Elric Legloire ran SDR teams at Chili Piper, earning three or four promotions in two years, before leaving to advise companies on his own. Working solo, he says, is what lets him see the same handful of problems repeat across every industry. His take on promotion: it doesn’t come from being the top performer, it comes from visibly improving the playbook and coaching the people around you. When he hires, he runs a role-play and watches how the candidate takes feedback, because someone who pushes back on coaching early rarely takes it later. On AI, he thinks the panic about SDRs disappearing has it backwards. Thirty thousand more SDRs were added globally over the past year, and OpenAI and Anthropic are now hiring reps to go after their biggest accounts. What has actually changed is the day itself: prospecting used to eat about a third of the week and now runs closer to 80%. He also tells clients to expect a full year before outbound turns into revenue, once you account for the sales cycle, hiring, and ramp.
[00:00:00] Elric Legloire: ...but now working with different companies at different stages, in different industries or markets, I'm seeing more of patterns quicker, and I see that most of companies, they are facing the same challenges.
[00:00:12] John Karsant: You can, like if you want to get promoted, you ultimately need to start doing things that will stand out. Sounds like that's what you're doing. You're helping out other team members.
[00:00:20] John Karsant: 100% agree, and if you're the best rep, sometimes management will be like, "Well, I don't want to lose my best rep, you know, who's producing the most business or booking the most meetings."
[00:00:29] Elric Legloire: So, the AI will be even better than the manager, for example, to train the rep on this.
[00:00:34] John Karsant: No one wants to be an SDR forever, so if you have done a lot of hard things in the past, it makes this role a little bit easier. That's another one that comes to mind.
[00:00:42] Elric Legloire: And even though in the hiring process they know we test them on that, you have some people pushing back on your feedback.
[00:00:51] Elric Legloire: And I know if someone is pushing back on the feedback—and I'm not saying this is right or wrong, but if someone is already pushing back on this, for me, that's already a red flag, for example, for coachability.
[00:01:02] John Karsant: Now, I've found that people can interview very well. So, they talk well, they talk about some good experience, they're professional interviewers, but then they get, you know, they get hired and all of a sudden you're like, "What?"
[00:01:15] John Karsant: It's one of those roles where you can come from a lot of different backgrounds and excel. Like, you could be a teacher, you could be an athlete, you could be a programmer—that's probably not as likely, but you can literally come from all walks of life and be good in sales, which is very interesting, but also makes it hard to hire.
[00:01:36] John Karsant: But we have a few companies that will go to conferences and others that will hold small events, like invite-only events, and one of them just closed a $20 million deal, so it does work.
[00:01:47] Elric Legloire: Yeah, some people say, "Oh yeah, I want to just do cold email." But for a $20 million ACV deal, I don't think just sending one email is going to be enough.
[00:01:58] Elric Legloire: But you can see that OpenAI, Anthropic are hiring SDRs. So, they are not hiring an SDR to manage AI agents, they are hiring people to go after the biggest accounts in the world.
[00:02:11] Elric Legloire: In the past 12 months, globally, the number of SDRs grew by 30,000 SDRs.
[00:02:18] John Karsant: Really? Welcome back to Prospecting Pros, and on today's show, we have Elric joining us from Mexico City. Thanks for taking the time to chat with us. Welcome.
[00:02:31] Elric Legloire: John, thank so much for the invite. Happy to be here.
[00:02:34] John Karsant: Yeah, thanks for joining us. So, the way I like to start off every show is give us a little bit of background on your career. How did you get into the SDR world, into outbound? Walk us through some of the positions you've had and where you are today.
[00:02:50] Elric Legloire: Yeah, sure. So today, I run my own business, solo, on the outbound side. So, I focus on building stack systems for sales teams, SDRs and AEs.
[00:03:02] Elric Legloire: But before that, I was working full-time for companies, seven years, and I was an SDR, and then moved to leadership, then moved to an SDR role again, and then moved to leadership again. So, I've been in the trenches and building teams.
[00:03:18] Elric Legloire: And now, I would say thinking about being an external resource for those teams. And yeah, happy to make this transition because I thought working full-time for companies was going to help me learn, I would say, more about outbound.
[00:03:35] Elric Legloire: But now working with different companies at different stages, in different industries or markets, I'm seeing more of patterns quicker, and I see that most of companies, they are facing the same challenges.
[00:03:49] Elric Legloire: And even though they think they have a different industry, most of the time, they have the same challenges, I would say. So, that's, I would say, in a nutshell, my background.
[00:03:58] John Karsant: It's interesting how a lot of people start as an SDR and work their way up. What were you doing before that? Were you in another field, or was that the first position as you joined the workforce?
[00:04:10] Elric Legloire: So, I studied marketing, and my first role was a marketing role for a Mexican company selling B2B services for large companies in Mexico City.
[00:04:20] Elric Legloire: And the founder of this company hired me to help them get leads for the sales team.
[00:04:26] Elric Legloire: And I was—just got my master's degree from France, I was studying in France, so I moved to Mexico at that time.
[00:04:35] Elric Legloire: And all the stuff I learned during my business school, they showed us, "Hey, how to do marketing with €1 million in budget, for example."
[00:04:47] Elric Legloire: And at this company, it's an SME company, and they had like no budget. And so, I was trying to basically say, "Hey, we should try Google Ads. Hey, we should try LinkedIn Ads."
[Warning: Gemini stopped because this chunk reached the max token limit. This segment may be incomplete.]
[00:05:00] John Karsant: And then the coachability side is at the end of the roleplay, I'm going to give one positive feedback on the stuff they've done well on the call, but also constructive feedback. And what I'm looking for here is how they react to this. Are they reacting well? And are they not saying anything, or are they pushing back on your feedback?
[00:05:23] John Karsant: And even though in the hiring process they know we test them on that, you have some people pushing back on your feedback. And I know if someone is pushing back on the feedback, and I'm not saying this is right or wrong, but if someone is already pushing back on this, for me, that's already a red flag, for example, for coachability.
[00:05:45] John Karsant: I'm not saying this is the final decision here because I want to see then if I confirm on other ways if they are still coachable, but that's one way. Also, sorry, so that's when I give them feedback, but before giving them feedback, also I ask them, "What do you think about this roleplay?"
[00:06:05] John Karsant: "What do you think you could have been doing differently?" to see also if they are self-aware. So, those kind of stuff. And then we do a second roleplay, and then I want to see if they apply the feedback right away.
[00:06:20] John Karsant: Sometimes they do, which is great, obviously, but sometimes they don't. So, that's another sign also they are not coachable. So, I'm not saying this is they just do one thing, you have one flag and it's over. No, it's a lot of I'm taking notes of everything, basically, but I'm looking a lot of not what they are saying, but more like the stuff they are doing during the interview on the soft skills, so curiosity and coachability.
[00:06:46] Elric Legloire: So, I saw you work at Chili Piper, and funny enough, a little backstory on me, I was teaching tennis until I was around 25 years old, and I was like, "I just can't do this anymore." I quit and I went and started to travel. I had the travel bug, and I was doing a bunch of trips around the world, and this time I was done.
[00:07:07] Elric Legloire: I'm going to quit and I moved down to Argentina to learn Spanish, and I started traveling from there. But after a while, I had a girlfriend who's now my wife, but after a while, nine months in or so, I was like, "I needed a job." And so, I started looking for remote positions, and funny enough, Chili Piper was coming up.
[00:10:00] Elric Legloire: ...but now working with different companies at different stages, in different industries or markets, I'm seeing more of patterns quicker, and I see that most of companies, they are facing the same challenges.
[00:10:13] John Karsant: You can, like, if you want to get promoted, you ultimately need to start doing things that will stand out. It sounds like that's what you're doing. You're helping out other team members.
[00:10:20] John Karsant: 100% agree. And if you're the best rep, sometimes management will be like, "Well, I don't want to lose my best rep, you know, who's producing the most business or booking the most meetings."
[00:10:29] Elric Legloire: So, the AI will be even better than the manager, for example, to train the rep on this.
[00:10:34] John Karsant: No one wants to be an SDR forever. So, if you have done a lot of hard things in the past, then it makes this role a little bit easier. That's another one that comes to mind.
[00:10:42] Elric Legloire: And even though in the hiring process they know we test them on that, you have some people pushing back on your feedback. And I know if someone is pushing back on the feedback—and I'm not saying this is right or wrong—but if someone is already pushing back on this, for me, that's already a red flag, for example, for coachability.
[00:11:02] John Karsant: Now, I've found that people can interview very well. So, they talk well, they've had some good experience, they're professional interviewers, but then they get, you know, they get hired and all of a sudden you're like, "What?"
[00:11:16] John Karsant: It's one of those roles where you can come from a lot of different backgrounds and excel. Like, you could be a teacher, you could be an athlete, you could be a programmer—that's probably not as likely—but you can literally come from all walks of life and be good in sales, which is very interesting, but also makes it hard to hire.
[00:11:37] John Karsant: But we have a few companies that will go to conferences, and others that will hold small events, like invite-only events, and one of them just sold a $20 million deal, so it does work.
[00:11:48] Elric Legloire: Yeah, some people say, "Oh yeah, I want to just do cold email." But for a $20 million ACV deal, I don't think just sending one email is going to be enough.
[00:11:58] Elric Legloire: But you can see that OpenAI, Anthropic are hiring SDRs. So, they are not hiring an SDR to manage AI agents, they are hiring people to go after the biggest accounts in the world. In the past 12 months, globally, the number of SDRs grew by 30,000 SDRs.
[00:12:18] John Karsant: Really? Welcome back to Prospecting Pros, and on today's show we have Elric joining us from Mexico City. Thanks for taking the time to chat with us. Welcome.
[00:12:31] Elric Legloire: John, thank you so much for the invite. Happy to be here.
[00:12:34] John Karsant: Yeah, thanks for joining us. So, the way I like to start off every show is give us a little bit of background on your career. How did you get into the SDR world, into outbound? Walk us through some of the positions you've had and where you are today.
[00:12:50] Elric Legloire: Yeah, sure. So today, I run my own business, solo, on the outbound side. So, I focus on building stack systems for sales teams, SDRs and AEs. But before that, I was working full-time for companies, seven years, and I was an SDR, and then moved to leadership, then moved to an SDR role again, and then moved to leadership again. So, I've been in the trenches and building teams.
[00:13:18] Elric Legloire: And now, I would say, thinking about being an external resource for those teams. And yeah, happy to make this transition because I thought working full-time for companies was going to help me learn, I would say, more about outbound. But now, working with different companies at different stages, in different industries or markets, I'm seeing more of patterns quicker, and I see that most of companies, they are facing the same challenges.
[00:13:49] Elric Legloire: And even though they think they have a different industry, most of the time they have the same challenges, I would say. So, that's, I would say, in a nutshell, my background.
[00:13:58] John Karsant: It's interesting how a lot of people start as an SDR and work their way up. What were you doing before that? Were you in another field, or was that the first position as you joined the workforce?
[00:14:10] Elric Legloire: So, I studied marketing, and my first role was a marketing role for a Mexican company selling B2B services for large companies in Mexico City. And the founder of this company hired me to help them get leads for the sales team. And I was, just got my master's degree, I was studying in France, so I moved to Mexico at that time.
[00:14:36] Elric Legloire: And all the stuff I learned during my business school, they showed us, "Hey, how to do marketing with €1 million in budget, for example." And at this company, it's an SME company, and they had like no budget. And so, I was trying to basically say, "Hey, we should try Google Ads. Hey, we should try LinkedIn Ads." "Yeah, but we have no budget." So, I started to basically research online free stuff, free marketing campaigns we could run.
[Warning: Gemini stopped because this chunk reached the max token limit. This segment may be incomplete.]
[00:15:00] Elric Legloire: ...but now working with different companies at different stages, in different industries or markets, I'm seeing more patterns quicker, and I see that most of companies, they are facing the same challenges.
[00:15:13] John Karsant: You can like if you want to get promoted, you ultimately need to start doing things that will stand out. Sounds like that's what you're doing, you're helping out other team members.
[00:15:20] John Karsant: 100% agree with it. And if you're the best rep, sometimes management will be like, "Well, I don't want to lose my best rep, you know, who's producing the most business or booking the most meetings."
[00:15:30] Elric Legloire: So the AI will be even better than the manager, for example, to train the rep on this.
[00:15:34] John Karsant: No one wants to be an SDR forever, so if you have done a lot of hard things in the past, it makes this role a little bit easier. That's another one that comes to mind.
[00:15:42] Elric Legloire: And even though in the hiring process they know we test them on that, you have some people pushing back on your feedback. And I know if someone is pushing back on the feedback, and I'm not saying this is right or wrong, but if someone is already pushing back on this, for me that's already a red flag, for example, for coachability.
[00:16:02] John Karsant: Now, I've found that people can interview very well. So they talk well, they have some good experience, they're professional interviewers, but then they get, you know, they get hired and all of a sudden you're like, "What?"
[00:16:16] John Karsant: It's one of those roles where you can come from a lot of different backgrounds and excel. Like, you could be a teacher, you could be an athlete, you could be a programmer—that's probably not as likely, but you can literally come from all walks of life and be good in sales, which is very interesting, but also makes it hard to hire.
[00:16:36] John Karsant: But we have a few companies that will go to conferences, and others that will hold small events, like invite-only events, and one of them just sold a $20 million deal, so it does work.
[00:16:48] Elric Legloire: Yeah, some people say, "Oh yeah, I want to just do cold email," but for a $20 million ACV deal, I don't think just sending one email is going to be enough.
[00:16:58] Elric Legloire: But you can see that OpenAI, Anthropic are hiring SDRs, so they are not hiring an SDR to manage AI agents, they are hiring people to go after the biggest accounts in the world. In the past 12 months, globally, the number of SDRs grew by 30,000 SDRs.
[00:17:18] John Karsant: Really?
[00:17:19] John Karsant: Welcome back to Prospecting Pros, and on today's show we have Elric joining us from Mexico City. Thanks for taking the time to chat with us. Welcome.
[00:17:31] Elric Legloire: John, thank so much for the invite. Happy to be here.
[00:17:34] John Karsant: Yeah, thanks for joining us. So the way I like to start off every show is give us a little bit of background on your career. How did you get into the SDR world, into outbound? Walk us through some of the positions you had and where you are today.
[00:17:50] Elric Legloire: Yeah, sure. So today I run my own business, solo on the outbound side, so I focus on building stack systems for sales teams, SDRs and AEs. But before that, I was working full-time for companies, seven years, and I was an SDR, and then moved to leadership, then moved to an SDR role again, and then moved to leadership again.
[00:18:15] Elric Legloire: So I've been in the trenches and building teams, and now I would say thinking about being an external resource for those teams. And yeah, happy to make this transition because I thought working full-time for companies was going to help me learn, I would say, more about outbound.
[00:18:35] Elric Legloire: But now working with different companies at different stages, in different industries or markets, I'm seeing more patterns quicker, and I see that most of companies, they are facing the same challenges. And even though they think they have a different industry, most of the time they have the same challenges, I would say. So that's, I would say, in a nutshell, my background.
[00:18:58] John Karsant: It's interesting how a lot of people start as an SDR and work their way up. What were you doing before that? Were you in another field, or was that the first position as you joined the workforce?
[00:19:10] Elric Legloire: So I studied marketing, and my first role was a marketing role for a Mexican company selling B2B services for large companies in Mexico City. And the founder of this company hired me to help them get leads for the sales team.
[00:19:28] Elric Legloire: And I was, just got my master's degree from, I was studying in France, so I moved to Mexico at that time. And all the stuff I learned during my business school, they showed us, "Hey, how to do marketing with €1 million in budget, for example."
[00:19:45] Elric Legloire: And at this company, it's an SME company, and they had like no budget, and so I was trying to basically say, "Hey, we should try Google Ads, hey, we should try LinkedIn Ads." "Yeah, but we have no budget." So I started to basically research online...
[Warning: Gemini stopped because this chunk reached the max token limit. This segment may be incomplete.]
[00:20:00] John Karsant: Welcome back to Prospecting Pros, and on today's show we have Elric joining us from Mexico City. Thanks for taking the time to talk, chat with us. Welcome.
[00:20:11] Elric Legloire: John, thank you so much for the invite. Happy to be here.
[00:20:14] John Karsant: Yeah, thanks for joining us. So, the way I like to start off every show is give us a little bit of background on your career. How did you get into the SDR world, into outbound? Walk us through some of the positions you had and where you are today.
[00:20:30] Elric Legloire: Yeah, sure. So today, I run my own business, solo, on the outbound side. So, I focus on building stack systems for sales teams, SDRs and AEs. But before that, I was working full-time for companies, seven years, and I was an SDR, and then moved to leadership, then moved to an SDR role again, and then moved to leadership again. So, I've been in the trenches and building teams.
[00:20:59] Elric Legloire: And now, I would say, thinking about being an external resource for those teams. And yeah, happy to make this transition because I thought working full-time for companies was going to help me learn, I would say, more about outbound. But now, working with different companies at different stages, in different industries or markets, I'm seeing more of patterns quicker, and I see that most of companies, they are facing the same challenges. And even though they think they have a different industry, most of the time they have the same challenges, I would say. So, that's, I would say, in a nutshell, my background.
[00:21:38] John Karsant: It's interesting how a lot of people start as an SDR and work their way up. What were you doing before that? Were you in another field, or was that the first position as you joined the workforce?
[00:21:50] Elric Legloire: So, I studied marketing, and my first role was a marketing role for a Mexican company selling B2B services for large companies in Mexico City. And the founder of this company hired me to help them get leads for the sales team. And I was—just got my master's degree from France, I was studying in France, so I moved to Mexico at that time.
[00:22:16] Elric Legloire: And all the stuff I learned during my business school, they showed us, "Hey, how to do marketing with one million euros in budget," for example. And at this company, it's an SME company, and they had like no budget. And so, I was trying to basically say, "Hey
[Warning: Gemini stopped because this chunk reached the max token limit. This segment may be incomplete.]
[00:25:00] Elric Legloire: Welcome back to Prospecting Pros, and on today's show we have Elric joining us from Mexico City. Thanks for taking the time to chat with us. Welcome.
[00:25:11] John Karsant: John, thank you so much for the invite. Happy to be here.
[00:25:14] Elric Legloire: Yeah, thanks for joining us. So, the way I like to start off every show is give us a little bit of background on your career. How did you get into the SDR world, into outbound? Walk us through some of the positions you had and where you are today.
[00:25:30] John Karsant: Yeah, sure. So today I run my own business, solo, on the outbound side. So, I focus on building stack systems for sales teams, SDRs and AEs.
[00:25:43] John Karsant: But before that, I was working full-time for companies, seven years, and I was an SDR, and then moved to leadership, then moved to an SDR role again, and then moved to leadership again. So, I've been in the trenches and building teams.
[00:25:59] John Karsant: And now, I would say thinking about being an external resource for those teams. And yeah, happy to make this transition because I thought working full-time for companies was going to help me learn, I would say, more about outbound.
[00:26:16] John Karsant: But now working with different companies at different stages, in different industries or markets, I'm seeing more of patterns quicker, and I see that most of companies, they are facing the same challenges.
[00:26:29] John Karsant: And even though they think they have a different industry, most of the time they have the same challenges, I would say. So, that's, I would say, in a nutshell, my background.
[00:26:38] Elric Legloire: It's interesting how a lot of people start as an SDR and work their way up. What were you doing before that? Were you doing... were you in another field, or like was that the first position as you joined the workforce?
[00:26:50] John Karsant: So, I studied marketing, and my first role was a marketing role for a Mexican company selling B2B services for large companies in Mexico City.
[00:27:00] John Karsant: And the founder of this company hired me to help them get leads for the sales team. And I was... just got my master's degree from... I was studying in France, so I moved to Mexico at that time.
[00:27:16] John Karsant: And all the stuff I learned during my business school, they showed us, hey, how to do marketing with 1 million euros in budget, for example.
[00:27:27] John Karsant: And at this company, it's an SME company, and they had like no budget. And so, I was trying to basically say, hey, we should try Google Ads, hey, we should try LinkedIn Ads. Yeah, but we have no budget.
[00:27:41] John Karsant: So, I started to basically research online free stuff, free marketing campaigns we could run. And at some point, I found like the book 'Predictable Revenue' by Aaron Ross, one of the first sales leaders at Salesforce.
[00:27:59] John Karsant: And I said, well, maybe prospecting could be one way to do it, because the goal is to find leads and meetings for the sales team. So, that's basically I was starting to be an SDR without having the title of being an SDR.
[00:28:14] John Karsant: And that's how I ended up being an SDR, because at this company I was still in marketing doing the job of an SDR, and then I moved officially to a company to my first SDR role.
[00:28:26] Elric Legloire: So, I saw you work at Chili Piper, and funny enough, a little backstory on me, I was teaching tennis until I was around 25 years old, and I was like, I can't do this anymore. I quit and I went and started to travel. I had the travel bug, and I was doing a bunch of trips around the world.
[00:28:45] Elric Legloire: And this time I was done. I'm going to quit and I moved down to Argentina to learn Spanish, and I started traveling from there. But after a while, I had a girlfriend who's now my wife, but after a while, nine months in or so, I was like, I needed a job.
[00:29:01] Elric Legloire: And so, I started looking for remote positions, and funny enough, Chili Piper was coming up. They were one of the first remote... at least like when I was looking, I saw them as one of the first remote companies.
[00:29:13] Elric Legloire: And I applied, I don't think I ever had an interview. But you worked there for a while, tell us about that experience, and ultimately I think you were... let me just double check this... yeah, you had a few different promotions there, ultimately to SDR manager.
[00:29:26] Elric Legloire: So, how did that process work from starting as an SDR and ultimately becoming an SDR manager?
[00:29:31] John Karsant: The context also when I started my role at Chili Piper was I was an SDR leader before being at Chili Piper, and I moved back to an SDR role, and some people were saying, why do you do that? You are a manager now, and why are you going back to an IC role?
[00:29:52] John Karsant: And I think that was just... that was during COVID actually, and at this moment, the tech space... the B2B industry was performing really well because COVID, yes, a lot of companies were struggling, but the B2B industry, no, they were not struggling, they were booming, and Chili Piper was one of them.
[Warning: Gemini stopped because this chunk reached the max token limit. This segment may be incomplete.]
[00:30:00] Elric Legloire: Welcome back to Prospecting Pros, and on today's show we have Elric joining us from Mexico City. Thanks for taking the time to talk, chat with us. Welcome.
[00:30:13] John Karsant: John, thank you so much for the invite. Happy to be here.
[00:30:16] Elric Legloire: Yeah, thanks for joining us. So, the way I like to start off every show is, give us a little bit of background on your career. How did you get into the SDR world, into outbound? Walk us through some of the positions you had and where you are today.
[00:30:32] John Karsant: Yeah, sure. So today I run my own business, solo, on the outbound side. So, I focus on building stack systems for sales teams, SDRs and AEs.
[00:30:47] John Karsant: But before that, I was working full-time for companies, seven years, and I was an SDR, and then moved to leadership, then moved to an SDR role again, then moved to leadership again. So, I've been in the trenches and building teams.
[00:31:02] John Karsant: And now, I would say, thinking about being an external resource for those teams. And yeah, happy to make this transition because I thought working full-time for companies was going to help me learn, I would say, more about outbound.
[00:31:18] John Karsant: But now working with different companies at different stages, in different industries or markets, I'm seeing more patterns quicker, and I see that most of companies, they are facing the same challenges.
[00:31:32] John Karsant: And even though they think they have a different industry, most of the time it's they have the same challenges, I would say. So, that's, I would say, in a nutshell, my background.
[00:31:40] Elric Legloire: It's interesting how a lot of people start as an SDR and work their way up. What were you doing before that? Were you in another field, or was that the first position as you joined the workforce?
[00:31:52] John Karsant: So, I studied marketing, and my first role was a marketing role for a Mexican company selling B2B services for large companies in Mexico City.
[00:32:05] John Karsant: And the founder of this company hired me to help them get leads for the sales team. And I was, just got my master's degree from, I was studying in France, so I moved to Mexico at that time.
[00:32:17] John Karsant: And all the stuff I learned during my business school, they showed us, "Hey, how to do marketing with one million euros in budget, for example." And at this company, it's an SME company, and they had like no budget.
[00:32:32] John Karsant: And so, I was trying to basically say, "Hey, we should try Google Ads. Hey, we should try LinkedIn Ads." "Yeah, but we have no budget." So, I started to basically research online free stuff, free marketing campaigns we could run.
[00:32:52] John Karsant: And at some point, I found like the book Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross, one of the first sales leaders at Salesforce. And I said, "Well, maybe prospecting could be one way to do it."
[00:33:07] John Karsant: And because the goal is to find leads and meetings for the sales team, so that's basically, I was starting to be an SDR without having the title of being an SDR.
[00:33:18] John Karsant: And that's how I ended up being an SDR, because at this company I was still in marketing doing the job of an SDR, and then I moved officially to a company, to my first SDR role.
[00:33:28] Elric Legloire: So, I saw you work at Chili Piper, and funny enough, a little backstory on me, I was teaching tennis until I was around 25 years old, and I was like, "I just can't do this anymore." I quit and I went and started to travel.
[00:33:43] Elric Legloire: I had the travel bug, and I was doing a bunch of trips around the world, and this time I was, I was done. I'm going to quit, and I moved, I moved down to Argentina to learn Spanish, and I started traveling from there.
[00:33:55] Elric Legloire: But after a while, I had a girlfriend who's now my wife, but after a while, you know, nine months in or so, I was like, "I needed a job." And so, I started looking for remote positions, and funny enough, Chili Piper was coming up.
[00:34:10] Elric Legloire: They were one of the first remote, least like when I was looking, I saw them as one of the first remote, first companies. And I applied, I don't think I ever had an interview, but you worked there for a while.
[00:34:23] Elric Legloire: Tell us about that experience, and ultimately, I think you were, let me just double check this, yeah, you had a few promotions there, ultimately to SDR manager.
[00:34:31] Elric Legloire: So, how did that process work from starting as an SDR and ultimately becoming an SDR manager?
[00:34:33] John Karsant: The context also when I started my role at Chili Piper was, I was an SDR leader before being at Chili Piper, and I moved back to an SDR role, and some people were saying, "Why do you do that? You are a manager now, and why are you going back to an IC role?"
[00:34:46] John Karsant: And I think that was just, that was during COVID actually, and at this moment, the tech space...
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[00:35:00] John Karsant: ...but what I've noticed with companies we work with, they do have internal teams. They will hire us even though they have internal teams, but what I notice is a lot of them are getting stuck in internal meetings, they get stuck doing account research, they get stuck putting stuff in the CRM, and before you know it, the day's gone and they've made 25 calls, and, you know, leadership's wondering why pipeline's not there.
[00:35:30] John Karsant: So, to my next question to you, I was going to ask, you know, what are some of the issues you see when you come in to help companies? Because they're hiring you to help build out processes and whatnot. What are some of the issues that you're finding within these companies?
[00:35:50] Elric Legloire: For me, this is they don't know what they don't know. So, unfortunately, it's you don't know what's possible, you don't know what you can do right now with tools, AI, to optimize it.
[00:36:04] Elric Legloire: And the other thing also is the underinvestment in SDR team, because most of the time when I start working with a company, it's they think it's just, "Oh, yeah, I've hired three reps, junior reps. We don't have any playbooks. Go use Apollo, go use Lemlist," whatever they use, "go figure out."
[00:36:26] Elric Legloire: And they think this is an easy role. So, I think for me, the biggest problem is the lack of understanding of the role, and then, two, the underinvest in this role. That's what I'm seeing. I don't know for you.
[00:36:40] John Karsant: Same thing. I mean, it depends on the person you're talking to and whether or not they have experience, if they have sales a sales background, or if they're a product-led founder, but some people will just expect results from an SDR in one month.
[00:36:56] John Karsant: And it's like, that's, you know, it could happen. Could happen, but it's not likely going to happen. And what it what it boils down to is they don't understand how sales building up a pipeline really works and that this stuff doesn't happen overnight, and people aren't ready to make decisions right now. So, it takes time.
[00:37:15] Elric Legloire: Yeah, and I agree. And that's why when I work with a new customer, I set the expectations of 12 months to see any revenue. So, and this is not like, "Oh, it's unrealistic." No, but that's the reality of if you are building a team, because I think with some customers, this is via team, with some customers, it's automated. If it's automated, I think it can come quicker, but if it's via team, yeah, 12 months, it's more realistic.
[00:37:44] Elric Legloire: And they say, "Why 12 months?" It's, "Your sales cycle? Okay, six months, eight months? Okay, that start answering your question. Two, hiring. If you are hiring, maybe it take you one or two months to find someone. Well, you can add one or two months. And then, if you have like a new person, you can also add the ramp of the person. And so, that's why I'm saying it takes time to get some results."
