Tell us about your journey from the SDR role to an external BDR management role!

While in the XDR seat, I really wanted an internal promotion or something that I could grow within the company at 6sense because I did really like the product, I liked what they were doing, and I liked the BDR program.

I knew I wanted to get more into the sales coach side of things. Even today as a Director of Business Development, that's what I really appreciate the most. 

But at 6sense, every role I wanted to apply to just kept getting dissolved. Like a role came up and I was like, great, I'm going to apply to it. Then it got dissolved. 

At one point I ended up interviewing for the strategic SDR manager over at 6sense. That was a little above my pay grade at the time because I didn't work the strategic segment and I didn't really know much about how to go to market there. So I went for it and was turned down, which is totally fine.

But that's when it started to click: “okay, I think I need to look externally because there's nothing here for me.” And something that I learned: don't wait for a role to open because that's just not going to happen.

It's like a hard pill to swallow because you want to stay with the company, you want to stay with the team, you want to grow. You want to get your stock, and all the things right? But at the same time people start to get worried about looking externally because they think they're losing out on opportunity when opportunity is actually somewhere else.

When I started looking externally, something that I really needed was a mentor or someone that could give me honest feedback. So the first person I thought of obviously was Ernest, the Sr. Director of Sales Development at 6sense. We've had a very close relationship for many years now at this point and he was in the interview process when I was interviewing internally at 6sense so he saw the way I was interviewing. He was in a really good place to give me honest feedback. And so when I talked to him, he told me:

“Okay, so this is what you did very wrong. The interview panel doesn’t care about these things, they care about these other things. Going into the weeds about a topic that has nothing to do with management work doesn't make sense. You should go into the reports and the operational side.

So finding that person to give me much needed direction was super important, especially because the way you interview plays a huge part when you’re looking externally. You have to fake it when you're an SDR looking for external management jobs. 

After that, it was about using my network and connections.

First, I was really only interviewing with places that I was referred to. That's how I got my job at 6sense when I was pivoting into tech. I figured a company would be more willing to talk to me if someone told this company that I'm great and that I'm worth talking to.

Funny enough, my manager at 6sense Ahmad actually interviewed with Verify, the company I'm at now, and he ended up going with a different role. And they asked him if there is anybody that he knew that would be a good person to interview. And he mentioned me.

And so I think the biggest testimonial to that is to make sure that you're networking the right way with people so that when those questions come up there, they're going to think of you first. I think the biggest thing is staying top of mind with the network that you have.

That's how it all started with my Verify interview process. I really liked the product. I liked that it was very technical, which is different from what I was selling before. 

I landed the role here and eventually worked my way up to Director of Sales Development!

What was your biggest challenge when looking externally for career growth?

Probably imposter syndrome. 

When you start applying for these jobs, you see these titles and you're thinking: I'm just an SDR. 

Even practicing my interview for non SDR roles, my mentors and my brother in the industry would say: “they don't care about any of that.” And so you think, “oh shoot, I may not know anything. I don't even know how to interview properly for this role.” So it was a big learning curve, even just from the beginning. 

Even after I successfully learned to interview and got the management position, I was super, super nervous my first day managing SDRs. 

It's so surreal you were just an SDR and then 2 weeks later, you're managing a team. 

It was definitely like: should I even be allowed to do this? I don't have a lot of experience. I mean, I had a lot of experience managing people, but it was so different. I haven't managed in the tech world ever. And so the imposter syndrome was really real. I almost felt like I was lying.

Everyone says: fake it till you make it. But it's really hard to do. So that was the biggest thing - feeling like I was not equipped or that I didn’t have the skills in the tech world to know what I'm doing. There were a lot of tools that I didn't know about and all of a sudden I'm in charge of a tech stack, I'm in charge of a team, I'm in charge of all these things. And I would feel that I don't even know anything. So that was definitely really hard and very emotional.

How did you tackle impostor syndrome?

There's such a stigma around oh, I'm just an SDR and I haven’t done enough but I think there's a lot of like power in being an SDR. If you think about it, there are a lot of skills that you develop: organizational skills, reporting skills, all of these things that are very vital to a management role.

Also I knew I established a brand at 6sense well enough to where I was a team lead. And if anyone had any questions, they'd come to me. 

In any case, the biggest question that every single company asked me when I was interviewing was: “Why would I hire you who has no management experience in the tech world over somebody who's had experience? Why would I do that?”

And I played into the idea that I don't have any bad habits. So a lot of managers get bad habits or they get complacent being a manager for so long. And I'm so fresh in it. I'm hungry. I want to learn your process and the way that you want me to manage. And I think that a lot of people like to hear that, especially leadership teams.

That was big. 

Like I said my beginning days as a manager were tough, but it got better. It got a lot better. I started to get to know my team and then I started to feel not so bad asking them about things. 

For instance, in my team, one of my SDRs completely onboarded me. Initially that was really hard. I was going in thinking that I'm his manager, why was he onboarding me? 

But then he's been there longer. He knows the tech and he knows the product. And being okay with that and just learning from them taking that approach really helped me realize that there's nothing wrong with asking. 

No one was going to sit there and say, this is a bad question, she's not qualified, fire her. No one's going to do that, but that's the mentality you get into when I first got into it, and that also comes with being an SDR and being behind a meat grinder and having come from this constant sense of urgency. And then once you get into a management role, that's completely changed.