memoryBlue Insights – 1/3/2022

Below is the memoryBlue weekly bulletin, delivering sales development insights every Monday to our entire slate of high-tech clients. The updates span all six memoryBlue offices, encompassing 175+ sales development campaigns and 275+ SDRs working relentlessly to generate net new revenue for these businesses.

We’re ringing in the new year celebrating the launch of over 40 high-tech sales careers through memoryBlue Academy this week. Between our steady growth (we’re crossing the 500 employees mark this month) and the expansion of the memoryBlue alumni network (we added 160+ new alumni last year), choosing a career in professional high-tech sales gained major momentum in 2021.

That’s great news for the high-tech industry, especially with the vast majority of our recent alumni leaving memoryBlue to take key sales roles with our clients. Your success is our focus, and we’re poised to make 2022 incredibly rewarding for the companies who rely on our services.

Notable Numbers

Below is a look at a few of the key sales development industry metrics trends we observed in 2021. Our client portfolio touches nearly every high-tech sector and our SDRs conducted outreach to tens of thousands of sales prospecting targets through the course of the year.

• 75.8% of all prospect leads booked using the phone last year. We created over 40,000 new business leads for our clients in 2021, and the phone remains our primary tool to get the job done.

• 4.7% was the average weekly prospect connection rates our SDRs produced last year. August was the highest month, checking in with a 4.98% weekly rate.

• 73.7% of all client-based lead scores rated a 7 or better for quality in 2021. A whopping 31.5% of all leads earned a perfect 10, by far the most frequently occurring score (8 was next at 16%).

• 84.2% of memoryBlue leads were scored by clients in December 2021. That’s a dramatic improvement from the 59.7% that received scores last January.

• 71.4% was the average prospect meeting hold rate (monthly) in 2021. Hold rates topped 70% in all but three months last year.

Highlight of the Week

Kayla Berrios, an SDR based out of our HQ office, wrapped up a hot December by earning an impressive shout-out from her Public Sector-focused information security client. In her first full month on this campaign, Kayla exceeded her sales quota by successfully prospecting into extremely elevated titles within the U.S. Department of Defense and refusing to let the holidays slow her down.

This fantastic level of success led to the following email last week from her client POC:

“I’m reaching out to let you know Kayla Berrios is doing an outstanding job getting me numerous high-level leads within the DoD. I’ve been at this for the past three years with five different inside reps and none have come remotely close to this being this productive.”

Great work, Kayla! There’s no substitute for hard work and a commitment to exceed expectations.

Spotlight on Training

memoryBlue Academy opens the new year with 40+ new participants enrolled in our Prospecting Principles course this week. Looking back on 2021, we trained over 625 SDRs throughout the course of the year – and we’re putting the structure in place that will allow 2022 to be even bigger.

Our metrics show that this intensive two-day boot camp and six-week ongoing program decreases SDR ramp time by 3x and improves first-month quota attainment by 89%. Getting new SDRs effectively trained and productive is an incredibly critical mission for every sales leader.

As we widen the scope of memoryBlue Academy this year, we’re planning the addition of a dynamic course focused on leadership training. Managing a sales team by deploying effective coaching techniques, mentorship strategies and leadership principles has the power to transform an organization.

Lead Scores

These client-based lead scores stood out at the end of December:

12/22/2021 – 11:59 AM – 10/10 – Cody

“Best appointment yet!!! Great opportunity. Could be as big as $30k!”

12/26/2021 – 9:51 AM – 10/10 – Ava

“Exactly the person we want to talk to and the right target customer! Great work setting this up Ava!”

12/28/2021 – 12:15 PM – 10/10 – Connor

“Value was quickly understood and detailed demo and tech dive with lead analyst planned for Jan. Connor targeted the exact right person in this deal (PM), and considering the initial reaction, this could have a very large return potential. Connor is crushing it!”

A New Year’s Resolution

Are you a memoryBlue client missing out on one of the best ways to increase sales development campaign performance through the memoryBlue Client Survey? Our numbers suggest many clients fail to take advantage of this performance improvement tool sent out at the 45-day mark of every sales development campaign.

Since receiving responses to over 62% of these surveys sent in 4Q 2020, we have seen a steady decline in Client Survey completion percentages – bottoming out below 40% this past quarter.

Clients who seize this feedback opportunity extend their campaigns nearly twice as long as those who do not, which tells us this feedback positively impacts their overall return on investment. All survey responses are immediately reviewed by our entire executive leadership group as well as their more immediate memoryBlue delivery team.

Please discuss the survey with your memoryBlue Client Delivery Manager and be on the lookout for this valuable feedback opportunity.