. But for me, I take it personally, right? It’s very hard for me to let people go, right? I get very attached to my reps, right? So I’m going to do everything I can to ensure success. Now, I remember I said I’m outcome focused, right? So at the end of the day, this is a sales role. You are judged by your number. You need to perform, you know? But if I’m not doing everything I can to help them perform, then I’m not doing my job. And realistically, as a leader, they don’t work for you. You work for them. If they’re not successful, you’re not going to be successful, right? So I think that’s essential.

Graham Smith – 00:33:30:

Let’s be honest. It was us that hired these people. As a leader, we went through an interview process. We had them plus a dozen other people. We had conversations with them. And we decided, yes, this is the person for the job. If they don’t, for whatever reason, work out, then I think that we need to, as leaders, take a share of the blame, as it were. I love the fact that you’re so passionate about coaching. Where do you think that passion came from? Before you started the world of work, were you always that sort of character?

Sean Murray – 00:34:07:

Yeah, I would say so. I played sports my entire life. I played highly competitive basketball my entire childhood. I coached a lot of middle school teams  and I coached competitive teams. I was pretty good. I was decent. I was not going to the MBA or anything like that. But what I found was that I got more fulfillment out of coaching than playing. So it’s the same thing with sales.

Graham Smith – 00:34:38: Right.

Sean Murray – 00:34:40:

I first had to prove to myself that I could do it really well. And then I get way more fulfillment out of coaching than actually selling. I don’t have that. See, my wife’s an enterprise seller. So whenever she sells a deal, she runs down the room and cheering like, yes, let’s go. Amazing. You know, and then when I used to close the deal, I’d be like, okay, awesome. High five. You know, but when I got someone else to help someone else close a deal, I would go crazy. So I found that that’s what kind of made me have that realization is like, okay, what, what’s really driving me forward? What’s going to keep me going? Because a lot of these, a lot of the time, you’re doing the same thing over and over again. But you’ve got to be passionate about it and you’ve got to enjoy it. Or at least some aspect of the process, you know, you’re not going to enjoy every part of your job, but you’ve got to enjoy the good parts that you enjoy, in order to stay doing what you’re doing.

Graham Smith – 00:35:41:

So we’re almost at our time. So I just want to give you an opportunity to tell the audience where they can find a little bit more about LeadIQ.

Sean Murray – 00:35:51:

Yeah. So we host a bunch of different webinars, but just go on to leadiq.com or just feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. Would love to connect with anyone. I’m happy to chat through, you know, your prospecting strategy. I built the entire playbook here at LeadIQ. So. I’ve got some tried and true plays that have worked across multiple different industries, across multiple different personas that kind of are the backbone of our outreach. So happy to chat through some of those plays. Yeah. But feel free to reach out to me anytime and happy to chat about LeadIQ or just you.

Graham Smith – 00:36:25:

Okay. So we will give Sean’s LinkedIn details attached to this podcast. I’m going to introduce something new, Sean. I hope you don’t mind, but you’re going to be the first. And that is, would you have a question for the next person that we interview? Bearing in mind, they’re all in the same sort of space as yourself. So I know this is a bit left field, but a question that you would like the next person to answer.

Sean Murray – 00:36:53:

Yeah. So it’s going to be a kind of a long one, right? So we’re seeing reply weights drop, right? A lot of times people are having to turn off email tracking because it shows report to spam. So you don’t have open rates as a metric to really track your outreach. Connect rates are down. You’re having less conversations. Where do you think outbound is heading? What is going to be the main driver in terms of Pipeline? Two years, three years, four years down the road, is it still going to be email? Is it still going to be phone? Is it still going to be LinkedIn? Is it going to be social? I’m curious what everyone’s thoughts are around that.

Graham Smith – 00:37:33:

I certainly have an opinion on that, but I’m not going to spoil it. By telling everybody what my opinion is. But yeah, it’s been an absolute pleasure, Sean. I could talk to you for ages. Obviously, this is the Ebsta Revenue Insights Podcast. Absolute pleasure, Sean. And hopefully we can speak again soon.

 Sean Murray – 00:37:54:

 Definitely. Thank you, Graham. I appreciate it.

 Outro – 00:37:58:

 Thanks for listening to Revenue Insights. If you want to learn more, subscribe to our newsletter and we’ll deliver every episode straight to your inbox. If you have any questions, feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn. Our links will be in the episode notes. See you next week.