Sid, an account executive at Milly, explains how the company hired two SDRs through the School of SDR instead of screening hundreds of applicants. Milly prioritizes ownership, accountability, and coachability. The standout candidates told compelling stories about themselves, researched the product thoroughly, and followed up proactively.
Chapters
Sid, for everyone who's watching you for the first time, please give us a quick introduction.
Yeah, sure. Hi, my name is Sid, Sidhant. I am currently an account executive at Milly. Joined in about a year and a half ago as a founding BDR and built out like the whole sales processes here. And yeah, been in the sales, sales development space into B2B SaaS for about 4 and a half, 5 years now.
I mean, from what I remember, Sid, you started as an SDR yourself, right? Give us a quick synopsis of how that You know, journey has landed from SDR. Now you're handling a full cycle account executive role.
Uh, no, yeah, the journey has been, uh, pretty, pretty awesome actually. I got into sales by chance and then ended up loving it, uh, just because I love to talk. But, uh, no, yeah, uh, I think the journey has been pretty rewarding as well, uh, in terms of firstly the money you can make. And apart from that, just the exposure and the new experiences that you get by doing an account executive role. Transition wasn't, uh, easy, but I wouldn't say it wasn't hard as well. You just need to do like a few things right. And you kind of are on the right track more or less.
Awesome. So Sid, Milly has hired so far 2 SDRs from us and you continue to hire more. Let's take everybody 3 or 4 months back when you were on the lookout to hire the right SDRs. What are some of the attributes or the qualities of an SDR you definitely had to have at that time, given the company stage you are in?
Given the company stage, I think ownership and accountability are 2 most important things that we chase. The reason being, I need that. So I'm carrying my own quota and so is everybody else. In the team. So I don't have time to chase down someone every morning or every evening asking them if the work is done or not. Either they do it, either they don't. Obviously I and all the team members are there to help them out in the best possible way. But it won't be sort of our duty to get the work done from them. It should come from within. The SDR should be taking up the initiative rather than we having to chase them and getting the work done and kind of being behind them to get something done. So those were the main things. Apart from that, I think mindset, because if they are thinking in the right direction, I think, and if they're coachable, I can kind of keep giving them feedback proactively. And it's just a matter of time that they start putting in the work and giving like good results.
Before you came to hire from School of SDR, I'm pretty sure you must have tried to hire some people on your own. And I'm pretty sure you would have also hired. What is it that probably nudged you that, hey, we need to hire from School of SDR?
Actually, I did not hire on my own at all because I didn't want to go through that long drawn process of calling people up, trying to talk them, talk with them on the phone, seeing if they are a fit or not. Firstly, I didn't have the time for that. And secondly, just to take the story a little, a few years early. Earlier I got into sales just by chance, but I also did up a, you know, SDR cohort. So I know what it takes to be registering for the cohort. Then I also did like a mentorship role and now I'm Hiring from cohorts. So I know what kind of mind space and what sort of effort the people who are putting in whatever amount of money to upskill themselves, the amount of seriousness that they have. So I didn't want to deal with people who just put up like a LinkedIn easy apply and kind of want to get hired right from over there. Right. Because even though they are a part of the cohort, the good thing that I like is they still reach out via LinkedIn, do a nice message. They'll probably, somebody would call me up directly. And give a cold call and get ahead of the line. So I did not want to burn my hands. I already knew the difference of hiring on my own versus somebody like a School of SDR. So I saved myself a few weeks of work there, actually.
So you were sold on the idea of, you know, that, hey, let's invest in people who have at least invested in themselves over a period of 1 or 2 months. I'm pretty sure some of the other cohort members from other schools might have reached out to you. Did you see any difference in our students and theirs?
So I think there's not a lot of difference in terms of what they want to do. It's how they want to do it is the important part. Because I think any, any course out there, there exists like hundreds of sales courses. It's just how they want to do it and who they want to be associated with is the sort of key here, referring you the right sort of candidates as well.
Tell me a little bit more about the Because you did interview other people from our cohort and you ended up obviously selecting 2. What do you think these people demonstrated which you believe other people did not?
Sure. So a couple of things here. I know, like, I'll speak from an SDR's point of view as well. I think giving interviews is sort of a learning curve. I agree. And I know that for a fact myself. But the way you present your story is, I think, the first thing. Because if you're able to sell yourself first in a good story, you'll be able to sell any product is what I feel. You're selling yourself. You're always selling yourself some way or the other. Don't take it the other way around. Don't, don't try to derive other meanings out of this statement. But that's, that's the one thing because if you're able to put your, your story in like a, in a good way, that's a good signal. Secondly, being proactive yourself. The way it works. From an interviewer's point of view is they are probably looking at 5 people right now, um, who they would, who would they want to hire? You just have to make the decision easy for them by getting in front of the other 4. So how you could do that probably is just doing a good, good research about the product. There would be just one person out of maybe say 50 or like not, not here, but if you're doing say a LinkedIn apply, when I, when you're looking at very selected crowd from like a school of SDR, the crowd will be very small, but if Even if you're applying elsewhere on your own as well, just try to get better in terms of say doing better product research, telling your story well, being proactive and following up after the conversation. Just, just doing the basics. I know like sounds, it's a very cheesy line of doing the basics, right? But that's what it matters because all, all the interviewer looks for is just how easy it would be for me to work with that person. You have to make yourself easy to work with, and that will be most of the job. So that's what, that's the 2 things that I found, like ownership, accountability is something that we were chasing for as an internal metric. But apart from that, just the ease of working, coachability, and if they, how they are making themselves stand out of the crowd.
Thank you so much for sharing the journey of hiring SDRs from us. I'd love to also understand since one of the SDRs you hired was almost 3, 3+ months ago, another SDR was hired more than a month ago. How are they actually performing right now and how do you see them, you know, working in the future?
I think both of them are working out quite well. They've found their ground. It takes a little bit of time to find your ground first, at least. So they found their ground well. And my job was just to enable them in the best possible way. They are kind of doing their own things. I have just set them in the right direction. So that's what I was looking for. I am, I'm kind of happy about because I need not chase them or anything like it. In terms of numbers, yeah, they've started doing good numbers as well. Yeah. So I think in the future, I just see, you know, them Doing good numbers, figuring out new stuff on their own. So no, I think very happy overall in terms of what the journey has been for them up till now and what's, what's in them, what's, what's in the future for them. So yeah, super excited.
Awesome, man. Thank you so much for this feedback. Truly appreciate it. And definitely hope to support you for the future as you're hiring.
