You can usually spot Sam Nelson easily… he’s the guy with the blue dyed hair popping up at sales conferences and in your LinkedIn feeds, sharing his thought leadership with the community. His day job is the SDR Leader at Outreach (a Sales Enablement Platform)
Sam (SDR Leader @ Outreach.io) is a well known entity in the Sales Development world, and gave a great presentation on how he and his teams have integrated referrals into their outbound sequences with great results. We’ve compiled a few highlighted takeaways below for you, but you are going to want to take a look at the session recording to get the more granular advice.
Don’t train for perfection, train for the majority
Sam tasked himself with creating a comprehensive flowchart of all known objections and questions prospects would come up with, and the subsequent responses for his team. After creating this ‘nuclear bomb’ of a flowchart, he realized that spending so much effort for him and his team to train for those infrequent scenarios wouldn’t be as beneficial as putting their focus on the 80-90% of scenarios that they saw frequently. By not striving for perfection, his team improved overall.
Referrals from prospects are definitely worth your time
In his career, he’s had ⅓ of his opportunities come from prospect referrals! In addition, he found that those who were referred were significantly more likely to be engaged and close.
Working referrals into cadences increased response rates
In addition to the opportunities generated through the referrals, Sam also noted his teams saw increases from 1% up to 40% in reply rates when these referral techniques were integrated to their outreaches.
Turn that wrong dial into the right one!
Instead of saying thanks and ending the call when it’s been identified that you aren’t talking to the correct person, Sam teaches to use this as an opportunity to get info on who the right contact is. He warns to keep it simple though… your time is limited at this point so be strategic in your approach!
Click play below to watch his presentation for yourself
PS Tenbound just released a new Referral Training program specifically designed for SDRs… check it out here.
Hit us in the Drift chat for more info or click here to set up a call.
Subscribe to the Tenbound Blog for the latest research releases, Sales Development thought leadership and best practices.
Related Articles
-
Published On: April 9, 2025Introducing the Sales Tech Spotlight Launch Package from Tenbound, your strategic launch pad to elevate your brand within the Sales [...]
-
Published On: April 9, 2025by David Frankle of Nayak.ai , Tenbound Expert Network Introduction This collection of prompts aims to showcase the power of [...]
-
Published On: April 9, 2025Observations on Version 9 – Download here Lasted updated The Sales Development tech space is growing leaps and bounds. The challenge [...]
The Latest Tenbound Articles
The landscape of sales automation is evolving rapidly, with AI-driven innovations reshaping how businesses engage with prospects, optimize outreach, and close deals. Here are the top trends in sales automation [...]
Introducing the Sales Tech Spotlight Launch Package from Tenbound, your strategic launch pad to elevate your brand within the Sales [...]
by David Frankle of Nayak.ai , Tenbound Expert Network Introduction This collection of prompts aims to showcase the power of [...]
Observations on Version 9 – Download here Lasted updated The Sales Development tech space is growing leaps and bounds. The challenge [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal [...]
[...]
Sales Efficiency is a critical Key Performance Indicator (KPI) in the Software as a Service (SaaS) industry. This metric provides [...]
For over two decades, the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model has dominated the tech industry, including Sales and Marketing Technology. Businesses of [...]
Apollo.io has unveiled Apollo Labs, a cutting-edge sales prospecting solution that integrates AI-powered SDRs, outsourced sales development, and Clay-based [...]
On this week’s Leaders in Sales Development blog series we have Jimmy Chen, Director of WW Sales Development at [...]
The Voice of the Customer (VoC) is a critical concept for businesses seeking to understand and meet the expectations of [...]
The Tenbound Expert Program is an exclusive, network for top GTM Executives in B2B SaaS. Elevate your professional skills, expand [...]
The landscape of sales automation is evolving rapidly, with AI-driven innovations reshaping how businesses engage with prospects, optimize outreach, and [...]
Top Trends in RevOps Today 1. Data-Driven Decision-Making Companies are investing heavily in tools and practices to unify data from [...]
In today’s competitive business landscape, Sales Technology software has become a must-have for organizations aiming to streamline operations, enhance [...]
The ideal number of cold calls an SDR (Sales Development Representative) should make daily depends on various factors, such as [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]
DocketAI has a bold insight: only 7% of true sales knowledge is documented and shared effectively. The remaining 93%—tribal knowledge and tacit expertise—lives in Slack threads, Zoom calls, and the [...]