5 Reasons You Need to Lead With Value as a BDR

If I have learned anything during my time in sales and business development, it is that leading with value and focusing on emotional intelligence are the most important things you can do. If you do these two things, consistently, you are almost guaranteed to be successful. If you don’t know much about EQ, check out this recent post: What Is Emotional Intelligence And Why Does It Matter for SDRS. But first, let’s jump into the 5 reasons you should be leading with value as a BDR:

Summary - 5 Reasons You Need To Lead With Value As A BDR

Helps You To Stand Out
Makes People Feel Understood
Makes People Want To Work With You
Increases Your Credibility
Easier To Hit Target & Find Success

“Lead with Value” - What Does That Even Mean?

Before we deep dive into the reasons we need to understand what it means to lead with value. Simply put, leading with value means that your primary goal for anything that you are doing, is to deliver value to the other person/people involved.You are striving to benefit the other person. There are many examples of this in all aspects of life. In the case of an SDR or BDR, this means that if you are trying to set up a meeting with a prospect, you are doing it because you think that meeting will benefit that person in some way. If you cannot see how whatever you are doing will be beneficial to the other person, you are not leading with value.

At this point you might be thinking “I am trying to set up meetings because I have an opportunity and/or pipeline target to hit at the end of the month or quarter” who does that benefit? You. Or maybe you are thinking “I am trying to set up that meeting because my AE will be on my case if I don’t deliver the three meetings I promised” Who does that benefit? Your AE and possibly you. But if your product or service could help your prospect to cut costs or increase revenue for example, that meeting could also benefit them. There are multiple ways to look at any situation. And it is okay if something you are doing also benefits you, in fact it should benefit you. However in order to achieve success you must lead with the value that it will deliver to the other person.

Think about it like this, if you call up your prospect and you lead with the value it will bring to you, it might sound something like this. “Hello, Mr. Prospect, I am calling because I found you on LinkedIn and I’d like to set up a meeting with you. The reason I want to set this up is because I have a target of 10 meetings per week. If you say yes, I’ll only need to get 9 more to be successful”. Of course this is an exaggerated example and absolutely ridiculous.

In contrast, if you lead with the value you can deliver to the prospect it might go like this; “Hello Mr. Prospect. I am calling because I have worked with many people in a similar position to you and I think our product could help you and your company to save time and money. In fact, we have already done this with company x who are very like your company.”

Which one do you think will yield more success? Of course, no one does the first one. But sometimes people don’t do the second one either. Sometimes we forget to explicitly lead with value for the person we are targeting. But it is really important and here is why:

#1 It Helps You To Stand Out

As human beings, we seem to be wired to be concerned about ourselves first. That means we really only care about something if it impacts us, personally. SDRs care about getting enough opportunities or pipeline to hit target. AEs care about working deals that will help them to hit their quota. Prospects only care about investing in solutions which make their lives easier. Leading with value is a rare skill. If you can simply focus on pitching the value you can deliver by focusing on the prospect you will stand out. Prospects are used to receiving many emails about “the best solution on the market” because many experienced salespeople have not figured out how to lead with value yet so if you can do it, you will differentiate yourself from your sales peers. Which is often all you need to do in order to get that first meeting set up.

# 2 Makes People Feel Understood

We are all constantly bombarded with advertisements and sales pitches for things that we don’t need. Therefore we pay no attention to any of it. If you lead with the value you can deliver to the people around you, it helps them to feel understood. “Finally someone who gets the challenges I am facing and is able to offer me a solution that will make my life easier.” Another human characteristic is that we crave to be heard and understood. Leading with value achieves this. And it feels good therefore we gravitate towards it. What that means for you is that by making people feel understood they are more likely to engage with you.

# 3 Makes People Want To Work With You

Being able to make someone feel understood is rare, especially in the business world. So when we come across someone like this, it is impressive and refreshing. We want to be around those kind of people, therefore by leading with value, it will make people want to work with you. As SDRs and BDRs we know that sometimes it feels like we are ‘bothering’ people who constantly want to say no to us. Being someone who people want to work with feels great, it makes prospecting feel less like a hard graft and more like you are doing something good. Your prospect feels good and so do you, everyone wins.

# 4 Increases Your Credibility

As I mentioned earlier, it is very unusual to come across someone who is early in their sales career who is leading with value. Really, doing this involves being able to put yourself in the shoes of another person (notice the link with empathy when you read this). However, it actually creates the impression that you really understand that person and their business. Furthermore it seems like you also really understand your own offering and how it can actually help them.

Whilst you will need a basic understanding of these things, by leading with value, you can boost your credibility way beyond your years of experience. This may sound scary but don’t forget as an SDR, usually it will be the AE that will be delivering most of the value in the next meeting anyway. And we have to assume that they do have the knowledge and experience required to do so. Therefore by boosting your own credibility, all you are doing is increasing your chances of booking a meeting. And that is due to the fact that people are more likely to engage with people they believe to be credible.

#5 Easier To Hit Target & Find Success

If you can stand out and make people feel understood, they are more inclined to want to work with you. By showing that you understand them, you will be more credible too. That means you will be able to secure more positive replies and more meetings. That means it will be easier to hit your target and find success as an SDR or BDR. This also translates into life as an AE as well but that is a story for another day. And don’t forget, all of the above reasons also make it easier to progress internally too.

I hope you can see the links between leading with value and leaning into and appealing to emotions (both yours and that of those around you) which is largely what EQ is about. By focusing on these two areas, it will be difficult for you to be anything but successful. But it does take time. I share this advice with every single brand new sales and business development rep that I work with. Everyone assures me that they will lead with value but almost no one does it. For your sake I hope you are one of the few who does.

Until Next Time!