Bonus Episode: State of SDR and Managers with David Wilkins & Rich Belson - Can't Take Your Call Right Now

Welcoming David Wilkins & Rich Belson to the Show Hello, welcome back to Can't Take Your call right now with me, Lauren Reeves and. Speaker 2 Me, Harry Munkhouse, we're super excited. This is another bonus episode and we are joined by two incredible gentlemen. We've got David and Rich. Good to have you on both. And David, maybe I'll come to you to start with a bit of an introduction and then Rich, we'll we'll turn to you. Yeah. Speaker 3 Absolutely. Hi everyone. My name's Dave Wilkins, founder of SDR leaders of Mia, SDR Leaders of USA, SDR Leaders of a Pack. I don't really sleep a lot. Yeah, yeah, sleep was nice once once a longer time ago. And I've always been in sales development around some global teams, most recently at Snowflake leading the sales development team in EMEA and now run community for SDR leaders to dictate what the SDR function should look like in 20-30. Speaker 2 To hear from you as well enrich yourself. Speaker 4 Hi, there. Yeah, really, really pleased to be here. Rich Belson, I wear a few different hats. Currently be sales development director at Broad Gateway. We're an HR tech business based out of London, but we've got a global footprint and it sounds like maybe STR Leaders of Antarctica is up for grabs. David, maybe that has to be covered. So maybe that's what I should focus on next. But no, in all seriousness, seriousness. Yeah, from a community perspective, Co founded STR leaders, probably based here in the UK. We did that around COVID time seemed like a good time to get people together. There was a lot of appetite for that. And yeah, the, the, the group has grown to a few 100 strong. And yeah, really excited to talk about some of the things that we've done and also pull that together with what we're seeing from across the wider group from from Davis community as well. Speaker 2 Brilliant. Unveiling the State of SDR & Leadership Pay Reports The we when Lauren and I first kind of met in the kind of SDRS of London, right, which is the SDR version of some of the, well, some of these communities, right? Or the fear of it. When we both got kind of moved into SDR management, the one thing that we both said we're like, there isn't much community. I mean, this is more like 4 or five years ago when we first started thinking about this, but there wasn't much around kind of SDR management community aspect. It probably still is one of the loneliest roles there is in management because you are I've always said for me at the moment, I'm always at the moment, I am the youngest manager in the business, but I'm also the only isolated one because the every every other manager has got another manager in the region that it kind of pairs with them. So no big fan of both communities as part of that. But I think the main purpose of today's episode really is to talk about some of the incredible reports that you've been able to build and gather information from from your community. So David, maybe we come to you first around kind of the report itself and kind of the goals of that. And then and Rich, maybe we then come to you for kind of the same question. Speaker 3 Oh yeah. So for the last two years we've ran in EMEA, the state of EMEA sales development survey. The reason is, is that there are some great data and research documents that are very US focused and there wasn't anything available for for some an SDR manager in Germany to figure out, OK, what should be the, what's the average attainment of teams? Are we are we above or below that? How much should we be paying an SDR in Barcelona? Am I as an SDR senior manager being paid enough in Paris compared to my peers? So it was trying to create this, this data-driven survey that leaders could use to figure out, OK, where are we as a, as a kind of benchmark, but then also for leader, for leaders to go to their exec teams and say, hey, our comp plan is completely out of whack. We're doing, no one does what we do. And that's why we're not performing. Actually, I'm not being paid. I'm not being paid enough here. I'm being paid half of what my peers are. So it was just it was just trying to give EMEA people more power and to really help drive the changes they wanted to make in their business. Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, it's super interesting. We'll definitely dig into some of the like the key things that either are highlights for us or talking points. So yeah, super interesting. Why SDR Manager Salaries Vary So Dramatically Rich yourself. Speaker 4 Yeah. So there's going to be crossover for sure. I think the, the, the research that we undertook was kind of quite niche and really focused in yeah, just just on leaders, managers, directors. And as you said earlier, it's quite a lonely, potentially lonely role to be in because they just aren't that many still of people doing what we'll do day-to-day. So therefore, it's you feel a bit isolated in lots of respects in terms of orientating yourself in terms of benchmarking and knowing what when you're budgeting and all sorts of things. So we went, so the Super niche and went super deep into leadership pay. And one of the things that we did off the back of this was we created a report, but we knew that we wanted to actually make this, this data kind of useful beyond after we published it. So we also created a benchmarking tool, which is like a dynamic tool that you can go into and you can put your details in or maybe you can put the role that you're looking to go for next and it will actually benchmark and say, what's this role being advertised? Or maybe there is no salary as it's still fairly common. Most roles that doesn't get published. And you say you can put it into the benchmark tool and maybe we chat to that business when you're having a salary conversation, you're actually doing with the market. And because as we know, some organizations, they might do some benchmarking or then you know that the budgets might come from a completely different calculation. But actually as an individual going into those conversations, whether it's your next role or a promotion or you're looking to to renegotiate, I think like David's probably found having that community behind you makes you feel far less isolated. Speaker 1 Yeah, I was one of the people that actually, I remember before we did the report, I'd messaged the SDL leaders WhatsApp and was like, hey, like, just really curious, does anyone have any like recent reports on salary benchmarks? Just want to come cross compare compared to my peers. And then when I saw you, you guys like launched it, I was like, oh, thank God. Like I really, I really want this because similar to Harry Loan, BDR manager in the UK, I've got nothing to compare it to. And obviously I was coming from a different, what's the word I'm looking for industry from my previous roles. I was like, well, maybe it's different depending on industry, but I didn't know. Yeah, I was really keen for something like this. And actually I'm going to dive right into a question, Rich. There was a few things that didn't surprise me in the report. For example, the more senior you are, the more paid you get. Obviously be a bit weird if that wasn't the case, slightly concerning. I think one thing that really I did find quite interesting was the jump from sort of entry level manager team leads to like second in line. So just managing one manager was like 2X and I just thought God, like that's such a difference. I thought I'd ask like, you both have been like you both have our senior, you've both been senior. Why do you think there is such a disparity and difference between a junior BDR manager and a more senior manager besides just tenure? Speaker 4 I think I can. Comparing US and EMEA Sales Development Cultures I can. I guess my perspective on this is different businesses will have different views on the sales development function. So, and I'm talking in hyperbole here, I'm going to talk at extremes, I guess stay illustrated. So some organizations will see the sales development function as just cold calling, you know, and, and that's all they do. There's nothing more advanced than that, that you've got a list, you call through, you have a script and a super basic. And then you'll have some organizations where as part of they go to market, maybe they're launching into new territory or they're launching new product or they need to move up market or pivot or whatever it is. Sales development is probably the quickest function to start getting results because you get that feedback loop really quickly. You can say, hey, we did 2000 dials this week and this is what we got from it. Try doing that in marketing spend can be very, very difficult. So I think for me, that's where probably the, the, and we found in our research that you can almost 3X your OTE from entry level manager right through to the most senior that we had respond in the survey. So I think it probably comes down to, yes, you as an individual, I'm sure I've got some, you know, if you've got some great experience, but probably is more reflective the business that you're working in and how much it, it values sales development and also needs sales development to be that key part of its GTM and therefore will pay in proportion to what it's going to deliver. Speaker 1 Yeah, no, that makes total sense. I just think I think it's just so fascinating that I feel like when it comes to SDR role, when it comes to the a year role, when it comes to even like sales management, there's just like a set kind of salary. Like you when you see the ads on LinkedIn, right, Senior SDR 40 to 45 K standard junior SDR. Well, it should be about 30 minimum, but you can see the 25 pop in there 25 plus, right AE 60 minimum sales leaders, 120 minimum. Just you just don't ever see that for sales like SDR leaders. And I think that's what's like so frustrating as a sale like an SDR leader is that even like people that I see are actively interviewing, I think you saw it in the some of the chats, people going back and forth, they were like, the difference in the salaries I'm being offered is so vast. But I just don't feel like you get that with other roles. And I think, I really hope that's something that starts to change. I mean, I don't know. Do you think it ever will? Speaker 4 Well, hopefully, David, the work that we've both done is going to inform the industry. I don't know if there's it's also we sometimes hear some might some good news stories back from our community members about, you know, how how how, how this data has actually helped them know their worth, which I think is kind of the key thing here. Speaker 3 I think I've got, no, this is not data-driven that one about to say, but I feel like there is a direct correlation between companies that are wanting to be successful and are successful with how much they pay talent. And you normally see the companies that are not successful or don't know what they're doing to be successful, they're not paying the top the salaries that they should be being paid, hence performance not being there. They're getting 2nd grade talent. I mean, in the USA different, different story. But I know in the US, like for AVP of sales development roles over there, but some of those starting salaries are just like, it's ridiculous, like $500,000 a year. Like if you just say that, if you say that's like standard. Yeah. And then that doesn't even include stock. I mean, it's some of the numbers you hear over here in the States. It's just, it's, it's ridiculous. So it's about, as Rich said, about knowing your worth and knowing that you can back up the numbers that you'll get about to say because this is actually what the standard is in the market. Speaker 1 That's such an interesting point and I think actually this is again enough to the report, but I do think there's such a cultural difference in the way Americans view sales in comparison to how the UK slash EMEA views sales. And as a role. Like I still, I feel like they do just like to pay salespeople more over in the States. I feel like that's an assumption on my point. I just, I mean, you're no more pro, David, than I will because obviously you see it. But I always feel like when I talk to Americans, they always are like, yeah, I'd expect at least this. And I'm like, I think if I walked in and asked for that, they would have kicked me right out the door if it was over here. Yeah. I don't know if you have seen like that sort of thing. I mean, you mentioned it there VP, but. Speaker 2 But I think there's also a different view on the way that especially like the BDR function is operated within the different regions. Like we've got AI would say be if I look at the BDR kind of org within most of me are businesses you normally, well a lot of businesses you normally it's a younger group that is hired out of university. So maybe they've some have had experience and then transitioned into a VDR role. But actually of all of the manager progression paths you are, you can technically, I mean, I, me and Lauren have both done it right. We've gone from BDR into BDR management within that first kind of stint. There isn't many other roles within sales where you can go and do 2 years of being a successful Rep and then move straight into a manager role. Like normally even if you're doing that, you're doing BDR, AE and then you might move into AE manager. The same with customer success, whatever different department that you move in. So I think what you find is you get a huge amount of youth within management, first time managers and that I think always brings the entry level or the base or the lower end down. But then if you look at compare that into the USA, business development is actually a lack of proper profession, right? It like you have people that are in their 40s, fifties, 60s that are still BDRS that have been doing this 20, 25 years, 30 years, right? Because it gives them a very, very structured life balance of, yeah, I can go and earn easy $100,000 a year within that market. Whereas we kind of don't have that in the mirror. I would say, well, we don't have that. Hey, this is a profession. It's the same as being a waiter over here. It is a proper profession. Like people are so good at it in in England, some of the services crap and it's not treated like a profession, right? Speaker 3 None of those is always great at serving. Speaker 1 Us you know what, that's one of the saddest things of COVID is that the QR code is coming on the tables in most places now and you just don't get stuff anymore, do you? You have to like self-serve yourself half the time anyway. Addressing the Lack of Training for SDR Leaders So that's what you said Harry. I think the, the, but the worst thing is though is that it's junior people normally on SDR side with no enablement, no training, no support. And you are, you have maybe 3/4 of a million of total all in cost for your business unit that you're managing. And also you have a direct, you direct slash indirect influence on revenue in the business. And yeah, you where else are you going to give that responsibility than the SDR in the SDR organization and they need the most training development. It's crazy. Speaker 2 Like like Lauren, how much training, management training would you say you've received in your, what, three years? Two years. Speaker 1 Great question. Yeah, I went in self sourced coaching. So in a page training that's that was with me off my own back. I got I kind I got like some training at to pouty. It was very much like, how do you fit like choose your AB or C players, learn about like colours of your people. Are they red? Are they blue? Are they yellow? Which is I think really good to learn because it is like think like making you think about personality types and how they want to be managed. But yeah, so I got taught like the different colours and all of that, which don't get me wrong yet like I said, like is helpful. But have I had through company dedicated long? No, I haven't. I would say if I was to put it together in hours, I've probably had a week's worth in the last three years for us to combine everything I've done and half of that is self source that is me going and and paying for it. So yeah, I think it is poor, but I don't think that's just for us. I think that's for management in general in sales to be honest. I think we're expected to kind of get on with it like here's the target go and make the reps hit it in a lot. I think that's the thing with sales is that everything is so trackable because of metrics and targets that that bit gets lost. Speaker 3 When I was, I was at a company called Infoblocks and we had incredible training for first line, second line. I did the third line training, did executive presence, executive training. But then I was at one of the largest companies in the world and there was not. And it's is 1% less of organisations that actually give proper leadership development training that really invest in it. Speaker 1 Yeah, you, you touched a bit in the report about coaching and training, right? Speaker 3 Yes. Speaker 1 Yeah. What would you say with the SO stand out things from that that you noticed? Speaker 3 In terms of with SDR leaders, yeah. Speaker 1 Or an SDRS. Speaker 3 Yeah. So it's the big piece was around dedicated sales development, SDR training trainers or enablement people. I can't remember the number on the top of my head right now, but there was starting to see an increase in the amount of SDR enablement leaders that are directly associated with the teams, which in turn with the other stat was what 55% of leaders actually hired more SDRS than not over the last 12 months. So it's may say to me correlate that companies in EMEA are starting to take it a little bit more seriously and about trying to get this talent, talent productive faster. But yeah, I mean, I was in AI, was at an event last night in Chicago and this SDR manager said that he has to hire 55 zero SDRS in the next 12 months. Yeah, yeah, he was. And then he said but we have this enablement person who they do, they end up having to do 2 enablement trainings because the enablement person that they have is so bad that they he has to then go and do another weeks of enablement with them. Speaker 2 And that's super hard, but it it doesn't make me think it's so common. It's so common though. Speaker 1 Yeah. You know, like people have fast growth, they're increasing. They just need the heck out there to start doing the job. I think sometimes they're willing to sacrifice good quality. Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, especially over here in the States. Speaker 1 Yeah, that's that's that is crazy 50. Wow. Speaker 3 And it was. And so when he said this, he was like, yeah, yeah, my, our leadership wants us to get to 125 SDRS by the end of the end of the year. And he'd already had like 25 over the last couple of months. And it's just like, OK, right. Enjoy that? Speaker 2 I'd be fascinated to know why though, and like what the ROI multiplier that they're using for the BDRS are. Speaker 3 Yeah, because he. Speaker 2 So you're basically saying that it's almost increase it by what 33% or 50%? Speaker 3 And then what are they going to see a 33% increase in growth? Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. I think it all depends on what the product is, right? If it's you do see some of it's, you do see some of these companies that are just like, Hey, how do we go and just grab market share really quickly for like 2-3 years and then do that take the take the A players, promote them and then start ripping them the people that maybe didn't hit the the multiplier needed, but. Speaker 1 Yeah, crazy. Quality Over Quantity: The Rise of AI SDRs That's super interesting. Speaker 1 I think sort of on that point of light SDR performance, all of that, one thing that I loved in the report was the fact that it very much emphasized that it was about quality of a constant on activities. I think it said the 5th, the 50 to 99 daily range. Was the top performing cluster, so actually doing less than 100 activities and obviously activities is e-mail, LinkedIn calling. So it's all of it actually yields the best results, which I found I 100% believe in. I was within that category of voter for like daily activity. Why? I mean there's a few reasons, but why do we think this is? Because I think that there's still a bit of an attitude that more is best. So I'm glad the data proves that more is not best, but why do you think this sort of came out as the the result, David? Speaker 3 Because we're starting, the people that still live in the 1980s in terms of sales are starting to die out. They, I think a big thing is that we've had to increase activity to engage with people because people are just so flooded with terrible emails, terrible about that via AI slop generated with AI slop generated LinkedIn messages, data that was really bad. Like I have an example and I'll tell you who the company what it was afterwards so I don't get sued. I had a company that used to call my dad because they'd scraped his mobile number and and saw my surname and my dad blessed him. He was a teacher. He was not in the tech space. He was like, why do these people keep calling me? Are you in trouble? And it's like, so it's like bad data. So people just have to do more stuff. But I think what we're starting to see are organizations go right, this AISDR stuff is not not working and we're now going to stop believing the hype that's on the Internet. And they're actually going back to the basics, which is like human to human interaction and being calling and but also investing in the data and investing in processes that's actually giving more quality information and content content something else. We're seeing that reduction in activity because we don't need to do as much. Speaker 2 Just just click, just click me on this point because this is we we discussed this with Mick and Hitesh as well around Mick hates AISDRSI am probably of a slightly different ilk where I can see it coming. And I'm I'm actually looking at trying to hire my first AI employee this year. That's the goal of mine. What's your take on the AISDR or where do you think it kind of needs to get to to I'm assuming to work based on what you just kind of shared there? Speaker 3 Me and AISDRS have a complicated relationship. Speaker 1 I think I think I'm on your side for this one. Speaker 3 Yeah, I, I could see it, see it a mile off. The just companies that were creating these AISDRS that had never, ever been in sales before. They were, they were people who had never maybe even spoke to someone before in their life and thought, yeah, let's create something that's this mass, mass activation. And, and venture capital firms loved it because it was like, wait, you can you're going to create something that's going to cost X dollars and then that means I don't have to hire this massive amount of dollars. So VC firms loved it because they thought, OK, this is actually going to reduce cost, increase customer, reduce customer acquisition cost. So that's why there's this massive pumping of funding and, and capital into those, into those models, AI model STR models. But the problem is, is that they were crap and they create crap and they hallucinate and, and then they might work for like a day, but then they stop working. And it's just, I really think AI for STRS is more on that top of the top of the funnel. That's where I see it being versus on the execution. Speaker 1 Yeah, I think, I think I my thing with it right is that I've got no issue with AI. I think AI is 100% helps a lot. My favorite thing is when like you write an e-mail and you can put it in and then you can say make this 100 words shorter. Love all of that for it. I think it's great. I think it does really good things. My thing is that, and I think Harry is going to be so great when you start doing this and you can start telling us your experience. Because I feel like all that's going to happen is that you get this AISDR and the amount of time you spend trying to train this piece of AI to sound like a human. Respond the right way, understand your product, all of that. You should have just hired a person and you would have got quicker results and they would have responded way better. And I think that's my thing with it is that I'm like the amount of time me as the leader is going to have to dedicate on this piece of tech is far more than a person who I can train. And then I can give a buddy who can go and ask their SDR pits that's going to help them. And I think that's my issue with it is that I just don't see it actually as the time saver it's claiming to be. This is all assumption. I've never done it, so I wouldn't know. But based on my experience with AI and other things, EG the AI box that you can cold call role play with the amount of time I spent on that building it out and trying to do the objections and like getting it to understand the products and the kind of objections that my my reps get thrown. I was like, Oh my God, I made a role play with them like this like a matter of time. Like so that that's why I feel like it's not actually that beneficial. But do you know? Speaker 2 Yeah, I've got, I think I've got a slightly different take on it in the sense that I think that it is clearly where the future is going, like the way it'd be interesting to get both of your takes on this. But I do think that the BDR teams are going to change whether we think that that is going to be this year, which some people are predicting next year, the year after or in 10 years. AI is definitely coming for an element of our jobs at some point. So I think the people that figure out how to train these AIS are going to be people that become more valuable for companies. Now, if I was listening to Lenny's podcast with Jason on it, the guy that owns Sastra and he's gone from 28 employees to 19 AI employees and he's, his AIS are outperforming what his AES were doing across all areas of the business and the BDRS. And he now has an AI that runs the AIS and he's bought I think something like 16 different tools to run 19 different agents and he has one AE now versus what he had 2028 employees. I'm not saying that I agreed with his view that by the end of this year, everyone's going to be moving to an AIBDR model. But I do agree that he's like, I spend an hour to two hours training AIS, and now I train one AI to train the other AIS a day. So I think it's Lauren, to your point, yeah, you do have to put a lot into it. And I think that's why a lot of people have been failing at them, because people are not educated on how to basically create a good AI, but also aren't spending enough time doing it all well enough. Rich, what's your perspective on AIBDRS? Predicting the Future of AI in Sales Development There's a couple of things. Like you said earlier, AI is coming for our jobs. What I really hope it's coming for is the, is the part of our jobs that we don't like doing that, that would be progress. So I think there are, there is definitely efficiencies to be made. I'm sure we've all do things which we used to take a long time and we've automated in in lots of different ways. I think I've got 2 observations on this. One is that I have seen with the wide adoption, an awareness of Chat Chi PT and others, it's become a very quickly consumerized product or technology. I read somewhere the other day that you know, Chat Chi PT hit, you know, the kind of 10,000,020 million, how many different users it was at rapid speed compared with every other technology. You know, my mum the other day, now that AI is in WhatsApp, she's like, I love this AI. I'm like, what are you doing with it? I don't know what she's doing, but you know, but you know when your mum, you know when your mum who was her working generation was not kind of tech enabled is using AI. We know it's everywhere. So it's highly consumerized, highly easy to use. However, like most things, like I can cook a spaghetti Bolognese, am I an Italian chef? No, I'm not. And I think this is what we're saying here is that there'll be huge awareness, there'll be huge usage to a certain degree, but actually the deeper level of usage and the really intentional uses and strategic usage will will still be held by a small few, mainly because of time, access to education, which is getting better all the time. So I think, yeah, the consumerization of it. The other thing which I've I've seen really interesting actually is adopting AI to generate your communications with your prospects. That works really well until that prospect wants to talk back to you. And it's a bit like, you know, you go on that French school trip and you've got about 3 or 4 phrases in your back pocket. And unless you need to ask where the train station is, which is probably quite rare, because hopefully the teachers haven't left you in a place where you need to make your own way back. So it's in all seriousness, it's, it's the ability to, I think construct stories to be adaptable, as you said earlier, Lauren, about objection handling. So I think AI is great, but it needs to be used. It's just one of the skills that people need to develop. It can't just be in isolation because if you're doing executive pictures in AE and some finance director throw some really tough curveball questions at you, you can't go ChatGPT. What do you think about this? So I think it's but we're we're learning this is such early days for us. People are going to look back and laugh at us for what we were doing with AI. But it's isn't it fun to be part of it? Yeah, let's. Speaker 1 Make a I've got the numbers here and there are 2024 report. AISDR usage was 8.8%. OK. From yourself, David, in the report for 2025, it jumped to 13.7%, so a 5% increase on 24 to 25. What do we think the increase is going to be in the 2026 report from 13.7%? What do we think? I think it's going to be more than five. I think we're going to see by the end of 2026 a lot of people you like. I reckon 20% of businesses have got a ISDR in there. That's my guess. Speaker 3 I think it'd be about 1/3 a third of people because actually I just, I did AI did a newsletter today about it, about Vibe, Vibe coding. And there are now applications out there. Like for example, I'm not associated with them yet. Replics is 1 where you can just go and write build me a landing page for an event or build me a cold like a cold called training bolt. You can do it on there. And so I think people are going to start to become like figure out, OK, I'm not just going to listen to what people are telling me I should be building this for. I'm going to, I'm going to figure it out myself and try it out. So I think it's going to be, it'll be more in the yeah, I think it's going to really jump this year. Yeah, I think. Speaker 2 I think with along with like agents as well, I think people are starting to get on to the fact that like you, some people are using the same prompts over and over again and they're asking at the same task. So why don't you build an agent that can solve for that? So like I'm in the process of building 1 for like LinkedIn so that it builds out my content structure for three months and then it builds all of the content. But again, you've got to put a huge amount of work into it because you basically go to upload the last five years of your content. So it sounds like you and stuff like that, which is which is difficult. But I agree with you, David. I think whether we class it as a ISDR or some form of like agent that sits with an SDRI, think yeah, 100% that should be probably a third if not if not slightly more. Speaker 1 OK, cool. What about yourself, Rich? Speaker 4 Yeah, I think my maths isn't great, but I think it's going to be exponential. So going from 8 to 15 or whatever it was up to 30, that sounds, that sounds pretty sensible. I think like you say, you rewind 12 months ago, depending on when you're watching and listening this and things were hugely different. It's, it's exciting to be part of this, to be honest. We're kind of privileged to be, to have access to this and to be a, to be honest, it's an imperative for us all to, to go along with this and, and try and be leaders where possible. It's difficult to be a leader when it's moving so quick. I think it's probably the challenge. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Speaker 3 I'm surprised your maths isn't very good because it sounds like you went to a nice school where your teachers didn't leave you in the middle of nowhere in France to fend for yourself. We didn't have schools like we didn't have schools like in Leicester. It was just like, right, we're off, we're off to the cafe. See you later. Speaker 1 Where's the train station French lesson? Brilliant, I love that. How to Negotiate Your Worth in Fast-Growing Tech OK, I know we are wrapping up towards the end and I have AI. Have a question that I'm desperate to ask. So in the SDL report it was shown that Series C companies on average pay around 128 K in comparison to Series A AT86K. Makes sense. Series A is a very new business starting up, it's not going to have as much money. Series C through loads of funding rounds, etcetera. My question is what do you think managers who are in extremely fast-paced growing businesses that are wrapping through these funding rounds but aren't increasing pay at the same rate? What do you think those kind of managers can do? How they can have a conversation about it? Because you know, we are in the age of tech businesses do grow really quickly and it like most businesses, you get a yearly pay review. But if your business has gone from Series A to Series C in the space of a couple of years, you would not get a jump from 80K to 130 within that. Yeah. Just really keen to hear your thoughts on how you can sort of navigate that conversation. Speaker 4 Yeah, that was one of the when we got the crunched all the numbers and that came back, there were a few slightly less. Well, it's not less obvious, but some things that stood out. And I think for me really, as you say, it's this old adage of you've got to leave your current role, your current business to be, you know, for significant gains. Now, I think if you're in a Series A business and I've been in, you know, pre seed businesses and everything, a lot of the people you're working with, or maybe yourself, you don't, you don't know, you look, look left, look right. No one's done this before. No one's gone as far as this before. And I think that's where the power of the, the data that we're, you know, that our communities have provided is that we can show that road map. Because how many times do you hear about an organization hiring someone who is highly experienced, but it just doesn't work out? And let's be honest, sales is not a science. I feel like I feel there is a bit of artistry in there. So nothing's guaranteed. So if you can have those people and keep those people who maybe were with you from the beginning and you want to want to retain them, then actually be able to present this data and say, look, with my level of experience or tenure in a business of where we're going, this is the sort of market rate. So actually, even if it's a, if it's a few quarters or a few years out, being able to say this is really what, you know, when we get to that round, that's what I'll be looking for, not just because it's a number that I've chosen, because that's what the market really looks like. It's demanding. And I think that's what again, it's knowing you're worth. So I think that's for me, that's that's the key part. But we did see quite an overlap between we had seen some team leads who are being paid more and some less experienced managers. And I guess that's indicative of those organizations that are, to David's point earlier about like investing in your staff, having that career pathing, but also having that budget in place. We talk about career path and develop. Do you have the budget not just to develop those people, but actually then to retain them once you've developed them? And those two things aren't always planned out in tandem, I think. Speaker 1 Nice. I love that. Really, really helpful. What about yourself, David? Speaker 3 Yeah. So I was, I was at a company where I came in as a BDR and I left as a director and I was hamstrung by the that they would not give me a bump, the proper bump to get to the levels that I should have been at. And it was. But what my leadership though, they really helped in terms of, we used to do merit increases every six months of salaries. So every six months I was getting bumps the Max amount that you could get every year to try and get me and get me and get me closer to what what it should be because I was, yeah, I was underpaid quite considerably. So I think it also depends on the, on the organization as well in terms of like stock and if you, if you're at if you're actually an open AI and you're not at that point, you know, you're not on the salary terms, but you know, you know that the company is a good one. It's about if you can get additional stock and equity. That's normally a big, a big driver as well. But I think the other thing as well to always remember is that the more that you're being paid, the more likely you're going to get taxed a lot more. So it's like, there's also that thing to remember, like if you're going to get a pay rise, you've got to make sure it's a, it's a significant 1 so you not get hit in a threshold and then it's actually earning less take home pay. Speaker 1 Yeah, or you're doing things like a private pension to try and get tax relief and all that sort of jazz. Like, yeah, research, research how you can make your wage go further. Speaker 4 Yeah, we saw that actually. And one of the things I was excited. I don't think you've recorded it yet, but I know that you gave us a sneak peek guys in your pilot or launch episode. And you were talking about that kind of element of how you might actually use your funds, how you might invest the money that you're earning so that you're not on a constant. You know, you're not constantly chasing something. And that I think again, I think the, the surveys that our our communities have put out there allow people just to understand what are the boundaries? Yes, we heard some extremely high 6 figure salaries there, David. But actually, like you say, if you're in the UK or the places, it gives you that sort of right, What are the boundaries here? And because we saw that potential 3X potential from team lead right through to very experienced director, for me it was really reassuring because it shows you how much headroom there is in this still very niche role. So actually where you may look at people may think I've got to move from this role to this role to this role. And there are plenty of pathways actually, if you love this part of the go to market function, which I am, I'm an addict. I'll admit to that. It's great for me and for others, probably for all of us, because that's why we're on this podcast, to know that there is that there's that headroom. There's plenty of years, there's plenty of notches in the career and dysfunction can accommodate it. So, yeah. And actually, to your point, David, we also one of the things we asked was what do people do when they move roles? And what's the biggest thing they're negotiating get again, just trying to equip our community with with all the with all the sort of. You know, empower them with all of the knowledge and the hints and tips so that they can be expert negotiators. And by far and away, the most successful thing that people negotiated was yet stock options. And as you say, David? Speaker 1 Yeah, I love that style. Like four and five win if they negotiate and like I will hold my hands up. I've never probably, I've never probably negotiated and I don't know if that's like coming from a place as being a woman and being fearful of coming across as too aggressive or the that I think that definitely flows in, especially when it's a male manager. I worry that they're going to think, oh God, she's going to be a nightmare to work for. I think that makes it like I've never negotiated And I think, God, what have I missed out on because I haven't done that. So yeah, I thought it was really, it was made me feel really positive knowing that I have a four and five chance of getting that increase if I go back in and also something else. So that did equip me with that bravery of that in future when I'm looking or whatever I can, I know that there's a good chance that I could get it. So I know. Speaker 4 You're worth, that's the key thing. Speaker 2 I must have been that other one in five because I've negotiated every time. But they've said if you don't take this offer, it's off the tables. Speaker 1 It's you, Harry. Speaker 2 I feel like I'm on the other other side of that where I'm constantly trying to negotiate. But I think I think we'll discuss this in a little bit more of our kind of BDR management series as well, which I think we're probably going to be is going to be Series 3. Now. I'm looking at kind of as someone who is a first time manager and this is my first time coming in as a manager of some of the things that I'm wanting to do in regards to like ACV build. So I constantly talk like I'm building a team in the Philippines. This year I'm also trying to hire my first AI employee and like what is that experience going to be worth to me on my CV? Rather than asking for another 1020 grand, Would I rather, would I pay someone almost 10 grand to learn those skills and get really good at those because I think they'll pay kind of 20 grand. So then I make an extra 10 if that makes sense. So I think there's an element of that part. We are just going to wrap up now and I'm going to ask you kind of both one question. What is kind of what was your biggest take away from your report? Rich, I'll come to you first and then David. Speaker 4 The biggest take away was actually that there weren't huge number of surprises that if you do the things that you think are right. So if you the key things for us, the big drivers were expanding the region, going global, having larger teams, becoming a a second line or or or higher a leader. They do return in terms of overall OTE. So I think there is there is a path here. Like I said, the headroom was really reassuring. So I think for me, who's someone who's been in, you know, sales development for about 8-9 years, been in sales 20 years. I'm like, actually, this is a great place to be if you work hard, if you choose the right company, which you know, all of our, the, the data that we're sharing with our communities helps our people to do. There is so much potential here and, and future in a world where there's maybe a lot, lots of good news for me. I was like, right, I'm in a great part of the market. I'm a bit great industry. And yeah, that was that was a take away, I guess personally for me, a bit more personal. Final Thoughts on the State of SDR & Management I love that. Speaker 3 And then on my side, I think it was the big thing was the what, 53% of STR leaders have increased the size of their teams in the last 12 months. So that would tell me that the fear, the fear that's on online about SDRS being dead is not actually being played out in practice. I. Speaker 2 Totally agree with that. I'm someone that's probably gone the opposite way, right? We've, we've reduced our team, but again, we're reps are now becoming way more profitable per per Rep, which is, again, I still think super exciting. Like you can just lean on with some of the efficiency gains that AI is bringing, you can lean on reps more to deliver more, which is I think super exciting as well. Speaker 1 Yeah, and then I'm the opposite, Harry, and I've 4X the size of my team in the last two. This is what's so great about us. We've got such opposing opinions all the time. Yeah, well, I thoroughly enjoyed that. I loved the reports that there were reports that I really needed as a leader. So it's so great to have you both on here and actually get the chance to properly talk about it and the numbers and all the thoughts behind it. So, yeah, thank you so much for for coming on. I've really enjoyed this. Speaker 4 Thank you both. Speaker 2 Thanks very much. Appreciate it. Cheers for listening episode. Speaker 1 Don't forget to like and don't forget to follow us. Thank you. Yeah. And. Speaker 2 If you want to sponsor this podcast, please let us know. Speaker 1 There's now snow. We'll say whatever opinion you want us to say, bye bye. Speaker 2 Guys, bye, bye.