COMMUNITY
First Things First…

SDR Leaders of EMEA ran their first Masterclass today (26th January) around the Performance Management of SDRs.

SDR Leaders here in EMEA are shouting out for EMEA-specific content, coaching and enablement.

On top of that, performance management is an incredibly sensitive subject as well. So we wanted to treat it with the respect it deserves by doing a two-part masterclass.

Yours truly ran part one, all around setting the expectations on performance.

I’m happy to announce that Andrea Onuigbo will be presenting part two, which will be about delivering a performance management plan.

You can sign up here

STUFF ONLINE
Content of the week

• 14 Harsh Truths of SDR Leadership

• SaaS Metrics at each stage of Growth

• How marketing should continue to nurture warm prospects

THOUGHTS
What am I seeing this Week: The Leadership talent in EMEA is inspiring

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the privilege of meeting many great SDR Leaders here in EMEA, and I wanted to share some of their stories with you.

Like the SDR leader building out the function and having to do the productivity of 16 people, but only with 8 in the seat, the most impact on me was how calm this person was when I spoke with them.

The other SDR Leader is relatively new in their leadership role but has done an incredible job in figuring out how to manage up and articulate the value of their team at such an early stage in their career.

Finally, the SDR leader rebuilds their SDR team after a wave of internal promotions and ensures the remaining team hits their number.

These are but a few of the stories that I hear each and every day. The role is so critical to building revenue for the organisation.

P.S.: Be sure to check in with your SDR Leader today; it's tough out there; let them know you appreciate their work for you and the company!

For those new to the newsletter and like what you are seeing, please click on the subscribe button, and you’ll receive this top-quality newsletter in your inbox every Friday morning!

INTERVIEW
Five Questions of the Week: Catherine Olivier

This week, we have the pleasure of speaking with Catherine Olivier. Catherine is a senior, third-line SDR Leader with a great law and sales background. Today, she shares her leadership philosophy and how she transitioned from second-line to third-line leadership.

Your educational background is in Law; why the change to Sales Development?!

I worked as a corporate (M&A) lawyer in a top firm in Amsterdam for a few years and met my now husband there. He got a job offer in the UK and asked if I was interested in joining him there. I had studied in Cambridge and London before and knew I’d love to move to the UK, so that was an easy choice. However, I was a Dutch-qualified lawyer and practising law in the UK meant going back to uni to requalify, and I didn’t feel like doing that. So I put my resume up online, and my language skills (Dutch people learn English, German and French to a high standard) meant I was offered an SDR role at a startup selling WiFi! I wanted to give it a go and ended up loving it, and things kicked off from there!

What about Sales Development motivates you to be in this role?

The fast-moving environment means that things keep changing and improving, and you must stay on top of your game to keep up! Plus the fact that it’s the place for many people who are starting off their careers and the possibility as a leader to support them going forward in any next steps

What was your most significant change when moving from Director to VP?

The ownership and responsibility! I plotted and calculated an SDR strategy, aligned it with all the various sales, marketing, and CSM teams, and then ensured it worked the way it should. And then not having someone else ‘above’ you with other ideas, but just the trust that you know what you’re doing!

Being a third-line leader means working globally with many different cultures and nationalities; what is your advice to someone new in a cross-geographic role on navigating this?

Be honest, open, curious and empathic. Ask about how things work for them, how they see the world and how they’re experiencing things. Acknowledge that you might not know about their country and culture as much as you’d like, and encourage them to share what’s important to them because, as their leader, it’s also important to you. Understand that often, it’s a different cultural view rather than a difference of opinion. Talk a lot and make time for each other. And work on the premise that one size doesn’t fit all, so tailoring for all different regions is necessary to a certain extent.

How do you want people to remember you?

I’d like to be a leader remembered to be easily approachable, continuously supportive and a true ‘champion’ of the SDR team no matter what. The final results matter most, with quite some freedom as to how we got there, but we are still very data-driven regarding how we can keep improving all the time. Collaborative and with a healthy dose of humour :)

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GOOD READS
Book of the week

LASTLY
Whenever you’re ready, here are two ways I could help you

The new Community for European-based SDR leaders: SDR leaders of Europe

An ebook about SDR<> AE Alignment: Closing the Gap