The VP, Director, or Manager of Business Development is responsible for managing the team who provides lead generation, inbound qualification, and/or outbound prospecting to fill the top of the sales funnel.
They hire, coach, and lead reps to master skills across early-stage selling; cold calling, go-to-market strategy, understanding personas, conducting discovery, positioning solutions, etc.
They closely monitor metrics with the aim of increasing SDR productivity (appointments set, meetings held, contributions to the pipeline, etc.).
They monitor the inbound lead queue to ensure timely follow-up and appropriate routing. They define processes and implement infrastructure and systems to support the team. They track pipeline growth and measure metrics relevant to outcomes.
They work closely with Marketing, Sales Leadership, and Account Executives to ensure proper alignment on opportunity quality and handoff. And finally, they collaborate with Sales and Marketing leadership to develop calling campaigns. Depending upon the organization, they may report up through Marketing or Sales.
Key Challenges
- Gaining access to decision-makers
- Consistently creating a predictable pipeline
- Boosting rep productivity
- Ramping new hires
Risk of Doing Nothing
- Poor connect rates due to bad phone numbers, "Switchboard hell," and/or missing or bad email addresses
- Reps waste time chasing bad fits or setting meetings with tire-kickers
- Low rep morale and poor job satisfaction lead to low productivity and high turnover
- Reps - unable to personalize their outreach - send generic voicemails and emails that fail to resonate with prospects
- Reps miss out on first-mover advantage by uncovering opportunities too late in the buyer journey
How ZoomInfo Helps
ZoomInfo provides a clear-cut path to success by enabling salespeople to:
- Reduce time spent getting lost in corporate switchboards and squabbling with cantankerous operators & gatekeepers
- Spend less time researching accounts, cleaning up bad data, and verifying data
- Quickly identify low-hanging fruit, ripe for prospecting
- Identify, and gain faster access to, decision-makers
- Arm reps with the insights they need to personalize their messages
- Boost job satisfaction by giving reps the tools they need to succeed
- Seamlessly insert account and contact data into the software their team lives in every day