Some of you might have seen on our social media pages over the last few weeks that we are going to be hosting a conference!

And today, we are going to give you a sneak peek of who we will be having as some of the speakers at Funnel!

We will have Morgan Ingram kicking us off with his keynote, Angela Frackowiak, Illango Dhandayudham, Sara Angell and Jonathan Mayer are some of the speakers we will have to be discuss how to make the transition from 2nd to 3rd line leadership and one of our workshops, led by Jay Glenn will be how to calculate CAC.

We are excited about these incredible leaders being part of our conference and to join all of you in Austin!

More announcements to come soon!

Funnel 26 will be the first of its kind, a conference where the best global VPs of sales development are going to be talking to the best heads of sales development, directors, third-line leaders sharing their strategy and their vision for how the function will look like, giving access to those that come to the best sales development leaders in the globe with workshops, with networking, with everything that is kept true to what SDR leaders of USA and EMEA does but on a far grander scale.

We're really excited to be partnering up with Anastasia Chihai from ATX SDR Leaders to deliver this conference for YOU!

So we really look forward to seeing you all there!

We have kicked off our SDR Leaders of EMEA meet-ups this year, focusing on the topic of coaching. 2025 was seen as a transitional year as AI came into our workflows, but more and more leaders discussed in Q4 of last year that their focus in the new year would be on improving their teams and their futures.

Why is this becoming more important? Because SDR tenure, especially in EMEA, is increasing in length of service. This is because of the need to truly create a pipeline and generate revenue from this function. It's the rock bed of businesses of this pipeline, this in combination, potentially, that the function is becoming alot more engaging for teams

But it's also being reflected in the overall value of opportunity size, senior tenured SDRs are reflective of an increase in average deal size that SDRs are generating. The critical importance of maximising headcount and creating super-productive talent is paramount now.

So during our meet-ups in London and Dublin, we spoke deeply about how organisations are coaching and enabling their teams and also how VPs and Sr Directors are enabling their direct management reports.

What stood out?

That leaders truely care about coaching of talent, that they have infact got back more time now because of organisations stragtegiclly thinking about how they create account reachsearch and enrichment that is more automated, so they are leveraging tools to aid with call analysis; they can review multiple calls at scale to understand the good and how to improve, they are using call coaching bots to practice new product messaging and improve on sticky areas that are key to development.

We heard from leaders who have built out a culture of peer coaching, where SDRs are allowed to share their problems, and the more senior SDRs in the group are able to provide guidance on how to look at the problem. This is commonplace in high-performance sports teams, where the group holds each other accountable rather than a top-down manager dictating the values and ethos of the organisation.

We also saw the idea of the SDR team lead being re-imagined, rather than a cheap version of a people manager; they have now been tasked with coaching and aiding talent development. This is something that needs to be doubled down on.

We also saw senior leaders considering how they are developing their 1st line leadership. Frameworks were often discussed, and I think this is a critical area that is sometimes missed as we constantly chase numbers. SDR Managers are among the least invested in leadership coaching and development, so the need for a playbook outlining exactly what is required for their role is critical to keeping everyone accountable and productive.

Building a culture of coaching will compound in your organisation, not just in the numbers, but by creating the true talent engine your organisation needs. It is possible, and if anyone needs additional context or information, drop me a note, and we can chat through it!