CloudApps

Andy McDonald – CRO at CloudApps

As the CRO at CloudApps, Andy is responsible for client acquisition and revenue flow from existing customers, which include major enterprises such as British Telecom, Vodafone, Shell and Iris Software Technologies, to name a few.  When Andy and the CloudApps team decided that it was time to redouble this great client base, they approached SaaSLeads.io to help them achieve this goal.  As a result, CloudApps took on, and ultimately hired, Jesse Milligan from the SaaSLeads.io Academy as their first outbound SDR.  They have also decided to continue working with SaaSLeads.io and have just taken on their second Academy SDR, Jamie Davis, in February.

A New World of Selling

So Andy, why did you decide to outsource an SDR from the SaaSLeads.io Academy?

Quite frankly, it’s down to the value proposition of SaaSLeads. If you think about us as a business, we do not have the expertise in-house to set up a system to train SDRs in what I would see is a new world of selling. I know we have employed digital selling before by using sales intelligence tools such as, but I think that the sales space has drastically changed over the last 12 months because of the pandemic. As a company, we had to keep up with that trend and stay relevant to our potential clients. The new way of selling involves a multi-touchpoint process to get people interested and engaged online.

I didn’t want to outsource leads from traditional lead generation companies. We have tried them a couple of times as an organisation and it hasn’t worked; what we sell transforms sales performance and it impacts on many parts of our client’s business including sales, marketing, sales operations, financial planning and potentially Human Resources. As such, it’s a complex enterprise sale which essentially requires a transformation programme with our clients. So, we need a sales resource that has the ability to make multiple touchpoints to secure a client. The value proposition from SaaSLeads was different from a lead generation company, and it’s one that I paid very close attention to because all the training is done in-house before selling takes place. The speed at which people go through the academy and become active is key. But the most important aspect was the ability to really test the individuals working on my target accounts before hiring and bringing them in-house. That’s the clincher for me. It is quite frankly a game changer and one that I haven’t seen marketplace.

Finding the Right Person for the Job

Great. Can you describe the process which SaaSLeads took you through as a business, from recruitment to training?

For me, it was all about finding the right type of person and character to be an SDR for our particular sale. At SaaSLeads, they know who they are looking for, they can essentially segment their talent according to the customer needs.  And that was done successfully. For me to actually find the right person myself, I would have had to spend weeks, maybe months of interviews, searching and follow-ups to find that individual, and even then I probably would have struggled, because I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I was predicting this process would take me six months minimum to do myself as I’ve got to hire people as well go through the hiring process, not to mention the risks of getting things wrong in the end. SaaSLeads were able to do all of this very quickly as it is their core business and area of expertise to very quickly identify somebody with the right skillset and tenacity to put on our account.  Jesse is a very personable individual who listens and asks the right questions. He will extract more out of a prospect than most individuals would do. But behind the scenes, he has gone to a lot of effort to get to the right people, and to have those conversations. I’m lucky that I get to see the prospects when all that hard work is done. It wasn’t a hire or no-hire decision, it was more about how we seamlessly transition from SaaSLeads into Cloudapps after the initial 12 week period. 

SDR Self-Development and Continuous Learning

What did you like most about the way the SaaSLeads Academy trained up Jesse?

I didn’t really pay too much attention to how it was done. Because that’s your business, and what you’ve done is fantastic.  What I’ve seen shine through is not just the development of Jesse as an individual, but also the collective that the Academy brings to the individuals.  SaaSLeads has a group of talented individuals who are all bouncing off each other in addition to expert speakers coming in to talk to them.  This is great for their own self-development, because they train their SDRs up in a new sales career and find them a home for their future. A key tenet of the success of SaaSLeads is down to the continuous self-development and learning that the SDRs experience, as well as having fantastic mentors in Will and the team.

Saving Time and Increased Pipeline

What has been the business impact on CloudApps from working with SaaSLeads? 

I need to focus on Cloudapps growing as a business and not be diverted to an entirely new discipline such as creating my own training academy and building the sales intelligence technology stack to equip these new sellers with the tools to do their jobs. This was all taken away from me and delivered in a matter of 1 week at SaaSLeads. All I had to do with my team was to equip them with the value proposition and supporting marketing collateral with which to prospect effectively with. 

It would have taken me up to 6 months to get the right people in and contributing to my business and pipeline growth. I had my first tier 1 meeting booked in for me after 3 weeks from meeting SaaSLeads.

It is too early to discuss revenue impact on Cloudapps but the pipeline has increased by up to 20%, all of which can be attributed to tier 1 prospects. 

The Stats

• 

  Pipeline increase 20%
• 

  Number of high quality leads 2x

• 20% Pipeline increase
• 6 months saved
• Doubled the number of high quality leads