The Quality v Quantity Debate (with a twist) + 1 Olympian

Read time: 3 mins

You’re all legends for opening and reading this.

Fun fact - I rejected a newsletter sponsorship offer this week. Didn’t feel right.

Community>Cash.

Quick Overview:

The quality v quantity debate has raged for centuries.

Let’s get one thing straight before we start; this shouldn’t be what we are arguing for or against.

It’s not one or the other through sickness and in health forever and always.

If you know me then right now you’ll think I sit firmly in the quality camp.

And you’d be right. Right now I do. But will I forever? I don’t know.

What I do know is the only side I’ll always be on is the buyers.

Here’s the argument, by definition:

Quantity Argument:

→ Only 3% of prospects are in the market at any time so you need to reach a lot of people to have a chance at finding and engaging them.

Quality Argument:

→ Only 3% of prospects are in the market so you don’t have many chances of being successful, you need to maximize each chance.

Now, these arguments both seem reasonable enough.

But what does the buyer want?

Let’s rephrase them from a buyer’s perspective:

Quantity Argument:

→ There’s a 3% chance I’ll be in the market so I would like as many companies as possible to contact me and I can decide who I talk to.

Quality Argument:

→ There’s a 3% chance I’ll be in the market and I would only like companies that solve why I am in the market to contact me.

Don’t get me wrong, if buyers were saying number 1 I’d do it. I’d follow them.

But right now they aren’t saying that. They’re saying number 2.

So how can you translate this into an SDRs day to day?

1/ Consider your KPI system. Is it designed to make you feel better you have done some ‘work’? Or is it in your buyer’s interest?

Top tip → Focus on outputs over inputs.

2/ Consider your team culture. Are you celebrating ‘hard work’ aka activity metrics or results?

Top tip → Switch from high activity praise/recognition to results.

3/ Consider what effort really means. Is effort spending time on KPIs or is effort spending time creating great work that gets results?

Top tip - don’t over-emphasize what your CRM dashboard says. Focus more on the quality of work your reps are producing and how consistently they produce it.

Any questions? Email me, folks. Good luck!!

SDR Leader Spotlight:

For all the new subscribers, every week I spotlight a new SDR Leader because they deserve it. If you’d like to be part of a future edition reply to this email.

Without further ado, please meet: Jazz Carlin OLY, SDR Manager @SourceWhale

Her journey:

This journey is special. Jazz was a double silver medalist at the Rio Olympics in 2016. She then retired from professional swimming and found herself trying to figure out what to do next. A year ago, I found her CV in my inbox and immediately hired her. 12 months later and she’s running a team of 10+ SDRs at one of the UK’s fastest-growing start-ups.

Her mantra (in her words):

Leadership is about unlocking other people’s potential. Not your own.

Her advice for new SDR leaders:

1. Think of your team like your family. A blend of honesty and care is what they need.

2. Focus on creating an environment people can perform to their best, ultimately results matter.

3. Allow people to fail but be there to pick them up and support them when they do.

Thanks, Jazz.

P.S. Jazz isn’t just a top performer in whatever she does. She’s also a great person! I’d recommend making friends with her.

P.S.S. If you’d like to join our SDR Leader Community, DM me.

That’s all for this week folks.

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