Transformation: From Generalization to Specialization
A lot can happen in a year, but three years? That’s the tech industry equivalent of eons. Just ask Kristen Podger, former Sales Operations leader at Pendo. Three years ago, the Pendo sales team was comprised of five people who did all of their own prospecting and full deal cycles. But Pendo soon had a problem that every company strives for: they were growing and they needed to scale their sales team to match.
“We went from having everyone use Outreach the same way to adding inbound SDRs, outbound SDRs, and account executives,” said Kristen. With the new team organization, Pendo teams began utilizing the platform differently to support their role in the sales funnel. SDRs were still scaling and sharing their successes, while also newly able to tightening their objection handling and compete messaging. Additionally, SDRs and AEs utilize Outreach Meetings functionality for complete visibility into each account’s activity, giving AEs clear insight into what the messaging has been and why we’re targeting this prospect. Pendo always has the customer experience at the top of their priorities, and as Podger notes, “Outreach makes sure that the transition is seamless across all of the teams,” says Podger.
Pendo’s AEs are unique in that they still spend time prospecting in addition to closing deals. AEs and SDRs prospect together, so it’s important for their messaging to be aligned and cohesive, and Outreach delivers the visibility needed to make Pendo’s team-based selling approach successful.
“One thing that's really powerful about Outreach for our AEs is that it gives them the ability to really focus on their time. They’re able to plan sequences and the times that they're outbound prospecting and execute on the activities that they need to, to make sure that they're still generating pipeline for themselves.”
By facilitating handoffs between SDRs and AEs; helping AEs have more meaningful customer conversations, or helping AEs perform all their sales activities, Outreach delivers the multifaceted seamlessness that has helped Pendo become enterprise-ready.
“We’re using templates and Sequences to do training for our reps, and pairing those people who are doing really well--who's hitting their numbers every month and every quarter--and then replicating what they're doing for others to learn from.”
“I think what makes an enterprise company an enterprise company isn't the number of customers but the experience that someone has from being a prospect to becoming a customer, and then throughout their customer life cycle. With Outreach we've been able to soften those hand-offs and make it really great for the end user.”
As Pendo continues to soar, they’re making sure that their continuing to scale their success too. “Because we're growing so quickly, what worked six months ago doesn't necessarily work today, so we’re trying to find out what’s been working and continue to replicate on those.”
Pendo has used Outreach as a training tool to help accelerate rep onboarding, and is currently bringing on eight new SDRs per month. "We’re using templates and Sequences to do training for our reps, and pairing those people who are doing really well--who's hitting their numbers every month and every quarter--and then replicating what they're doing for others to learn from.”
Next up is maximizing their inbound leads by using Outreach Triggers, with a goal of doubling down on this since attending Unleash. “We do some of the inbound follow up to make sure that any of these leads are followed up on in the most efficient way, but now I think that’s it something we need to focus on now that I’ve been at Unleash. It’s much more of an area focus now.”
