How to Use Strategic Sending to Expand to EMEA

Recession, massive layoffs, and economic uncertainty. Doesn’t exactly sound like an opportune time for global expansion, does it? However, breaking into new markets abroad is a priority for more than half [1] of companies that got funding in the past year—and for good reason.

As economic uncertainty in the US continues post-pandemic, having a presence in five or more markets is expected to increase radically in the next five years. And with IPO’d SaaS companies getting 30%[2] of their global revenue from the EU, it’s no surprise that this region is usually the first stop for organizations wanting to scale, access new talent, and acquire new customers.

“It may seem counterintuitive to suggest that now is an ideal time for tech firms to push ahead with plans to expand globally. But in the face of significant instability, operating in more than one country makes a business far more resilient. -José Montero, Chief Operating Officer at Velocity Global.”[3]

Who better to ask about international expansion than Pradeepa Kolli, the former Global Head of Sales Development at Meta for Workplace (Facebook). In this post, she shares best practices on how she established a strong global presence by building an SDR team from scratch. Plus, you’ll walk away with actionable revenue strategies you can use to weather this recession.

How to send your way to SDR success

My 20+ year career in sales began as an SDR. I progressed to managing commercial sales teams at three different start-ups, all of which went public. Most recently, I took a VP of Sales Development role for LHH and Ezra ( Part of Adecco Group),  where I am  heading up Go to Market motion via sales development, and sales enablement.

One of my biggest passions is sales development through demand generation and early career talent progression. To succeed as an SDR, you need a tool that gets your foot in the door to start those meaningful conversations with your target accounts by adding value.

That’s why I championed Sendoso as our Sending Platform for the Meta sales team. I knew strategic personalized prospect sending would be a valuable tool for enabling my SDRs to reach their goals.

You still need an outbound sales motion to create quality pipeline

I’ve held a few roles at Meta, including setting up the inside sales team for their new SaaS business. Since the SaaS model was new to Facebook, there was no outbound sales motion to speak of.

You would think with a brand like Meta that you would not struggle with a new business pipeline. It is certainly true for the advertising business of Meta. However, this is not the case for our partnership areas of business which included our Saas solutions like Workplace, an enterprise Saas product as we were aiming for expansion . The enterprise sales team and SDR team still have to drive outbound prospecting into target enterprise accounts.

By implementing a Sending Platform, our SDRs began seeing massive results. By showing the team where the pipeline gaps were and how to close them, I was able to get results in the first 30 days of running the EMEA team. The increase in response rates[3] my SDRs got from their sending efforts was undeniable.

How to create an actionable pipeline plan

Most would think with a brand like Facebook would be bombarded with quality leads, but that wasn’t the case. We still had to do outbound and prospecting into target accounts for certain lines of business

Here are the three most valuable lessons learned from building Meta’s global outbound sales team:

Tip 1: Identify pipeline gaps

With only 6%[5] of CSOs reporting that they feel “extremely confident” about whether their team will meet or exceed revenue goals, the best advice I can give to revenue leaders is to focus on what you can control.

This means fixing pipeline gaps by focusing on the stages in your sales cycle your deals get delayed or lost, resulting in lost revenue.

Regardless of buying instability, you can secure your pipeline by identifying the gaps that are sabotaging top-line revenue.

4 of the most common pipeline gaps to look out for

Low lead volumeNot getting enough quality leads flowing to any stage of the pipeline is one of the most common sales issues leading to pipeline gaps.Unqualified leads (also known as attrition)High lead volume isn’t always a plus as it can bog down your reps. Create a lead qualification process that allows your reps to focus on leads within your target market who are ready to buy.Pipeline bottlenecksWe call patterns where deals tend to stall or fall off ‘bottlenecks.’ For example, maybe your leads respond to initial outreach efforts but tend not to show up to the demo.

Learn more about how sends can be used as door-openers that finally get your reps in front of difficult-to-reach prospects. They can also use them for demos and meetings.

Fumbling leadsIf your leads don’t receive responses promptly (or go unanswered altogether!), this will have a major impact on your opportunities and pipeline.

Prevent reps from dropping the ball on leads by having the right operational lead routing structure. Properly setting up a lead automation workflow in your CRM or sales engagement platform will solve this issue.

Tip 2: Manage leads properly to accelerate deal velocity

When Meta created a WhatsApp-style product for the enterprise, we began getting thousands and thousands of leads. While that may sound like a great problem to have, it wasn’t.

Most of the leads were not falling under the right ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) and we are keen to go to market with  larger enterprise accounts. Therefore, we still needed to prospect and convince buyers to choose us over the competition.

I focused on lead segmentation and built a lead scoring process to solve the problem of wading through unqualified leads. I segmented the leads so that companies with less than ten employees were taken through an automated process instead of talking to a salesperson.

Lead assignment examples to consider for your SDR team

• Leads assigned at random

Your customer relationship management (CRM) can be set up to assign leads in a round-robin fashion. This strategy is beneficial because reps feel there’s a level playing field between them and their teammates.

• First-come, first-served lead distribution

In this scenario, leads will auto-populate to a list, and whoever gets to the lead first gets ownership.

Some teams also create timing parameters so that if a lead hasn’t been touched within a specific timeframe, it becomes available again.

Pro tip: Increase sales conversions by warming up leads that have gone cold with a different approach. A Sending Management Platform allows your reps to create a stalled-deal sending strategy that brings deals back to life.

• Geographic or territory-assigned leads

Territory-based leads are assigned to SDRs by geography, industry, or some other parameter.

Geographic lead assignment is common for SDRs working alongside outside account executives covering specific locations.

• Inbound/outbound lead split

Some companies divide their SDR team by assigning them inbound, or outbound leads only.

This lead assignment model could be a good fit if you have SDRs with different strengths and experience levels.

• Company or buyer type

SDRs receive leads filtered by company size.

Filter examples could include small and midsize businesses, mid-market, or enterprise. Like the inbound/outbound lead assignment model above, this could work well for SDR teams with varying skills and experience levels.

Pro tip: I’m a big proponent of taking lead segmentation to the next level. For example, have companies with fewer than ten employees routed to an automated process instead of talking to a salesperson. Strategies that create a self-service motion for companies outside your ideal customer profile (ICP) will help your reps focus on target accounts like mid-market and enterprise.

Tip 3: Get the right automated sending tools—but don’t forget to drive adoption

The perfect tech stack is useless unless your team knows how to drive results with it. Change (even good change!) isn’t easy or instantaneous. That’s why change management[6] is such a hot topic in B2B.

I knew Sendoso would help us close our pipeline gaps and open conversations with target accounts, but I also knew reps needed time to learn the best ways to incorporate sending into their workflows.

That’s why I launched a Sending adoption incentive for my SDRs. We awarded reps with incentives for their sales performance leveraging Sendoso.Then, I chose two to three Sendoso champions and had them train the rest of the team on it. Also, if our leads attended in-person events or webinars, Sendoso was also used as a follow-up to nurture them further.

Sendoso is such a useful tool, and it’s pretty much become our essential tool for our outbound motion right now. For example, we had a set of 100 very large accounts for our field reps that we needed to target. We had to prospect these in a way that didn’t feel overly salesy. Sendoso is a great approach to warm our prospects up.

Getting buy-in: Educate your team on sending best practices

• Make sends relevant: Make the send  individualized to your prospect. Encourage your SDRs to begin listening for small details they can later use to send ideas throughout each phase of the sales pipeline by adding value to the prospect.
• Personalize your sends: Advise your SDRs to send something related to specific information that they share on public platforms such as linkedin. They should ask themselves, “Is this something my prospect would care about?”
• Send timely Sends: We knew that the timing and thoughtfulness of the send would be more important than the cost. We used Address Confirmation so that reps would know to follow up right when the send was delivered to increase their chances of getting a response. Sendoso automatically confirms the delivery, so our SDRs had to-the-minute tracking that allowed them to follow up perfectly.

How to drive EU expansion with a strategic sending program

Sending is an effective persuasion technique, but as you expand into global markets, remember that Sending practices differ from country to country. When implementing a [strategic sending program], always keep your target audience and their norms in mind.

For countries or companies who are compliant to laws or different cultural norms, you can still use a Sending Platform to break into target accounts. Send appropriate books and other educational resources like white papers that are assets to their career development and create value.

The bottom line on using a Sending Platform to super-charge global expansion

As we navigate recessions, layoffs, and general instability, expanding globally is a key strategy for business resiliency. For your SDRs to successfully break into new markets, they need unique tactics (like a strategic sending program) to break into target accounts.

To create a successful outbound motion, use a Sending Platform to spot and close pipeline gaps. Strategic sending prevents deals from getting stalled or lost so you can continue generating top-line revenue.

Proper lead segmentation will help your reps focus on target accounts like mid-market and enterprise. You’ll make the most of your sending budget by identifying accounts with the highest likelihood of closing.

Lastly, as you implement new tools for your SDR team, inspire them with creative ways to succeed. Launching a sending adoption incentive for SDRs ensures they use their Sending Platform to its full capability.

Whether you’re focused on maintaining EU customers or expanding there to stay afloat, learn more about how Sendoso can supercharge your global expansion!

References

1. “2020 State of Global Expansion™ Tech Industry” Retrieved June 23, 2022 from: https://stateofglobalexpansion.com/

2. McIntyre, Stephen. “What U.S. Startups Get Wrong About Expanding into Europe” Retrieved June 23, 2022 from: https://hbr.org/2021/02/what-u-s-startups-get-wrong-about-expanding-into-europe

3. Montero, Jose. “What U.S. Startups Get Wrong About Expanding into Europe” Retrieved June 23, 2022 from: https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2020/11/what-tech-giants-can-teach-growing-firms-about-global-expansion/

4. Kolli, Pradeepa. “Four Considerations When Building Your Best In Class Inside Sales Team” Retrieved June 23, 2022 from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2022/03/10/four-considerations-when-building-your-best-in-class-inside-sales-team/?sh=46744cf81eed

5. “Gartner for Sales: Strategic Roadmap for Accelerating Revenue Growth” Retrieved June 23, 2022 from:https://emtemp.gcom.cloud/ngw/globalassets/en/sales-service/documents/trends/sales_roadmap_for_growth.pdf

6. Retrieved June 23, 2022 from: https://medium.com/wrikecxblog/how-saas-affected-change-management-key-insights-from-technology-takers-47c6573d5526

7. https://businessculture.org/northern-europe/sweden/business-etiquette/

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