Chargebee Hired 5 SDRs From Us. Here’s Why They Keep Coming Back

Hi, Sri.

Hey, hi, Rahul.

How are you?

Good.

Long time, man.

Been a while, but yeah, good to be here.

Awesome, man. Good to see you where you are. Really, really happy for you. For everybody else who is watching you for the first time, can you tell us who you are?

Yeah, I'm Srinivas. I currently head the sales dev startups in APAC for Chargebee. Very interesting journey. I'm sure no one has seen it. closer than what you have done. Started as an SDR back in 2019, went on to ensure that I learned outbound. That too, after I spoke to you, I was like, Sri, you have to get into outbound. Inbound is something that I don't think you're going to grow a lot in. And I think that's the piece of advice that I took. A couple of years in, team lead, and then went on to become a manager and then currently managing a team of 11 BDRs, SDRs in Chargebee. 8 outbound BDRs, 3 inbound SDRs. I've been managing them. It's going to be 3 years. So yeah, that's been my journey from being an individual contributor to managing the team in an organization that I started. Could not have asked for more than this. So yeah, that's, that's a—

That's quite a journey, man. I really tell your story to a lot of people. I mean, recently there was a guy who's like, I don't want to take this risk or I I think he did not want to go to a city where the job was offered. So I was sharing him your story and this happened like in the last one week, you know, look at Srinivas where he is today. And there was a time he did not want to go to Chennai. So yeah, I think this pays off, man.

I still tell this to a lot of people. The reason why I didn't come to Chennai was some of my previous experiences before I did my master's was not so great. So I never wanted to come to that city because of a lot of other tensions apart from anything personal. I still tell this to a lot of people. Some of my best office memories actually come back to Chennai because that journey in 2019 before COVID was, was the one that I still remember and cherish so much. And I still tell people why it's one of the most important things to be in office, learn a lot of things from your peers. I still have a very muscle memory of so many, so many things, like even the first couple of months trainings with you, the product knowledge, the product sessions. Like, um, very— I would still say one of the experiences of my life, to be very honest. And to see that it's going to be 7 years this year, me being there, to say that one year was actually way more influential in my life, and that city being Chennai. Anyone out there, I'd recommend go to that city, see how it works. You never know, you will make great experiences.

I would not do that. I still tell people not to go to Chennai. Uh, but yeah, I agree on the Experience part, the Chargebee part, I think you and I would have not worked together if it was not Chargebee. And I still say this to everybody without getting paid from Chargebee, that Chargebee is hands down the best company I've ever worked with.

Still is the best.

Okay. I have no doubt about that, man. I'm very happy for you. Thank you again for doing this. You have hired, you and your team have hired 5 SDRs from us in the last past 2 years. Tell us a little bit about our experience.

So I think So it's been a very compelling journey with you, to be very honest, working with the set of PDRs, set of students that you have worked with. And I'll tell you one thing that actually stood out. It's not that— maybe this is for the wider audience as well— like, it's not that I've only hired 5 and— sorry, only interviewed 5 and hired 5. Maybe I may have interviewed 7, 8 folks, right? Or 10. And even then we were able to hire 5, right? The reason why I feel so compelled to come back to you and the School of SDR every single time is the ability to take the feedback like, Rahul, this did not sit well with one persona or one, sorry, one BDR, right? And then you go back and you help them train better, right? And whenever someone comes back to me or whenever we hire from the School of SDR, the journey is so significantly better. Like even just journey, I know maybe we'll have deeper conversations about this, but even when I talk about the journeys, the candidates who come to us, they are so, so very well prepared. They blow our minds. Like last year when we hired Mansi, she was so prepared for the interview, so very well prepared. Like from my manager, she's the only one who's ever gotten a strong hire. Okay. She blew our minds even from the interview process, like How she presented the case study to CJ—that was phenomenal—and it continued even with say the next hires, like say Shashi or Brian, who were super prepared. And I can probably tell you one of the things that Brian did again probably for the later part, but very structured. And I am very like whenever I talk to you, I'm very confident I'm going to get great candidates. And I and I know these are the five. Areas that they're already acing on. What they need is a bit of hard skills in terms of the product, whom do we sell, the personas, and they're good to go. Right. All we have, all the folks we have hired have done exceptionally well, be it outbound, be it inbound. So yeah, the journey has been good. Really loved working with you and I'll obviously continue working with you. But yeah, the journey has been super.

Yeah. You guys also hired the best of the lot as well. Like I gave you the top SDRs. And you guys had dips on it given the volume as well at which you were hiring. So tell me something, if you were to do this on your own, given that you have hired people who have been trained by us but do not necessarily carry the B2B experience, imagine if you were to do the same thing today, given your current setup, what are a few of the challenges you see where you have to train somebody from scratch, assuming they are coming from potential?

Look, we've hired from School of SDR with folks who don't have any B2B experiences, right? Like they were competing against folks who had significant 1-2 years of B2B experience. But I still think there's a fundamental advantage in terms of what School of SDR brings to the table versus any experienced— or like, I, I am not sure if I'll ever be able to bet on someone. Thankfully, you did bet on me back in the day, but it's very difficult in today's day and age to bet on someone who was not— who's not trained at least on the basics of B2B. So with that, I genuinely believe the candidates or the BDRs who come out of School of SDR are very well prepared. And if I have to give you like basics of research, basics of using artificial intelligence to construct your research, ensuring that every aspect of the interviews like cold calling, I put them on a spot like, hey, write a cold email. And then most of the B2B experienced BDRs never did the way that some Some of the BDRs that we hired out of School of SDRs did. Like, like I said, when I started answering this question, right, they outrun people who worked or BDRs who worked in a B2B setup. Some of the significant challenges that I faced, and I still feel I'll continue to face, is I don't still think there is a structured training. And I am a, I'm a BDR manager here as well. And sometimes it's very difficult for me also to dedicate time and effort in terms of training my new BDRs. But we have a solid setup where I spend time. There's a team lead who spends significant amount of time in terms of training and everything. But I don't think that setup is available every single place. There could be— I have interviewed so-called B2B BDRs who just ran email campaigns, who just sent 5,000 emails in 2 weeks, hit their numbers, and then they are 2 years down the line, they are experienced B2B BDRs. I asked them to pick up the phone and I tried to tell them, sell your own product that you're selling today, they're unable to do it. That is a persistent challenge I genuinely believe is across the board today, and I hope someone can fix it. But that's, that's, that's a very continuing challenge. And even for some of the BDRs whom I hired, I mean, like before we made a partnership of working with School of SDR, the ability to learn, the ability to adopt, the ability to look at how to make things easier, how to make things better. Like, how do I make the sequence better? How do I ensure that I'm calling these, you know, 60 people who opened my emails? Like, strategic aspect I genuinely feel is top-notch in terms of the School of SDR candidates that I've worked with, which outside of School of SDR, I don't think it is innate available in terms of non-B2B experienced BDRs. It is still missing even with B2B experienced BDRs as well. So like if 3 of your— 3 of the School of SDR BDRs can beat, uh, 2-year experience B2B BDRs. There's nothing like it. It's not something that I'm trying to underplay, but it is the truth.

Now tell me something. I'm sure there would be other students from other schools, uh, which are maybe, which are doing something similar to what School of SDR is trying to do. Have they tried to reach out to you? Have you interviewed them? If yes, what was the experience? If not, uh, why did you not interview them? Why did they not get selected? If you have any stories around that.

I don't. So every time, so here's a, here's a challenge, or I feel there's a problem. So if you're commenting on my post that says I'm hiring for a BDR and you never bothered to probably message me in my inbox in LinkedIn, or my phone number is publicly available on LinkedIn, if you never bothered to call me, then you're not going to invest your time. Like I remember you calling me up like, Sri, I saw that there's an SDR opening. I have a couple of great kids who are doing exceptionally well. Do you want to interview them? And you are very candid enough to say, Shree, giving you a heads up, they also are interviewing for 3 other companies who are doing well. No one reached out to me, and I'm not expecting them to build a relationship with me. Okay, make the effort. So I'll be very honest with you, I don't have any compelling stories on other schools who interviewed because they just commented, hey, you should look up XYZ, they're doing well. Like, great, they're doing well. What is their trainer doing to ensure that I get their attention? Like, you don't need to bring me roses. You can just say, hey, these are the things that I've trained these folks on. Uh, they're well-versed. They have— they may have, may or may not have B2B experience, but they can be a great fit. I'll send you candidates. Can you work on it? Basics. No one did this apart from you. So no, I don't have a story on interviewing anyone else.

If another leader, or let's say somebody who is considering hiring from School of SDR, irrespective of the size and the stage of the company, what would you recommend? Why do you think they should consider hiring from us?

You can easily bet on the quality. Again, I've seen you, I've known you, maybe that it's not a biased thing. It's not like I've just hired one and I'm giving this gyan or that we've hired 5. So simple things, the soft skills are sorted. Okay. They know how to make a cold call. They know how to make, how to write a cold email. They know the tools that probably a BDR manager wouldn't know in that org, because trust me, I wouldn't know a lot of tools that probably your kids are using today because I am entitled to work with a set of tools that are there. The students in your cohort come with a lot of knowledge about, hey Sri, this is actually great for sourcing these kinds of accounts, these kinds of contacts, and these, this tool is better. Actually, this AI tool is way more better in terms of getting the context. So even small things like Gemini is better for this, GPT is better for this, Claude is better for this. Even in Claude, like, hey, cowork is different. You need to use this for a certain— like those kinds of things are your soft skills in terms of empathy, cold calling, cold emailing, use of tools. You're sorted as a BDR manager. That is That's gold for me. I just need to know. I just need to help the other BDR who comes in like, hey, what is Chargebee? Why would someone buy Chargebee? Who would buy Chargebee? What messaging would work? In the sense, when I say messaging, what would, what would work for a CEO versus a CFO versus operations head? You have all the tools at your disposal. You know how to make a pitch. Go. They've built it. For example, like say someone like Mansi whom we hired last year. If I hired someone and they were not skilled, You wouldn't get into an account executive role within, within the 12 months, right? I think she completed her 12 months this year, I think maybe April, May, and she was a— she was an account executive even before that. So if you're not skilled enough, you wouldn't get to the next stage. So she did it. So those are the things that, that come as a perk. Although I hated losing her for the, for the different role, but it's always good. I genuinely believe that you're always judged by how well your hires do outside of your function rather than what they do inside of it. But yeah, solid soft skills. Just you bring them in, you help them out with product, you help them out with process, they're good to go. Their fundamentals are very good. You never feel— and one of the things is the students who come out of your cohort never feel like, oh, they once did B2B, they once— sorry, once did B2C. It never feels like they once pushed people thrice a day. To buy a product versus how they clear the interviews even at the job. Like say Brian, Shashi, they're doing very well in terms of how they've adapted to B2B. I'd say if I have to put it in a phrase, like you're gonna get a great BDR who knows a lot of things. You just need to tell them what your product does and they're good to go. Like my training time cut in probably half or even beyond that when we hired from School of SDR versus say If you want an SDR who can dash, hire from School of SDR.

So you have to say the full sentence and fill in the blank.

If you want your BDR to be the best, hire from School of SDR. If you want your BDR to pick up the phone and cold call, hire from School of SDR. If you want your SDR to start delivering from day 30, hire from School of SDR.

Okay. So tell me about the best SDR you have hired from us and what did that person do?

We spoke about 5 SDRs, Rahul, but I think we missed talking about one. I don't know why, but genuinely I feel Sushmita Singh hired Sushmita last year, I think in July or August. Been a year. She's been one of the most consistent performers at Chargebee. You know, you have, Rahul, quick question. You have hired so many SDRs, you've trained so many SDRs. How many of the SDRs that you have trained, I have trained a bunch of them. How many of them have ever participated in a hackathon in an organization?

Not one I can think of.

Sushmita participated in a hackathon with a solution consultant. She picked up a problem, a genuine problem the BDR team was facing in Chargebee earlier this year in terms of how the hygiene of our CRM was. And then she and the solution consultant came up with a problem statement. They were competing against all the developers, all the brilliant minds At Chosby, and they won the Rookie Award, a one lakh rupee prize. And this was evaluated by our co-founder. I think Raman also was in the panel. So she did that brilliant. Everyone in the org appreciated it. Now she's the only APAC enterprise BDR per se who's managing everything APAC. You know, last month she ran out of emails that she could send because she was working on outbound intent. 2 events and 1 roundtable dinner that she was supposed to bring prospects to. She aced all of them. She's able to bring 6 leaders, like I'm talking about C-suite leaders who have registered for a roundtable that's happening in Australia next month in September. She's also working on some of the key enterprise initiatives in APAC. And she was also, she also influenced one of the largest outbound-led closures last quarter. I cannot confirm if it is the largest deal in India, especially from India, but one of the largest, I can confirm that. Very consistent, very forward thinking. You can go to her with a problem statement and she's going to not just give you a solution. She's going to give you tools that can help you with the solution and a very clear thought process, Rahul. One of the most astute, best SDRs. Like you asked for best. She is the one that I've hired. Like very solid.

Wow. That is a surprise and really good feedback. I'm getting goosebumps, man. Thank you for sharing that.