Scaling a BDR team comes with a long list of challenges, but Camilo Silva pulled off something unexpected – he scaled his own team from zero to more than 50 people after getting back to the game in just 15 months. In this conversation with Mark Cox, the Vice President of Sales & Business Development of Info-Tech Research Group shares his secrets in hiring individuals with curiosity, coachability, and competitiveness. He highlights the importance of crafting an effective onboarding plan, providing continuous feedback, and offering constant support to the entire team. Camilo also explains why taking a sabbatical from your career is vital in avoiding burnout and unlocking a much deeper growth experience.
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Quickly Scaling A BDR Team With Camilo Silva
We've got a great episode for you. You're going to see a couple of episodes over the next little while, where we have discussions and interviews with leaders or folks who are practitioners running sales organizations. Our guest in this episode is Camilo Silva. He's with the Info-Tech Research Group. You're going to love this conversation because of what Camilo has done. He built a BDR team from 0 to 55. He's got 6 or 7 managers and then he's got 55 BDRs. What we're going to talk about are some concepts about how you would recruit, interview, hire, and onboard successfully that big a team in that short period.
We talked a little bit about the things they interview for at Info-Tech Research Group. He talked about the three Cs, Curiosity, Coachability, and Competitiveness. I like that. Camilo also talked a lot about collaborating with the rest of the organization to make sure HR, training and development, sales enablement, and revenue operations are all aligned in the process. Another super interesting thing about Camilo is you'll find that he's got a real growth orientation. He's got an amazing calmness and balance for somebody running an organization that big.
Camilo took a six-month sabbatical before he started this assignment. After having an enormously successful career in technology and sales and he kept getting promoted, he took a pause in the middle of all that. It is incredible to talk to him about why he did it and what he got from it. You'll enjoy that discussion. As he's come back, he's got that clarity on why. It’s a great conversation with Camilo. I enjoyed chatting with Camilo. I'm sure you're going to enjoy this episode. When you do, please like and subscribe to the show. Thank you for doing so. Here's Camilo Silva.
Camilo, welcome to the show. It's great to have you here.
Mark, thank you for having me.
Introducing Camilo Silva
One of the reasons as we heard in the intro I was so excited to chat with you is there aren't that many people leading and managing building massive SDR-BDR teams the same way you are at Info-Tech Research Group. We're going to get into a lot of that conversation and a little bit about recruiting, interviewing, hiring, onboarding, and those kinds of good things. Everybody's always interested in the journey of someone like you, Camilo. First of all, welcome to the show. Would you share maybe the short story of your professional journey that got you to this point of being the Vice President of Business Development?
Like 99% of people, I fell into sales. I graduated from university like, “What do I want to do with this diploma?” I had a brother-in-law who introduced me and said, “You should try out sales.” Once graduated, I started as a sales rep at Info-Tech Research Group. I was introduced to it through a career fair. I did about four years in terms of selling the role. The first year was overwhelming. I was trying to get my feet on the ground. “How do I do prospecting? What's a discovery call? How do I manage my pipeline?” I did that for about four years.
In 2020, I got tapped on the shoulder to start leading a team of AEs. I got introduced to management, as well as remote management very early on. I did that for about 2 to 3 years. I was successful and won multiple President's Clubs here at Info-Tech. In late 2022, I decided to take a career break. I decided to go back to Columbia. I wanted to take six months off, see my family, and spend quality time with them.
I got tapped on the shoulder to come back to Info-Tech and start leading our BDR function, which we were having some challenges in terms of top-of-funnel and having the right amount of meetings. We wanted to scale that out. We've grown the BDR function from 0 to 55 BDRs. We've scaled fast. We had success and fun while doing it. I’m excited to talk a little bit more about that in detail but that's a little bit of my professional career.
Taking A Sabbatical
What an amazing journey and so are we. You threw it out there like it's an average stat. You said, “We grew from 0 to 55 people on the SDR-BDR team.” That's a flabbergasting number. There's going to be a lot of people out here having tough times building teams of 5, 10, or 15 but you build that many people in that short period. One of the things that is amazing about your journey was taking that sabbatical. They do this in academia.
As a professor, for X number of years, you got to take a full year off. It's this idea of recharging the batteries, regrouping, enjoying life, and getting your perspective. It's such a smart idea. Some of the best thought leaders in the entrepreneurial space, which I tend to play in as an entrepreneur, are always talking about the importance of recharging, recalibrating, and getting away. In a nutshell, how did you change in that period? When you came back into the game after six months, what differences did you notice? How important was it for you to take that break?
I want to share quite a bit here but first of all, taking the break was a very hard decision.
I bet it was right because you're on a roll. You kept getting promoted.
Coming from immigrant parents and always wanting to be successful and give back to them, my why has always been to give back to my parents and tell them, “I'm going to take a step away.” It was difficult in my mind. Part of the reason why I took the six-month break is to get represent to my why. I then was like, “I'm getting a little bit older. What is that next why? What do I get enjoyment of? What do I get fulfillment from?” I read a ton and did a bunch of research, “What are the benefits? What's going on?”
The way that I rationalize that is, “If I'm working for the next 30 years, 6 months is the 60th of my professional career. I'm in this Goldilocks zone where I'm in a financial position where I can do it. Let's do it.” What did I learn about myself though? It was very interesting because I began in December and went back to Columbia where I'm from. Family and everything was going on. There was a lot of fun. January hit and everybody went back into their routines. I was like, “Now what?”
You must have been so anxious or restless.
I'm used to being on the phone and grinding in the office. I was running at 100 miles an hour. I had to sit down with my thoughts and say, “What do I like to do? Where do I get fulfillment? How do I want to invest my time having all the time in the world?” Initially, it's like, “Let's travel and go out to the best restaurants. Let's do X and Y.”
What I learned about myself after two months is when fun is always fun, it is not that fun. When there is no grind, there's no challenge. A nice dinner doesn't feel as good. I do enjoy working with others, developing, and learning. That realization allowed me to come back into the workforce six months later with an energy that I don't know if I would have been able to pick up without it.
When fun is always fun, it is not that fun.
It's so wise, insightful, and mature to be able to do that but the constant day-to-day pressure is you're from a big city here. You're working in Toronto, Canada. There's a lot of chasing. Don't miss the six months. You might have been in a position for another promotion. It's so hard to take that pause but in the long-term, it's so important for all of us.
When you come back and you've connected to that why, the grind starts to become a lot more enjoyable. It stops becoming a grind. It's like, “There is a why. This is why I'm doing this.” BDR-SDR work is one of the more difficult things in B2B sales. Getting attention, interest, and engagement are extremely difficult things to do. If our leaders see it as a grind, the team starts to see it as a grind. If our leader sees it as one of the most strategically important things in B2B sales, that's how the team starts to see their function and much more involved.
For those reading, we love your thoughts and comments on how you recharge, go back, and find your why. This idea does connect in a little bit. Camilo, we both know each other. We've done some work together. You've always come across to me as somebody very calm and confident. There's a balance and a calmness to your approach in an industry where that's lacking sometimes at a leadership level. That does translate down to the team.
A steady hand and calm leadership. People want to follow not somebody who’s running around like their head has been chopped off and that they're like a chicken with no head with so much stress. That's a bit of a guiding light in some ways to your management team that reports to you and then to the SDRs and BDRs.
Recruiting For A BDR Team
We switch over to the day-to-day and then think, “We're going to build BDR function for the organization. It's going to be significant in size.” It seems like a huge task. All of us are always looking for talent in this area. You guys had amazing numbers in terms of ramping up 55 people in 15 months. Let's start with the basics. First of all, how did you do it? What are some of the attributes you're looking for in an individual that you might consider for the team?
How did we do it? I got to give a big kudos to our talent acquisition team who became my primary stakeholder when I first came back. It’s important to ensure that your TA team is aligned with the traits and what you are looking for in a new hire. I worked very closely with them. I read a lot of books too like Who. It taught me about scorecards and ensuring that we can measure how we are running these interviews. That allowed us to get a lot of alignment, not just from a TA perspective but the first and second rounds of interviews that were not being done by me. I was typically in the final round of interviews.
In terms of what I am looking for, my team knows about the three Cs. I've added a few Cs along the way, especially when hiring for BDR. A lot of time, it's their first or second role coming out of school. They don't know what they don't know. They're trying out sales for the first time. They fell into sales and they don't know what they don't know. You're looking at traits more so than experience. There's some experience that could be helpful and relevant but when we boil it down and try to simplify it, the number one C is Curiosity.
That's a word that I try to repeat as much as possible. “What questions are they asking? How many questions are they asking? Are they genuinely interested in this role?” The level of questioning is directly correlated with how fast you ramp up as a BDR. The second C is Coachability. “Are you going to take feedback? How do you take feedback, put it into action, and deliberately practice?”
The third C is Competitive. “Do you love to win? Do you hate to lose? How much do you want to win?” Over the course of the year, we've added consistency and communication. A bunch of words that started with C started to come out. When we look, they're curious, coachable, and competitive. That combination is an early indicator of a successful BDR and AE as they go through their trajectory.
Having curious, coachable, and competitive people is an early indicator of a successful BDR team.
First of all, I love the simplicity of it. We've always talked about intelligence, drive, and humility. I like your three Cs better. It's the same thing, frankly but the three Cs are easier for everybody in the organization to understand and remember. Camilo referenced Who, which is an amazing book on interviewing people. It’s by Randy Street and Jeff Smart.
The fun thing about the Smart family is Jeff Smart is a second generation. His dad, Smart Senior, invented the top-grading interview. The son got into the family business of being an expert in terms of interviewing. Those are great books. You're going through these candidates. You know what you were looking for. How would it work within the organization? We don't have to get into detail so much about anything proprietary at Info-Tech Research Group.
The research and advisory space has a huge success story team. One of the things that's always a challenge is this idea of consensus or having multiple people weigh in on an interview process. How do we get Camilo, the head of HR, and maybe somebody else who's involved aligned? Are there any suggestions for the groups out here in terms of making sure that we have some way of managing through the consensus required without delaying things?
I love that you shouted out that book. It helped tremendously. It’s about a scorecard, aligning on a scorecard, and being collaborative, not just building it out on an island. It's like, “What have we seen work in the past? What would you like to see?” I also want to give a quick shout-out to The Sales Development Playbook by Trish Bertuzzi. It’s another beautiful read for anybody starting a new VR function, as well as The Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge. Those were my top three reads coming back into this role.
It's very important to have collaboration with these departments and ensure that you agree on who is making the final call. The final call will be based on design principles or the scorecard that we all aligned to. On my end, it was working with my boss, as well as the head of TA. We came together early on and aligned on what we were looking for, how we were going to measure it, and how the decision was going to be made. We had the green light from there. There’s nothing more to add on that front.
It’s a couple of other fantastic books like The Sales Development Playbook by Trish Bertuzzi. If you're looking for data, insight, and research on the SDR-BDR function, one of the best sources we've found is The Bridge Group. They're great. I love that book. Mark Roberge has HubSpot and The Sales Acceleration Formula. The background of HubSpot is also magnificent. One of the things that I was so excited about in terms of chatting with you was I met the first 30, more or less, of your team. They're great people.
One of the things I keep coming back to when we're doing our recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and all those kinds of things is if you want a great salesperson, you do have to start with a great person. Those of us who were athletes and all of those things growing up, we knew there were people in our leagues who were fantastically talented players but weren't team players. You can have either personal stats or team stats. Meeting your team, there's a competitive element for sure. They’re great teammates.
One of the things I forgot to mention is one of the things that we did in the final round of interviews was in person. Everything else was virtual but once they got to me, it was a final round interview. I knew what the scorecard was. Dp you what was another question I asked myself, Mark? “Would I want to go next door and have a beer with this person? Are they somebody that I genuinely want to invest in? They seem like a good person.” I call it the vibe check, internally. That played a pivotal role in selecting that in-person. Ninety percent of communication is nonverbal. We're looking at each other by a 2X2 screen. You don't know what I'm doing with my hands but I could tell you a lot of what's going on. I talk with my hands a lot. That was also a big source of success, those two factors and the human element to hiring.
90% of communication is nonverbal.
Fantastic thoughts. This idea has been there for a while, “Would I want to go and spend some time with this person?” That's going to come across too. “Are they interested and interesting?” Certainly, in professional sales, that's one of the things we have to think about being interested, the curiosity and interesting. On the curiosity front team, that was the first of the four Cs. Most people in the world are highly intellectually curious but there's someone who's zoned in on this whole theme in terms of the connection between curiosity and actual success. Her name is Diane Hamilton. She's been on the show a couple of times.
She has written two great books but also ran a syndicated radio show, where she interviewed the most successful people in the world, every big name you can think of. Presidents and top executives at every company all were on the show. To a person, that's where this curiosity came from. There's this constant theme when she was having these interviews that they were all so intellectually curious. She talked about how you can cultivate it and then also talked about, “In some organizations if barriers exist, what do you do to get through it so you can continue to encourage that curiosity?”
Building An Onboarding Plan
Camilo, as we're ramping up, you're building this team and then you've got this task that for many leaders would seem overwhelming. How do I on-board these people so that within a reasonable period, they've got a shot at making a contribution? Unfortunately, we may also find out that sales aren't for them. No recruiting process is perfect. Can you speak to, from your perspective, some of the thoughts and considerations about building that onboarding plan? You would have been recalibrating it and starting that again.
We had an existing onboarding for sales reps. It's 4 or 5 weeks.
Account executives?
We have an enablement team. How do we condense it to make sure that it's the right size for the BDRs? I speak on collaboration quite a bit because it's very important in a bigger organization to make sure that we are aligned with the other areas of the business that have already put a ton of work into these before so we don't have to start from scratch. With that being said, I said, “I want to be part of this first onboarding class.”
I'm going to sit in onboarding with them. I want to experience what it's like, hear how the training is being delivered, see the engagement from the BDRs, and be there as a resource. Another reason for this is that the organization in 2020, we went fully remote. The BDR team was the first team that was going to be back in office four times a week. I made sure I sat in with them. I took notes and sent them to the enablement team afterward.
There's a difference between training and certification. You can do all the best training but if there's no reinforcement, recalling, and type of certification, if I asked that BDR about the training a month later, the forgetting curve is going to do the work for us and they won't be able to recall anything. From that end, I ensured that I wanted to submerse myself in the existing condensed onboarding.
You can do all the training you want, but if there is no reinforcement or recall of what you have learned, you can never be certified.
Every single time, we had a feedback loop. What did we like? What did we not like? Where can we condense areas? How can we make it more practical? We've had multiple hiring classes since. Every single time, I'm always asking, “Where did you get the most value? What could be changed? What can we do?” We make small adjustments from training class to training class.
Look at the four Cs that you have. This is this idea, whereas we leaders, are we walking the walk or talking the talk? You're coachable. You're saying, “We've got this onboarding plan. We want to hear from you, those going through it. While it's still fresh, we want to hear what's working, what isn't working, and how we continually improve for the next group. Even if we get 5% better, it starts to compound over time.
The other thing that's amazing to me is we'll call it a canary in a coal mine of a healthy organization. I ran from some training to this episode recording. We were doing training and jumped onto this episode. One of the things that's a great sign for me is if we're training a group of BDRs, for example, the account executives or the BDR leader is in the training, living it, and actively participating.
This idea of when you said, “I want to go through this and be in the program with them,” is a critical success component because we need to continue to reinforce some of the core concepts. One-time training doesn't work. Our old pal Hermann Ebbinghaus said, “Forgetting curve is alive and well unless you do something to block it.”
One of the things is having the leader go through the training so they can start to reinforce some of these core concepts so that they resonate. That's a dynamite idea. Were there things when you went through the training that you thought resonated with the team, whether it be role plays, homework assignments, presentations, and so forth? What were some of the things that kept the team engaged but were also effective?
Two things come to mind. One, role plays. You have to put it into action, get the feedback, get stuck, get nervous, and get those butterflies going when you're next up in the round-robin. That's how we learn. We got to be outside of our comfort zone. Those butterflies and that nervousness mean that you're stepping outside of your comfort zone and learning a new skill. The role plays were one of them. The second one that we've done over the last 5 to 6 onboarding classes that have gotten a lot of great feedback is a mindset session on the very last day of onboarding.
Tell us about that.
The structure here is it's a workshop. What's everybody's definition of mindset? Why is it important in sales? Sales is a roller coaster with a lot of perseverance and XYZ. The average performing BDR, if they get 10 pickups, they'll convert 15% of them. The top performer will convert 25%. If I say that in another way, Mark, the average performer is hearing no 85% of the time and the top performer is hearing no 75% of the time.
I don't know about you but I don't like hearing no. No can be connected with rejection. If you're hearing rejection 85% of the time, what type of impact can that have on your mindset? That can bring doubt, anxiety, and fear. That internal talk starts to impact behaviors. “I'm not good enough. I'm going to get a no. This phone weighs 100 pounds and my confidence going into the phone is a little shaky. Therefore, I'm making fewer calls, doing fewer conversions, and feeding into the mindset of ‘I'm not good enough.’” It becomes a vicious cycle.
Being able to talk about that proactively and tell them, “Rejection is a fact. It is coming and going to happen.” All of these things that we're talking about are going to happen. I'm a firm believer that you can take control of that narrative. This rejection is one step closer to a win or being able to acknowledge that, “I'm in this state.” I asked them, “What are ways that we can get out of that state?” They come up with answers. Some of them meditate, go out for a walk, use humor, or play video games. Everybody has their own mechanisms to get out of this.
BDR Team: Rejection is just one step closer to a win.
I believe in talking about this early on. I also emphasize that you all fell into sales. You don't know if this is what you want. You're trying this out and you're about to hear a no for the first three months. You've been a top performer in school or you're a great varsity athlete. You're going to get beaten down because the sales development role is the hardest. You're actively choosing to call people who are not expecting your call. This is all outbound.
Being able to talk and have a very real conversation about the mental battle that's going to happen and creating an environment where they do not have to withhold. As humans, we like to look good or we want to avoid looking bad. When you're hearing a no, guess what you want to do? You don't want to tell anybody. You want to keep that to yourself. That is no bueno. There's coaching that can be done. We can role-play that objection again so you're better prepared for next time.
With that concept of not withholding, speak up when you get a rejection and when you're not feeling well. Leaning in on your teammate also has had a major impact on the BDRs, becoming friends within the organization and coming up together. It's one of my favorite sessions as well because it goes into the mindset piece. That is one of the most important things that any person can invest in as it drives behaviors and everything else quality of life.
I'm jotting down notes, furiously. It's funny, Camilo. We've never talked about this at this level of detail, even though we know each other. As part of our training, we have a mindset component. We don't get into absorbing and dealing with the rejection. We skirt over it frankly a bit and talk about how it's not personal and how you recharge but it’s this idea of don't withhold. It's okay. This is what we're going to experience. Frankly, I love this idea of being transparent saying, “None of you in this room walked off the ice when you were playing hockey in grade seven and said, ‘My lifelong dream is not to be a hockey goalie. It's to be in professional sales.’ That's not what happened. You want to be a goalie and an outplayer.” Everybody loves being a goalie more.
It's okay for us to have this conversation. Even knowing that puts a little more wind in my sails because it feels like the organization embraces the fact, “This is a tough thing to do. We have to be cognizant of it. It doesn't mean it's impossible.” As human beings, we're hardwired to avoid rejection and vulnerability because it's scary. Like anything in life, once you start throwing yourself out there and jumping outside your comfort zone, your comfort zone increases and you try harder things.
The underlying theme for the younger folks out there in the BDRs and SDRs is the Imposter syndrome, which is alive and well. Regardless of bravado, even for me at this point in my career, much older than probably anybody reading this, every once in a while after a couple of rough goes in a row, I might hit a trough and go, “Do we know what we're doing here? What's going on? What am I doing wrong?”
It’s this idea that there's a little bit of Imposter syndrome in everybody and that's okay. It doesn't stop us from doing what we need to do but it’s having that team, the collaboration, and the other thing I love back to the office. This is so much easier if I've got a team of 9 or 10 other people working down a line doing the same thing. The power of the Peloton or the power of the group is a real thing. I've seen the energy of your cool offices in Toronto. They used to be a musical concert hall. I've seen the energy of being there. It puts wind in your sails to walk into a place where the energy is already cooking.
When I was taking my six-month break and was looking to come back, I had five bullet points of what I was looking for. One of them was remote work. That's hard to believe. I'm glad that I decided to scratch that off because I cannot emphasize it, especially for somebody new to sales within their first 3 to 4 years. Once you know what you're doing, by all means, you want to have that balance and see your kids. I get all of that.
I joked about it with my boss. Some of these new sales reps that we were hiring are hearing no 75% to 85% of the time. They're surrounded by four walls. There's nobody to talk about it with. You want to avoid looking bad so you're not going to share it with anybody. Where's the development? In the office culture to your point, you learn through osmosis. There are others on the other side and he's objection handling. They get the final no and then you laugh it off like, “Listen to my rejection here.”
One of the successes of how we were able to scale fast is the concept of creating teams and teamwork. Not everything has to go through me or my managers. It's how the first generation of BDRs that were hired transfer knowledge to the second generation of BDRs and create a mentorship system and specific blocks where they shadow each other, work together, and collaborate.
It's very different and in person. “Let's go next door for a beer or a drink of your choice if you don't drink.” That goes a very long way in terms of retention, engagement, and mindset. Having people pick you up when you're not feeling good and people who care about you goes a very long way, especially when you're dealing with the no after no.
People who care about you goes a very long way when dealing with rejections.
How can this idea of teamwork and support be wrong? One of the things I always find that's amazing is if you've got a teammate who's having a bit of a tough time and you take a few minutes to sit down with them, have a chat, listen to them, give a little coaching, and put a little wind in the sails, you feel better. Forget them but by giving a little bit of that positivity in the universe and lifting somebody else, you feel better.
Sometimes as you're reinforcing some of these things, you're saying things out loud like, “Nothing's changed in terms of your ability. You've just had 5 or 6 tough calls. When you booked three appointments, nothing has changed. Nobody stole your talent.” You're telling yourself that. It's a virtuous cycle if we've got a team and people contribute. When they land a hand to somebody new coming on board, that individual, once they've onboarded, will remember it. The culture is to lend a hand to the next person coming in. It’s a virtuous circle of everything moving up positively.
One of the things that we get a look at sometimes with the clients who engage us and maybe we try and help and support is our reasonable ramp-up period. Sometimes for organizations, some of the pressure felt by the SDR-BDR team, particularly for outbound, is they don't get enough of a ramp-up period. In addition to everything we've talked about, making it so difficult, they also feel this cadence like, “By month two, if I'm not hitting my numbers, I'm going to be out and all these other things.” I know you're very well-read on all these things. What are your thoughts in terms of a reasonable ramp-up period for somebody who's doing this?
It's interesting you mentioned The Bridge Group before. They do benchmarking on this particular topic. What they and I found was three months. The first month is a 3 to 4-week onboarding. We want them completely immersed in that. In the second month, we're ensuring that we're coaching on the behaviors that will drive the result. Are you adding X amount of contacts into a sequence? Are you completing your sequences by the end of the day? Are you curious? Are you controlling the controllables? It is another line that my BDRs make fun of me for.
I'm all about behaviors. Results are backward-looking. I want to make sure that you're exhibiting the right behavior. That second month is behaviors. They have a zero meeting expectation in month one. They're 50% to their ramp in month two. Come month three, they're going to be at 100% of their meeting quota. We provide all the structures, infrastructures, role plays, one-on-ones, and playbooks. “If you're struggling with a connect rate, a phone conversion rate, or a show rate, here's a playbook.” It outlines all the behaviors that drive that result.
This is something new that we've started documenting after taking Kevin Dorsey's Sales Acceleration course. A manager is coaching a BDR on show rate. I have five managers. Let's say there are fifteen different things that you can do for a show rate. They may bring up 2 or 3. The other manager brings up five and then the other one brings up something else.
Why? It’s because all of this information is living in here and it hasn't been documented somewhere like, “Here's a step-by-step.” One of the things that we've been doing is, “Let's write it down and study what great looks like. If A BDR is doing it, let's have them write it down.” We’re essentially creating this compilation of playbooks written by the BDRs. Guess who the BDRs want to learn from? Not this guy. I already talked enough.
I'll debate you on that one. They do get more. I'm sure they do want to learn from you but they also want to get more from their teammates who are doing this and being successful. The idea is so smart. “Write it down.” Do we ever have enough time for this? Nope. Is it something where we capture best practices and experience? This is the value of having a larger organization. We have so much insight because we're making so many calls, having so many meetings, and closing so many deals.
All these things are super important to us. Taking the time to document these things is critically important. At some point in time, Camilo, we'll come back. We're going to talk about leadership and management but we're on this critically important topic of BDRs and SDRs. The truth is for any organization or leader out there, the number one thing people want in sales is quality conversations with the right buyer and more opportunities.
Most organizations think they're pretty good at taking an opportunity and converting it into a deal but when you start to look at the metrics, they're always coming back and saying, “We can't get attention and interest. We can't get a meeting.” There's a lot of good logical reasons they can't, given what takes place. This is that function that's so super important.
Staying Current And Professional
Two other questions would be super helpful. You referenced about five books over the course of this episode. You talked about you taking a break. You've got this self-awareness and emotional intelligence. Let's talk first about sources of information for you. How do you stay current and professional in sales? What do you do to continue to learn? What are the things you like doing to continue to learn?
The first thing that comes to mind is a company called Pavilion. Their CEO is Sam Jacobs, who I believe has been on this show as well.
He's a great guy.
What he's built is a community of sales leaders and sales managers. He allowed them the opportunity to share best practices and ask questions. Within that community or membership subscription, there are also a lot of courses. There's CRO school, revenue architecture, go-to-market strategy, and bridging the gap from BDR to AE, which I'm taking. I love to learn in many different ways. I love reading and taking online courses but the magic is when this happens.
It’s when you can talk about it, bring it into your day-to-day, and I can introduce it to my managers and begin brainstorming as to how we operationalize this within our organizations, not just be theory that I talk about. From that perspective, it's extremely important to continue to flex that curiosity muscle. Pavilion is a resource that I work there. On LinkedIn, I follow some great, amazing people who are posting fantastic content. There are mentors and people who I reached out to whom I have weeklies and monthlies with and I'm continuously asking questions.
Magic happens when you can bring your learnings into your day-to-day and change how your team actually operates.
There’s my CRO, my current boss, and the people that I've known in the past. Also, you. You've come and done some work with the BDR. I say, “Mark, can I pick your brain a little bit?” I’m always flexing that curiosity muscle. When I do, guess what I'm doing after? I'm making notes. Am I writing a two-page essay after a conversation? No, but I'm going to write down my key takeaways so that I can come back to them over and over again in the future.
Evolving Perception Of Sales
Here’s the last question as we wrap up here. What are you most excited about in terms of this business discipline in professional sales? Every time I chat with you, whether we are training your teams or having one-on-ones, I leave more energized when I'm chatting with you about this business discipline. If you have inherent intellectual curiosity and positivity toward what we do, what are you most excited about in the future of B2B sales?
I'll share it like this. When I was thinking about coming back, my boss said, “We're building out this BDR function.” I was like, “I want to be where the revenue is. I want to be closing. I want to be where the money is at.” With that said, when I thought about it more in detail and we've talked about this in the past, this first year in sales or second year, you're trying something out for the first time. You don't know if you're going to like it or not.
It’s the difference between going into an organization that has a great product market fit, great training, great culture, and great vibe versus one that doesn't. We've already established that the barrier to entry in sales has no certification or anything. The difference between joining A or B could be the difference between somebody saying, “I want to dedicate my career to this,” or, “I never want to make a cold call ever again. Let me take a look at something else,” which is completely fine if that's what you learn throughout the process.
What intrigues me personally is how the perception of sales is evolving. We've talked about in the ‘80s and ‘90s, you mentioned to somebody, “I want to start in sales,” and there's this car salesperson, Wolf of Wall Street, and this mad man like what's been shown through Hollywood. It's very different now. It's a consultative type sale. You have to be curious, have an executive presence, and work on your craft like you would if you were a doctor or a lawyer. You have to put in the work, be curious, and practice it.
That first iteration of BDRs is being promoted to AEs. “Here are some gaps that we identified. How can we mitigate that for the future so that when they do come in, they're ready to rock and roll or at least that ramp isn't as big?” It's that evolvement of how sales is perceived and the career that it can be, how fulfilling, and the impact that you're making on others. That’s something that excites me. A big part of my why is helping others find their muse and what brings them fulfillment. We're going to see that a little bit more over the next few years.
Episode Wrap-Up
I completely agree with you but we'll have another conversation on that. There's a day coming where we have a formal certification for B2B sales. As we wrap up, first of all, I want to say thank you so much for joining, Camilo. What a great conversation. It's been such a pleasure having you on the show.
Mark, thank you so much for having me. I loved and always love conversations with you.
Right back at you. Tell us a little bit about Info-Tech so we understand what Info-Tech does. If somebody reading this and wants to connect with you, what's the best way to learn a little more and connect?
We are an IT research and advisory firm. We are working with IT professionals. We're right in the middle of the tech ecosystem. What we do is we're providing these IT leaders with actionable insights. We advise to help them execute their key priorities. In other words, we help IT leaders get done. How can people connect with me? On LinkedIn, it’s Camilo Silva. You can send me a request and we can go from there.
Thanks, Camilo. As always with the show, we're trying to elevate the performance and professionalism of B2B sales. Our belief is that if we help you do that, we're improving the lives of professional salespeople but we're also growth-oriented. I know I'm not perfect at this. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe to the show. That does matter to us. That's how we get great guests like Camilo.
If there are a couple of things that we can do to make this even more effective for you, we love constructive criticism. You can send your suggestions to me, MarkCox@InTheFunnel.com. That's my personal email. I personally respond to every bit of constructive criticism that we receive. We appreciate it. Team, thank you so much for reading. We'll see you next time.
Important Links
Diane Hamilton - Past episode
Sam Jacobs - Past episode
Camilo Silva - LinkedIn
About Camilo Silva
With over eight years in sales, including six Presidents Club awards, Camilo Silva is a sales leader who has transitioned from a top-performing rep to building and scaling high-performing teams.
After a six-month career break to reflect and recharge, he took on the challenge of building a BDR function from the ground up at Info-Tech Research Group.
Over the past 18 months, Camilo has grown the team to 60, driving transformative results in pipeline generation. Dedicated to shaping the next generation of sales talent, Camilo focuses on creating environments where individuals can thrive and achieve their full potential.