Saleswise: Top of Funnel Consultancy

Founder

GTMfund

GTMfund Member

SDR Leaders of EMEA

SDR Leaders of EMEA is an invite only community whose goal is to make SDR Leaders in EMEA the best in the world.

Revenue Syndicate

The Revenue Syndicate is Europe’s first investment community and angel investment syndicate built for experienced go-to-market operators. 

Our 500+ exclusive members are some of the best go-to-market practitioners in Europe and are driving the growth of the fastest growing companies in the world.

Members can invest deal by deal with low minimum investments and it's free to join.

Founders can get funded by GTM operators who know how to generate revenue and can help them build their revenue engine.

Apply to be a member & investor here:
https://revenue-syndicate.typeform.com/membersapply

Apply to be funded here:
https://revenue-syndicate.typeform.com/founderapply

Angel investor & Member

Clay

Cooking up some trigger firing, AI and automation content.

Claymaker

Sales Sessions

Sales Sessions is where we mix offline meetups with non-stop knowledge sharing and help you expand your network. Here, it's all about sharing both the good and the bad - no need for fancy sponsored talks or self-aggrandising sales gurus. Instead, we bring together awesome sales leaders who genuinely learn from each other in a casual and laid-back setting. So, if you're looking for a place to connect with link-minded professionals and swap stories, Sales Sessions is where it's at! Join us, and let's learn together!

Member

Pavilion

Rising Executives School Graduate (February 2022). Learned the leadership, management, and core competencies needed to succeed at the executive level.

Revenue Growth Architecture School Graduate (July 2021). Learned the key skills, strategies, and scientific models needed to be a revenue growth architect, including the principles of recurring revenue, the GTM operating model, the SPICED methodology, identifying moments that matter, and more.

Pavilion, formally Revenue Collective, is a private membership organization for commercial growth operators. Our community is designed to support the professional development of revenue leaders at high growth companies, facilitate the sharing of best practices, and serve as a trusted private community.

Executive Member

Snowflake

2nd line leadership responsibility with 5 direct reports and 60 overall headcounts 

Grew SDR win rates by 25%

Developed first SDR vision, strategy, execution, and metrics (VSEM), which streamlined focus to front-line leaders and guided our cross-functional partners 

Built and delivered a front-line leader training session for 10 SDR Managers 

Reduced long-term absence cases by 75%

Director | Sales Development EMEA

Solace

Built a scalable SaaS SDR model to aide the organisation’s transition to a pure SaaS play 

Grew organisation from 5-18 headcount in 6 months 

Reduced SDR time to productivity from 5 months to 6 weeks 

Drove profit optimisation by reducing cost of SDR acquisition by more than 50% 

Lead working group to build a Product Led Growth model 

First time SDR group achieved quota in 3 years: achieved 213 SQL (160% of goal) and 131 SAL (120% of goal)

Global Leader | Inside Sales and Sales Development Representatives

Infoblox

At Infoblox, I manage day-to-day geo duties for developing GTM to develop a consistent run rate of new logo pipeline. I plan and implement strategies to boost revenue generation and build a talent engine for EMEA effectively. I further utilise the talent engine to graduate 10 BDRs for sales and channel roles. I hire, train, and evaluate new staff members to boost staff performance and productivity.  I build robust relationships with marketing and channel team to achieve shared visions and goals.

My key accomplishments are:
• Accomplished driving EMEA revenue generation from 4% in 2017 to a forecasted 20% in 2021.
• Achieved driving revenue and profit optimization from 15% to 25% in one year to increase business profitability and growth.

Director | Business Development Representatives EMEA

Founder @ SDR Leaders of EMEA | I help early-stage technical founders grow their revenue

As a visionary Global Go-to-Market Leader, I excel in defining and executing market-dominating strategies.

My passion lies in making an impact at forward-thinking Series A to Pre-IPO organisations and moving them into their next growth phase. I specialise in constructing world-class account-based sales development organizations and nurturing talent for future leadership. 

My journey at trailblazing tech firms like Snowflake and Infoblox has been marked by generating a staggering $750m+ qualified pipeline, amplifying SDR win rates by 25%, and steering 30+ SDRs towards advanced roles. Beyond numbers, 

My approach is not just about scaling fast but scaling smart, aligning people, processes, and technology to create a seamless, high-velocity sales engine.

If you're poised to redefine the boundaries of your business growth, let's connect and explore how we can turn aspirations into tangible success.

I'm going global! (Well, next door to Belgium)

I am happy to announce I will be hosting a roundtable discussion at the We Are Sales conference on the 16th of May!

Ill be facilitating a topic close to my heart:

Effective Sales Development in 2024: Tools, Channels and Messaging

Thank you to Maarten Seldeslachts and Dylan Mendes

To register, sign up at the link in the comments!

David Wilkins

Grateful and humbled

I'm sitting here full of emotion about where we are with SDR Leaders of EMEA

It started with a walk and an idea on New Year's Eve 2023.

If we had 100 people would join by 2024, it would be a success.

We are now in April, and we have over 900 people involved.

Our LinkedIn live today with Sian Taylor and Andy Laws just shows how people have been crying out for support, guidance and insights in EMEA.

Over 180 registrations and 120 people watching live.

Over the coming months, we have so many announcements to share with you, the community is only going to grow.

If you're an SDR Leader and not yet involved, send me a direct message, and we can chat about the community and how we can help elevate you.

Sponsors: Why wouldn't you want to be involved in a community where all the EMEA SDR leader decision-makers are involved? Drop me a message on how we can partner up!

Thank you!

Dave

EMEA SDRs!

Looking for a new role?

SDR Leaders of EMEA has 1000+ leaders who are all on the lookout for talent to join their teams.

Want to be seen by these leaders?

Comment “I am” in the comments below 

Let’s find you a new role!

Founder @ Saleswise | I help early-stage technical founders grow their revenue | Founder @ SDR Leaders of EMEA

SDRs in EMEA!

Looking for a new role?

SDR Leaders of EMEA has over 750 SDR leaders, who are all looking for talent to join their companies.

Add in the comments you are looking for a role, or drop me a DM and ill connect you with hiring managers.

Lets find you a new opportunity, today!

Will AI separate SDRs who are curious to learn or are just there to collect a paycheck?

This week, Caroline Cannesson of Vonage joins Mastering Sales Development, sponsored by Orum, to discuss this topic!

SDR Hire is back to say hello.
Stakki has a few things to say too.

The beehiiv edition is in the comments!

Cold calling is cool again

Why?

Because there's finally a realisation that the ways of 2020, during the pandemic, of engaging via email and social, no longer work.

So, how can you react as a leader?

You can continue ploughing away with the old ways of working, which are showing increasing and decreasing returns or, leave the ego at the door and formulate a new GTM, one that was around pre-2019

During my recent webinar with Ernest Owusu of 6sense, we spoke about the need to call more and also to do the following:

1️⃣ No more permission-based openers: You ask your mom how they are doing, not a prospect, just got into the conversation.
2️⃣ Work with a buddy whilst calling: There is nothing better than a bit of accountability from doing it with a colleague
3️⃣ Do it in short bursts: If you say youre going to call for 60mins straight, you gonna get fatigued and give up, do a short burst, stand up, walk around the room, then get back to it

Leaders, leave your ego at the door, if youre not comfortable cold calling because you were not in that environment as an individual contributor, is doesn't mean it doesn't work! 

Ask for advice; Roger Laing and James Hanzimanolis are brilliant cold callers; check their stuff out on how to get better!

Never forget leaders...

When it comes to a skill you may not be as strong at.

Leave your ego at the door.

it might make your teams more money.

What do you think about this?

Drop it in the comments!

#salesdevelopment #growth #sdr #GTM #sales #coldcalling

🇬🇧 living in 🇳🇱 | Get more content like this ➡️ Follow David Wilkins 🔥 hit the 🔔 for updates on new posts | Check out Mastering Sales Development: https://buff.ly/491eO7U

Look, SDRs are different to your grandma's SDRs

Time moves on

Even for the role, which is, at its core, about booking amazing meetings.

SDR are no longer 'smile and dialers'. You need to remove yourself from the noise of poor outreach from mass email, with no relevancy or value.

Your growth is directly influenced by how well your SDR team can connect with and nurture potential leads in your ICP.

So what should you do? Shift the narrative within your organisation. 

SDRs should be seen as strategic partners in your sales process, equipped with tools and training to engage prospects meaningfully in a way they like to do business.

SDRs are more than cold calls. Leaders: Emphasise their role in strategic outreach and customer education before your expensive, time-poor sales team engages to drive things forward.

What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below!

#salesdevelopment #growth #sdr #GTM #sales #coldcalling

🇬🇧 living in 🇳🇱 | Get more content like this ➡️ Follow David Wilkins 🔥 hit the 🔔 for updates on new posts | Check out Mastering Sales Development: https://buff.ly/3Jf9gfD

Always assume positive intent.

In both business and life, it's hard to not rid yourself of the idea that people have ulterior motives and don't want you to succeed.

But those same people are also trying to get through life the same way you are.

As a leader, I learnt early on to let go of the idea that people were out to get me.

I took that on board in my personal life too.

It changed how I felt about the world and people, making me more trusting.

It hasn't let me down yet.

Enjoy your Sunday!

#salesdevelopment #growth #sdr #GTM #sales #coldcalling

🇬🇧 living in 🇳🇱 | Get more content like this ➡️ Follow David Wilkins 🔥 hit the 🔔 for updates on new posts | Check out Mastering Sales Development: https://buff.ly/43WGOcf

What is your why?

The photo below is from before I found my 'why'

Let me explain...              

When you start in your new role in SaaS, it's tough to focus on your long-term career when you are scared about keeping your job, hitting your quota, trying to impress everyone and everything else in between!

However, getting a focus and purpose in your career is vital. Instead of having goals you hit and hit, meaning that you continuously focus on the next thing and can never reflect and enjoy your success, think about this differently: what is your why?

What is that keeps you getting up each and every day? 

Mine was being financially well off and ensuring I had a roof over my head for my wife and I.

It means my 'why' is my underlying focus versus constantly pushing and pursuing the next thing and never being satisfied.

So, in closing, instead of always going for the next thing and being unable to rest, consider thinking about your career development differently. 

What is your why?

Add it below!

#salesdevelopment #growth #sdr #GTM #sales #coldcalling

🇬🇧 living in 🇳🇱 | Get more content like this ➡️ Follow David Wilkins 🔥 hit the 🔔 for updates on new posts | Check out Mastering Sales Development: https://buff.ly/3ImELUM

I didn't feel comfortable as an SDR for nearly 18 months, and then it clicked.

3 1/2 years later, I had been promoted 5 times.

Sometimes its best to just....wait. 

Don't compare your career project to others.

I'm so grateful for having the right mentors around me to coach and develop me and, most importantly, HOLD ME BACK, as I just wasn't ready. 

Agree?

#salesdevelopment #growth #sdr #GTM #sales #coldcalling

🇬🇧 living in 🇳🇱 | Get more content like this ➡️ Follow David Wilkins 🔥 hit the 🔔 for updates on new posts | Check out Mastering Sales Development: https://buff.ly/3PL4WZf

Mastering Sales Development, sponsored by Orum is available NOW to our LinkedIn subscribers!

This week we have:

♨ Are we setting the right expectations for our newest SDR hires?
🌶 SDR Hire makes an appearance
🔥 Tom Salley sharing his unique leadership journey
🎇 Stakki comes to say hi

Check it out now!


David Wilkins on LinkedIn • 6 min read

Revolutionising SDRs: Insights and Innovations for Q2's Success

Be sure to thank your SDR today! ⭐ 

Remember where you were when you started your career...      

A 'Great job' or 'Thank you for your help' costs nothing, but is incredibly powerful to people who are new in the workforce!

#salesdevelopment #growth #sdr #GTM #sales #coldcalling

 🇬🇧 living in 🇳🇱 | Get more content like this ➡️ Follow David Wilkins 🔥 hit the 🔔 for updates on new posts | Check out Mastering Sales Development: https://buff.ly/3Im6q8o

As you sit down for your first coffee of your Saturday morning, check out the latest Mastering Sales Development on LinkedIn.

We've got:

Stakki
Caroline Cannesson
SDR Hire
Sian Taylor
SDR Leaders of EMEA
Andy Laws

And a sneak preview of my Podcast with Richard Washington ✅️

Out now!

David Wilkins on LinkedIn • 5 min read

Empowering SDR Leaders: Insights and Innovations

Want to build an SDR org?

But don't know where to start?

Here are my 3 keys to success 🔑 🔑 🔑

When you want to build out a Sales development motion, its important to recognise that what worked in the past will not work now.

It's not about pounding the phone aimlessly, it's not about generic messaging to people up and down the decision-making tree, and it's not throwing SDRs without product training.

To set up your new SDR team for success, do these three things:
1️⃣ Identify your ICP and, most importantly, the 'why' for your customer, then enable your teams via a best-in-class enablement
2️⃣ ABM drives engagement into your ICP via awareness campaigns, creates product knowledge in the market
3️⃣ Create ICP-specific personas sequences that build on the ABM awareness campaigns and direct engagement via those sequences. Test your messaging and iterate. Personalise around 30%!!

So, to sum up, if you are building a new SDR team, success won't come overnight, but the probabilities are more likely if you do these 3 things.

Anything else you'd add to the list?

Drop in the comments! 

#salesdevelopment #growth #sdr #GTM #sales #coldcalling

🇬🇧 living in 🇳🇱 | Get more content like this ➡️ Follow David Wilkins 🔥 hit the 🔔 for updates on new posts | Check out Mastering Sales Development: https://buff.ly/43CfFv3

We are less than 24 hours away from Catherine Olivier ❄️, Sr Director of Sales Development at Snowflake, joining our latest masterclass, where she will discuss this critical aspect of leading: How to communicate with your USA and APJ Peers

This Friday, 5th April @ 11am CET/ 10am UK time

Sign up in the link in the comments!

Join us for our Linkedin Exclusive event

Sian Taylor and Andy Laws get back together to discuss a really important topic:

What REALLY is the role of a SDR Leader?

17th April @ 10am GMT/11am CET

Register here: https://buff.ly/4afyqXw

Who do you trust? 

The 100's of happy buyers of my ebook 'Closing the Gap' or the one person calling it 'Shockingly low quality'?

Check it out for yourself in the comments below. Only $10!

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How did I go from working in a mayonnaise factory to being an SDR?

Let me show you

Also, Happy Tuesday!

I moved back to the Netherlands in 2013 with the €500 I received when I wrote off my car, thanks to forgetting the old adage 'Deer caught in headlights'. Those Deer did not move one bit...

I had an excellent friend, Remy, who took me in and stayed at their place while I figured out what I wanted to do with my life.

All I knew was that the Netherlands was where I wanted to live.

Over several months, I bumped around in different jobs, working at the local mayonnaise factory and picking clothes at a factory.

Finding a job was difficult, especially as my prior experience had been coaching Rugby and in education. Finding a 'proper job' in a foreign country was hard.

I will never forget when a recruiter messaged me about this mysterious role called a 'Business Development Representative'. Initially, I was super nervous, thinking I'd not be good at the role.

But she took a stab at me, saying, 'You definitely do not have the experience, but you have such great qualities, you'd be perfect for the role.'

What was it that she took a chance? It was a combination of being able to articulate complex problems simply and my ability to speak with confidence.

It was so powerful that someone took a chance with me, and that started my pathway to being in tech sales.

So, in closing...

Your journey is unique. Ensure you celebrate it!

What is your journey to finding your role?

Let me know below! 

#salesdevelopment #growth #sdr #GTM #sales #coldcalling

🇬🇧 living in 🇳🇱 | Get more content like this ➡️ Follow David Wilkins 🔥 hit the 🔔 for updates on new posts | Check out Mastering Sales Development: https://buff.ly/4aoiqCD

Getting to a certain number of followers on Linkedin doesn't change anything.

I'm now on 6000 followers.

But everything remains the same.

I woke up this morning, and I'm still 5'9'' (my wife is shouting at me saying I'm 5'7'', but that's a lie), and I still can't speak Dutch.

So, what does this number give you?

🙏 It shows that your content is making an impact
💙 You are providing value to people 
🚶‍♀️ You turn up each day
🌍 It allows you to meet some incredible people 
🖥 Shows that being genuine still has a space in the crazy social media world

So I will continue to provide my thoughts and insights and also try and learn some more dutch..

#salesdevelopment #growth #sdr #GTM #sales #coldcalling
 
🇬🇧 living in 🇳🇱 | Get more content like this ➡️ Follow David Wilkins 🔥 hit the 🔔 for updates on new posts | Check out Mastering Sales Development: https://buff.ly/3W2Euyj

I fear we will have a ‘lost generation’ of SDRs who never make it into a role other than the one they are currently in.

Big words, but keep with me as i try and explain.

COVID, that terrible period that we are still recovering from, will have a ripple effect on people's learning development. We are already seeing concerns from educators about this. 

But my hypothesis, and something i’d be interested to see in the data, will be the period between 2020-22, how many of the new hires:

▪ Ramped on time
▪ Hit quota
▪ Were promoted to new roles within 18 months
▪ Stayed in those roles beyond 6 months or were managed out

The final two will indicate what many of us have seen with SDR's behaviours, who have shied away from the traditional, confrontational view of cold calling versus the security of sending an email. 

Why was this? Because of the need for remote work and the lack of new hires being able to learn by osmosis (I should trademark this!). It meant that our SDRs were able to do what they ‘felt’ was the best action, mostly using projection of themselves of how they’d like to be interactied with.

What will this create? It's going to create a generation of SDRs who are not comfortable making quick pivots on discovery calls to be able to handle simple objections, as they haven’t been in the arena of having lots of conversations, many confrontational, to handle this.

So, what should we be doing as leaders? We need to set clear expectations of what we expect in the role. If you want your reps in the office 4 days a week, as you see a 95% promotion rate to CAE within 12 months with this, then you need to tell the candidates this. Don't sugarcoat just to fill a seat.

Its our responsibility, as people leaders, to be caringly candid. 

Do you agree? Or disagree? Let me know! 

#salesdevelopment #growth #sdr #GTM #sales #coldcalling

🇬🇧 living in 🇳🇱 | Get more content like this ➡️ Follow David Wilkins 🔥 hit the 🔔 for updates on new posts | Check out Mastering Sales Development: https://buff.ly/4aIGQ9B

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