Lacking a strong, multi-touch outbound strategy, the 6sense BDR team struggled to connect with prospects and build pipeline. When a new BDR manager joined the company, he realized the team wasn’t using SalesLoft cadences to their fullest potential. Combining powerful intel from the 6sense platform with the efficiency of SalesLoft cadences, the BDR team developed an unstoppable outbound motion, and through testing and message refinement, performed above average in a down economy. Since optimizing their process to focus on a multi-channel cadence strategy, 6sense BDRs now average $700K+ in new pipeline each month, a 2x increase over the team’s baseline.
Challenge: Make the BDR Team an Outbound Dream Machine
Ernest Owusu, now Senior Director of Sales Development, joined 6sense to manage a 5-person BDR team. At the time, BDRs were using outbound motions primarily for event communication.
But once event season ended, 6sense missed opportunities to generate outbound leads. In Ernest’s second month, each rep created just $350K in pipeline. The BDR team needed a strong, consistent outbound strategy to capitalize on this potentially rich prospecting channel.
As a BDR leader, one of the biggest challenges is making a team as efficient as possible. How can reps get in more calls or send more emails without having to work twice as long?
— Ernest Owusu, Senior Director of Sales Development at 6sense
Upon investigating the team’s SalesLoft adoption, Ernest quickly realized that cadences weren’t optimized to their fullest potential. Each cadence was typically only two or three touches, without phone calls, social engagement, or direct mail. 6sense BDRs lacked a robust, multi-touch prospecting strategy.
Due to these short, inefficient cadences, the team struggled to hit its key metric: engaging 25 accounts a week. Once a cadence ended, BDRs weren’t sure what to do next and lost momentum. Ernest was sure that redesigning the team’s cadences would help BDRs drive bigger pipeline.
Solution: 6sense Intel and SalesLoft Multi-Channel Cadences Create a Prospecting Powerhouse
Ernest’s first order of business: build a multi-channel cadence strategy. He knew he needed to extend cadences to at least 17 touches on average, but having the right content was also key.
To reach more outbound prospects, 6sense needed messaging that resonated with more than just marketers and salespeople. Using its own product, the BDR team could quickly determine what mattered to other personas, too.
“With 6sense, we have a deep understanding of what our prospective customers are searching for and where they are in their buying journey, and that informs how and when we talk to them — whether that’s through the SalesLoft Dialer or through video using Vidyard or personalization in our cadences,” Ernest said.
Armed with this knowledge, the team began developing cadences for personas like Demand Gen and Sales Ops Leaders, CMOs, and more. Cadences spoke strictly to the problems each persona faced — from tactical all the way to big picture — and delivered the value prop each persona was seeking.
Direct mail is also key to the team’s engagement strategy and 6sense uses the Sendoso integration for SalesLoft to send gifts to priority prospective buyers. Reps execute these steps within SalesLoft cadences.
Ernest said, “The biggest thing for us is making sure we’re sending the gifts to the companies that are most interested in us — or showing the strongest data points — first, using our own product but then second, using SalesLoft engagement data.”
Results: High-Performing BDRs 2x Monthly Pipeline
After upleveling its personalization strategy and cadences, the team averaged $700K+ pipeline per BDR in just 4 months — a 2x increase! The team has also grown from five to 20 people in just 18 months.
Ernest attributes the success to “using our own product to go after the right accounts, but more importantly, our cadence strategy. We really wanted to focus on what accounts actually needed and build cadences that were a lot more efficient.”
When COVID hit in 2020, SalesLoft helped 6sense BDRs adapt again. In March 2020, reps averaged a respectable $589K in pipeline. But through testing, reviewing metrics, and adjusting messaging, BDRs averaged $787K in pipeline by June.
In moving to a completely digital selling environment, the team barely missed a beat. Ernest said, “The fact that we measure the team on connects and voicemails and that you can record calls with SalesLoft makes it easy for us to see what’s going on.”
At the height of a global pandemic, 6sense reps not only drove more pipeline — they doubled it.
With the combination of 6sense and SalesLoft, our BDRs are reaching out with timely, relevant messaging — and consistently outperforming industry benchmarks of pipeline per rep by 200% or more every month.
– Ernest Owusu, Senior Director of Sales Development at 6sense
