Who we are

Welcome to the Sales Development Organization at GitLab! We are a team designed to drive results for customers through both inbound and outbound strategies. Our structure is designed to maximize efficiency, responsiveness, and creativity in our outreach efforts.

Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) - Inbound Focused

Key Attributes:

  • Fast Response Time
  • Global Coverage
  • Alignment with Marketing for SLAs and Feedback on Campaigns
  • Defined and Prescriptive Inbound Processes
  • Round Robin Assignment Rules
  • Talent Incubator for BDR Teams

Our Inbound-focused SDRs are known for their swift response times, ensuring global coverage and alignment with marketing initiatives. They operate with defined and prescriptive inbound processes, utilizing round-robin assignment rules. Additionally, the SDR team serves as a talent incubator for our Business Development Representatives (BDRs).

Business Development Representatives (BDRs) - Outbound Focused

Key Attributes:

  • Alignment with SAEs/AE & Sales Leadership
  • Collaboration with Field Marketing + ABM
  • Strategic Account Planning and Research
  • Targeted and Creative Messaging
  • Talent Incubator for Sales Teams

Our Outbound-focused BDRs excel in strategic account planning, research, and delivering targeted and creative messaging. They work closely with Sales Account Executives (SAEs), Account Executives (AEs), and Sales Leadership. The BDR team also acts as a talent incubator for our broader Sales Teams.

Where to find us

How we can help you

What is your role and ask? How will the Sales Dev Org help
I am Field Marketer, and want to have people invited to my event We typically work with the FM process outlined here, but are always eager to collaborate in making your events more succesful, if your ask is not covered in the template linked above, please write to us on the #sales_dev_global slack channel and we’ll jump in to assist.
I am an Account Executive, and want to nominate accounts for outbounding efforts Our end-to-end outbound process is here, and our collaboration guidelines are here. The easiest way to automate your workflow is to find the field BDR Prospecting Status on the SFDC Account record, and select the Queued option from there. The BDR team will then pick it up and research it for their outbound pipeline.
I am an Account Executive, and want to check the state of accounts, or quality of prospects, in my territory Our BDR team uses a set of 1:1 dashboards that consolidate all relevant resources in one place. Our BDR team typically uses these on 1:1s with the Sales team to facilitate better account and territory planning.
I am a Field Marketer, or Account Executive, and want to suggest that the SDR or BDR team uses my messaging for reaching out to prospects or clients We have a quick process for creating new sequences on Outreach, our messaging tool. Even though the BDR or SDR are the ones typically creating these requests, we always welcome collaboration with other teams so feel free to log your own request directly if you’d like.
I am a Sales Manager, and want to gauge the quality and progress of the SAOs provided to my team. We have a robust set of pipeline progression dashboards that break down results in a lot of granularity. We also have a structured path for handing off opportunities from the SDR/BDR teams to the AE team that you can use to measure adherance to qualification criteria and next steps.

Our Slack Channels

Channel Slack Handle
Main Channel - (Global VP - JB Larramendy) #sales_dev_global
Announcements - (SDR Ops/Enablement - Chris Wang) #sales_dev_fyi
COMM GLOBAL (Manager - Brian Tabbert) #comm_sales_dev_global
BDR COMM GLOBAL MM (Manager - Brian Tabbert) #bdr_global_mm
SDR GLOBAL (Manager - Brian Tabbert) #sdr_global_inbound
SDR AMER (Manager - Josh Downey) #sdr_amer_inbound
BDR COMM AMER MM (Manager - Christie Park) #bdr_amer_mm
BDR ENTG AMER WEST & LATAM (Manager - Charlotte Platt) #bdr_entg_amer_west_latam
BDR ENTG AMER EAST (Manager - Shamit Paul) #bdr_entg_amer_east
BDR ENTG PUBSEC (Manager - Josh Downey) #bdr_entg_amer_pubsec
All - EMEA #sdr_emea
SDR EMEA - (Manager - Elsje Smart) #sdr_emea_apac_inbound
BDR COMM EMEA MM - (Manager - Elsje Smart) #bdr_comm_emea_mm
BDR ENTG EMEA DACH - (Manager - Christopher Allenfort) #bdr_entg_emea_dach
BDR ENTG EMEA NEUR META - (Manager - Miguel Nunes) #bdr_entg_emea_neur_meta
BDR ENTG EMEA SEUR - (Manager - Tati Fernandez) #bdr_entg_emea_seur
SDR APAC - (Manager - Brian Tabbert) #sdr_emea_apac_inbound
BDR ENTG APAC - (Manager - Elsje Smart) #bdr_entg_apac

Our GitLab Projects

Name Description
Sales Development Issues The list of all issues we curently have on our project.
Sales Dev Ops Issue Board The main Kanban board we use to manage our operational projects, look here to see what we have in the pipeline.
Sequence Creation Board The board we manage all new, and in-flight, sequences and messaging campaigns.
FM Collaboration Board The board we use to communicate with the Field Marketing team to help support their events.
PTO Requests Board The board we use to submit and manage Paid Time Off (PTO) requests.
Sales Systems Issues This is the Sales Systems issue list, we collaborate closely with them.
Marketing Operations Issues This is the Marketing Operation’s team space, we also work closely with them too.

Our SFDC Dashboards

Name/Link Description
1:1 Dashboards - Leads: PUBSEC 1:1 dashboard for leads in the PUBSEC segment.
1:1 Dashboards - Leads: APAC ENTG 1:1 dashboard for leads in the APAC ENTG segment.
1:1 Dashboards - Leads: ENTG EMEA 1:1 dashboard for leads in the ENTG EMEA segment.
1:1 Dashboards - Leads: ENTG EMEA/AMER 1:1 dashboard for leads in the ENTG EMEA/AMER segment.
1:1 Dashboards - Leads: COMM EMEA 1:1 dashboard for leads in the COMM EMEA segment.
1:1 Dashboards - Accounts: EMEA COMM 1:1 dashboard for accounts in the EMEA COMM segment.
1:1 Dashboards - Accounts: ENG AMER/LATAM 1:1 dashboard for accounts in the ENG AMER/LATAM segment.
1:1 Dashboards - Accounts: ENTG APAC 1:1 dashboard for accounts in the ENTG APAC segment.
1:1 Dashboards - Accounts: ENTG EMEA 1:1 dashboard for accounts in the ENTG EMEA segment.
1:1 Dashboards - Accounts: PUBSEC 1:1 dashboard for accounts in the PUBSEC segment.
Watch and Help Action Needed: AMER Action needed for watch and help in the AMER segment.
Watch and Help Action Needed: APAC BDR Action needed for watch and help for APAC BDR.
Watch and Help Action Needed: EMEA BDR Action needed for watch and help for EMEA BDR.
Watch and Help Action Needed: PUBSEC BDR Action needed for watch and help for PUBSEC BDR.
Watch and Help Action Needed: SDR Global Action needed for watch and help for SDR Global.

Our SFDC Chatter Guide

Problem Who to Chatter
A SMB/MM Contact Request and the account is a customer Chatter the Account Owner and inform them of the context of the message. *there is an exception if the account has only bought CI/CD or storage
A BDR recieves an MQL Lead that is not from an Actively Working Account Chatter @mktops
If you feel a lead has been misrouted Chatter @mktops
There is a Duplicate Account Chatter Sales Support and ask them to merge the accounts. The chatter should be on the account that is more active
An Opp has moved into Stage 1 but has Incorrect Data Chatter your manager who will then reach out to someone in Sales Dev Operations
Unclear Territory Assignment Chatter an AE from each of the potential territories
Requesting SAO Credit on an Opp Chatter Sales Dev Ops or the Director of Commercial Sales Development and use this format
Account is in Restricted Status Chatter the SAE and ask permission to reach out

The pages we frequently use

Resource Description
Sales Development Org Onboarding page Comprehensive onboarding guide for new members of the Sales Development Org.
Tanuki Tech Information about Tanuki Tech, a tool or process related to Sales Development.
GitLab LevelUp Training channel Access to GitLab LevelUp Training channel for additional learning resources.
Sales handbook page Main handbook page for Sales, providing essential information and resources.
Go to Market page Resources related to Go-to-Market strategy for Sales.
Sales Dev Tools and Manager Resources Tools and resources specifically designed for Sales Development teams and managers.
Sales Development Org job family/levels Overview of job families and levels within the Sales Development Org.
Territory Alignment Guidance on territory alignment for BDRs and SDRs.
Enterprise BDR Outbound Process Framework Framework for the outbound process followed by the Enterprise BDR team.
Sales Development Enablement Videos Playlist of enablement videos and how-tos for BDRs and SDRs.
Outreach sequence naming convention Document outlining the naming convention for Outreach sequences.
Lead Lifecycle Handbook Page Handbook page detailing different lead statuses and managing the lead lifecycle.
Marketing Resource Links GitLab whitepapers, ebooks, webcasts, analyst reports, and more for Sales & Sales Development education.
Marketing Events + Gated Content Assets + Webcasts Resources for BDRs and SDRs to understand marketing assets consumed by prospects.
GitLab Buyer Personas Resource to help GitLab sellers better understand our buyers and audiences.
Sales handbook page GitLab Sales team handbook.
Sales resources page Link to the Sales quick reference guide with links to learn more about the various sales teams & initiatives.
Weekly sales enablement Weekly sessions for sales enablement, open to BDRs/lSDRs every Thursday.
Sales Training handbook page Link to GitLab sales training resources.
Command of the Message “Command of the Message” training and the GitLab value framework.
Most commonly used sales resources Sales resources page.
Flash Field newsletter Learn more about the sales weekly newsletter.
GitLab Values The guiding principles we try to live up to each day.
GitLab Direction The walkthrough of our product’s stages
HighSpot Our go-to resource for competitive intelligence and all types of helpful collateral.
GitLab Use Cases Where we go to reference how we make our customers sucessful
Sales Dev Onboarding Checklist Go-to resource for all training material newcomers will need

the terms we commonly use

Term Definition
Accepted Lead A lead that an SDR or BDR agrees to work until qualified in or qualified out
Account An organization tracked in salesforce.com. An account can be a prospect, customer, former customer, integrator, reseller, or prospective reseller
AM Account Manager
AE Account Executive, can be Major or Strategic in AMER/EMEA Enterprise
APAC Asia-Pacific
BDR Business Development Represenative - focused on outbound
CAM Channel Account Manager
CS Customer Success
DACH Germany, Austria and Switzerland region
EMEA Europe, Middle East, and Africa
EULA End User License Agreement
High intent an event, webcast, demo that is a strong indicator of purchase or evaluation
Inquiry an Inbound request or response to an outbound marketing effort
IQM Initial Qualifying Meeting
LATAM Latin America (includes all of Central & South America)
META Middle East, Turkey and Africa Region
MQL Marketing Qualified Lead - an inquiry that has been qualified through systematic means (e.g. through demographic/firmographic/behavior lead scoring)
MVC Minimal Viable Change (not Model View Controller)
NEUR Northern Europe Region
NORAM North America
Qualified Lead A lead that a BDR or SDR has qualified, converted to an opportunity and assigned to a Sales Representative (Stage 0-Pending Acceptance)
RD Regional Director
ROW Rest of World
SAE Strategic Account Executive
Sales Admin Sales Administrator
Sales Serve A sales method where a quota bearing member of the sales team closes the deal
SAO Sales Accepted Opportunity - an opportunity Sales agrees to pursue following an Initial Qualifying Meeting
SDR Sales Development Representative - focused on inbound
Self Serve A sales method where a customer purchases online through our web store. Also known as a “web direct”
SEUR Southern Europe Region
SLA Service Level Agreement
SQO Sales Qualified Opportunity
CSM Customer Success Manager
TEDD Technology, Engineering, Development and Design - used to estimate the maximum potential users of GitLab at a company
Won Opportunity Contract signed to Purchase GitLab
Hyper-personalization The concept of combining real-time data extracted from multiple sources to create outreach that resonates with prospects on an individual level. The desired outcome is to establish relevance with a prospect as a first step towards a conversation.
VIP (prospect) A Very Important Person, top officer, executive buyer, C-level prospect, or important influencer requiring hyper-personalization. Examples: CTO, CIO, CSIO, C-level, IT Business unit leads, VPs, strategic project leaders.
Influencer (prospect) An individual prospect suspected to be involved with IT decision-making, tooling, teams, roadmap, strategic projects, and/or budgets. Examples: Director or Manager of DevOps / Engineering / Cloud / Security, Enterprise Architects, IT buyers, SysAdmins, purchasing managers, and product owners.
User (prospect) A prospect with limited influence within an IT organization. Examples: Developers, Engineers, QA, consultants, and business users.
Groundswell An outbound strategy focused on filling the top of the funnel by generating engagement, opt-ins, MQLs, and uncovering intent signals. This strategy typically incorporates more automation than other more direct outbound prospecting tactics. The strategy should be used with lower-level prospects and lower-tier accounts.
Snippets Content created for BDRs and SDRs to use to create hyper-personalized sequences, one-off emails, or to use for reaching out to prospects via LinkedIn.
Warm Calling The method used to strategically incorporate phone calls and voicemails into an outbound prospecting workflow. The idea is to optimize outbound productivity by only using the phone to call engaged, validated, and/or VIP prospects.
Rules of Engagement (RoE) Defines ownership of a lead, SAO credit, and collaboration between SDRs and BDRs.
BDR Prospecting Status Salesforce status includes Queued, Actively Working, Worked in FY, and Restricted.
Partner Prospecting Status If populated, the lead/contact is worked by a partner, and Sales Dev should not proceed with outreach.
Actively Working Status Accounts chosen for strategic outreach based on alignment, news, initiatives, etc. Recycles after 10 weeks if not worked.
Actively Working Status Requirements BDR Account Strategy field must be populated. Research and Next Steps notes within 10 days. Minimum 5 people in sequences.
Queued status Accounts waiting to be moved into Actively Working. SDRs work MQLs in this status.
Worked in FY status Indicates an account went through “Actively Working” this FY. Can be moved back to “Actively Working” later.
Restricted status SAE-indicated restriction on the account. BDRs handle the status change, note the reason, and reroute to assigned BDR.

Our Standards

Our three pilars

Accountability Pillars for Sales Development Org
1. Uphold Daily Activity Metrics
MQLs to be sequenced within expected activity metrics.
Work lead records within Salesforce by leveraging relevant sequence libraries in Outreach.
Use Business Intelligence platforms like ZoomInfo or LinkedIn to verify the validity of inbound lead datapoints. Take appropriate actions to clean up and assure accuracy and consistency of SFDC/Outreach data.
Maintain SFDC data integrity by following the outbound workflow in researching and prospecting accounts.
Sequence steps to be actioned within the same day of them being due. Move steps to a further date only because of national holidays affecting outreach (i.e., Christmas day).
Maintain cross-functional relationships in terms of outbound account planning. Attend each initial qualifying meeting (IQM) with the AE/SAE you work with. Document accurate up-to-date notes in SFDC.
2. Displaying Business and Sales Acumen
- Display business acumen and sales skills in personalizing inbound/outbound leads, following our CoM email writing principles.
- Display business acumen and sales skills in preparing for cold-calls, following our CoM cold-calling principles.
- Display business acumen and sales skills in preparing for scheduled discovery calls, following our CoM sales training.
- Outbound accounts to be added in a weekly cadence, according to the expectations set within each regional team, in terms of outbound cycle (monthly, weekly), and volume of accounts.
3. Maintain Cross-functional Relationships
- Collaborate with the Sales team in terms of account planning.
- Collaborate with the Field Marketing team in terms of event outreach.

Our Rules of Engagement (RoE)

  • Is the MQL from an Existing Account?

    • No: It is worked by the SDR team
    • Yes: Check the BDR Prospecting Status
  • Is the Account in “Actively Working” Status?

    • No: It is worked by the SDR team

    • Yes: Check for Activity

      • Does the account have activity placed by the BDR in the last 30 days?

        • Yes: It is worked by the BDR Assigned
        • No: Check to see if there are leads related to the account that have activity using this report
      • When you modify this report based on company name and email domain, do you see any activity in the last 30 days?

        • Yes: It is worked by the BDR Assigned
        • No: It is worked by the SDR Team.

Next Steps: SDR chatters the BDR Assigned and lets them know you didn’t find activity and will go ahead and sequence the lead. FYI’s the BDR Manager. BDR Manager will work with the BDR to put the account into the correct BDR Prospecting status. If a BDR is able to relay information that was not picked up in the SDR’s research, the SDR should end the sequence if the prospect hasn’t engaged and change lead ownership to BDR so the BDR can reach out. If the SDR has engaged with the prospect, there will need to be a coordinated handoff worked out between SDR and BDR. Note: Only activity logged in SFDC will be recognized as activity.

  • Is the Account in “Queued” Status?
    • Yes: It is worked by the SDR team
  • Is the Account in “Worked in FY” Status?
    • Yes: It is worked by the SDR team
  • Is the Account in “Restricted” Status?
    • Yes: It should be routed to the BDR assigned. The BDR assigned will chatter the SAE about whether they’d like them to reach out or whether they would like to own that responsibility. The AE should respond within 48 hours.
      • If they reply back that the BDR can work, the BDR will continue with the prospect as a lead record and take action.
      • If they reply back that they want to be responsible, the BDR will convert the lead so that it becomes a contact.

After determining an MQL is to be worked by the SDR team:

  • Is the new MQL related to an existing MQL that is part of the same account?

    • No: The MQL can be worked by the SDR that received it through the round robin

    • Yes: Check the status of the existing MQL

  • Is the existing MQL in Accepted or Qualifying status?

    • No: The MQL can be worked by the SDR that received it through the round robin

    • Yes: Check the activity on the existing MQL

  • Is there activity in the last 30 days or a follow up task scheduled for the future?

    • Yes: The MQL should be worked by the owner of the existing MQL

    • No: The MQL can be worked by the SDR that received it through the round robin. If you are not sure, double-check with the related SDR.

    If the related SDR relays information that was not picked up in the new SDR’s research, the new SDR should end any active sequence if the prospect hasn’t engaged and change lead ownership to the team member who has been engaged so they can reach out. If the new SDR has engaged with the prospect, there will need to be a coordinated handoff worked out between the new SDR and the related SDR. Note: Only activity logged in SFDC will be recognized as activity.

How we measure ourselves

Sales Development Org Compensation Breakdown
Quota Components Depending on Sales Segment
Sales Accepted Opportunities (SAOs)
ARR pipeline component
2-way communication must be documented on the Contact in the Opportunity to receive credit. Opportunities missing this documentation will not be considered for compensation and will not retire quota.
For BDRs and SDRs who have SAO/ARR goals, compensation is based on the SAO attainment. ARR attainment is a qualifier for accelerator payments. Our aim is to land net new logos and expand to new customer business units, SAOs being our quantity metric and ARR our quality metric. Our mission is to create good qualified pipeline for the company. SAO credit is given for licenses and not for PS Opportunities (for training, for example) nor pipeline minutes.
Team Member OTE (SDR/MM BDR, APAC BDR, & Pub Sec)
70% Base Pay
30% Variable Pay:
- 100% Individual SAO Quota:
- No floor or ceiling
- Accelerator x 1.5 after meeting 100% of target
- 1.3 x High LAM New Logo Kicker for APAC/Pub Sec BDRs
Team Member OTE (ENT BDR Strategic)
70% Base Pay
30% Variable Pay:
- 80% Individual Quota:
- 20% Growth SAOs
- 60% First Order SAOs
- 1.3 x High LAM New Logo Kicker
- No floor or ceiling
- Accelerator x 1.75 after meeting 100% of target of either SAO type for that type
- 20% Pooled Net ARR Bookings:
- 75% Floor
- Ceiling of 140%
- Accelerator x 1.25 from 100% to 140%
Team Member OTE (ENT BDR Major)
70% Base Pay
30% Variable Pay:
- 80% Individual Quota:
- 50% SAOs
- 1.3 x High LAM New Logo Kicker
- No floor or ceiling
- Accelerator x 1.75 after meeting 100% of SAO target
- 30% Net ARR Pipeline
- No floor with a 200% ceiling, no accelerator
- 20% Pooled Net ARR Bookings:
- 75% Floor
- Ceiling of 140%
- Accelerator x 1.25 from 100% to 140%
Results
- ARR won from opportunities BDR sources
Activity
- Number of opportunities created
- Number of calls made
- Number of personalized emails sent
- LinkedIn InMails
- Qualified Engagements
- Number of leads accepted and worked
Daily outbound metrics
- We aim for 45 touchpoints per day using the various methods above. This is a broad expectation and may vary per team given the segment, functionality, and strategy of the team manager.

Our Career Path

Promotion Criteria for Each Sales Development Position
Sales Development Representative (SDR) to Sales Development Representative Team Lead (SDR TL) Criteria
Minimum 9 months in the SDR Role (incl. ramp)
Hitting quota cumulatively over the last fully-ramped 5 months
Willingness to coach and up-level peers
Endorsement from SDR management
Demonstration of GitLab’s Values
Completion of SDR Q1-Q3 Tanuki Techs
NOTE: Not every SDR will have the opportunity to become a team lead. Interviews will take place when a spot is available. A successful applicant must make a 3-month minimum commitment to the Team Lead Role before pursuing another promotion.
Sales Development Representative (SDR) to Business Development Representative (BDR)
Minimum 12 months in the SDR Role (incl. ramp)
Hitting quota cumulatively over the last 2 fully-ramped quarters (neither quarter below 80% attainment)
Endorsement from current SDR manager
Demonstration of GitLab’s Values
Completion of SDR Q1-Q4 Tanuki Techs
NOTE: All promotions require a formal application + interview. Performance and adherence to values guarantee an interview, but candidates must demonstrate suitability during the process. Factors such as interview performance, headcount, and language requirements can influence promotion timelines.
Business Development Representative (BDR) to Senior Business Development Representative (Senior BDR)
Minimum 6 months in the BDR Role (incl. ramp)
Hitting quota cumulatively over the last 6 months (fully-ramped months must hit 100% cumulatively)
Endorsement from BDR management
Demonstration of GitLab’s Values
Completion of BDR Q1-Q2 Tanuki Techs
Business Development Representative (BDR) to Business Development Representative Team Lead (BDR Team Lead)
Minimum 9 months in the BDR Role (incl. ramp)
Hitting quota cumulatively over the last fully-ramped 5 months
Willingness to coach and up-level peers
Endorsement from BDR management
Demonstration of GitLab’s Values
Completion of BDR Q1-Q3 Tanuki Techs
NOTE: Not every BDR will have the opportunity to become a team lead. Interviews will take place when a spot is available. A successful applicant must make a 3-month minimum commitment to the Team Lead Role before pursuing another promotion.
Business Development Representative (BDR) and Business Development Representative Team Lead (BDR Team Lead) to Next Step
Minimum 12 months in the BDR Role (incl. ramp)
Hitting quota cumulatively over the last 2 fully-ramped quarters (neither quarter below 80% attainment)
Endorsement from BDR management
Demonstration of GitLab Values
Completion of BDR Q1-Q4 Tanuki Techs
NOTE: All promotions require a formal application + interview. Performance and adherence to values guarantee an interview, but candidates must demonstrate suitability during the process. Factors such as interview performance, headcount, and language requirements can influence promotion timelines.

Some examples of potential next roles after the Sales Dev Org are Inside Sales Rep, SMB Account Executive, Associate Solutions Architect, Customer Success Manager, and many more!

| After Promotion Transition | | After being promoted, your existing pipeline will not move with you but will be reassigned to the team you are leaving. This includes: | | Stage 0 opportunities (reassigned to the rep’s previous manager) | | Assigned accounts, including AWA | | Assigned leads, including all MQLs | | Active Outreach sequences (alternatively, these can be marked finished) | | Pending Outreach tasks outside of sequences | | Any planned follow-up outside of the specified areas | | Any leads that reach out to you in your new role that were originally sourced in your old role |

Our Ramping period levels for lead assignment

Levels Details
Onboarding - Timeframe: Month 0 - Parameters: SDR not on quota, leads are off in Traction, Qualified is off
Ramping 1 - Timeframe: Month 1 - Parameters: SDR is on 25% quota, leads are set at 50% in Traction, Qualified is off
Ramping 2 - Timeframe: Month 2 - Parameters: SDR is on 50% quota, leads are set at 100% in Traction, Qualified is off
Ramping 3 - Timeframe: Month 3 - Parameters: SDR is on 75% quota, leads are set at 100% in Traction, SDR is added to Qualified
Expert - Timeframe: Months 4+ - Parameters: SDR is on full quota, leads are set at 100% in Traction, Qualified is on
- SDR is now able to create their own Outreach sequences pending approval.

Performance Requirements

SDR Managers will monitor key metrics and ensure they are being handled effectively before advancing an SDR from Ramping to Expert:

  • Pending MQLs addressed in a timely manner
  • Stalled Qualifying MQLs
  • Overdue tasks
  • Paused/Failed sequence states
  • Pending opps with no next steps date
  • Pending opps with overdue next steps dates
  • Unqualified opps
  • Calls
  • Tanuki Tech progress

Our approach to flexible working

At GitLab we have flexible working hours. This means that you can organize your working day as you like and are not expected to arrive and leave at a set time every day, but we do expect MQL’s to be followed up within 1 hour (during business hours) so communication with your manager will be necessary if you plan to be out for an extended period of time. Managers will provide direction on the routing of leads during that time.

With a prospect-facing role in Sales Development, do keep in mind when you are calling and emailing prospects:

  • The best times to call are early and late in the business day, so these may be best blocked for this activity.
  • Outreach allows you to schedule emails at set times. For outbound prospecting, the most effective emails are those that come in the early morning and early evening, so you can take advantage of this feature. On the other hand, inbound MQL’s must be handled regularly throughout your day as they come in.
  • Lunchtimes are good for outreach as most prospects have meeting blocks for three hours in the morning and then two hours mid-afternoon.
  • The above blocks you can use for account research and planning, customer meetings, or meetings with your sales reps, manager, peers, and teams.
  • Although you are not expected to start work and end work at the same time every day, please do keep in mind the normal business hours of your prospects, and make sure to schedule your own working hours to ensure you maximize opportunities.

In short, working at GitLab means that if you start the day early you can take a long lunch break to hit the gym or go grocery shopping in the middle of the day when it’s quiet, yet you can still do a full day’s work around that and don’t need to be accountable all the time, as long as you are available to call prospects and be available for prospect meetings during normal working hours for your region/territory.

How we work

Inbound Process

SDRs are responsible for following up with MQLs by reviewing their information, reaching out, and working with them to understand their goals, needs, and problems. BDRs have the same responsibility for MQLs that come from one of their “actively working” accounts. Once you have that information, you can use our qualification criteria to determine if this is someone who has strong potential to purchase our product and therefore should be connected with sales for next steps. As you are the connection between Marketing and Sales you want to make sure every lead you pass to the Sales team is as qualified as possible.

These MQLs will show up in your S1 or B1 lead and contact views in Salesforce. The other views, listed here, allow you to see your leads in a categorized way to simplify your workflow. Leads are routed to you and flow into your views via the tool Traction Complete which takes each lead through a series of conditional questions to ensure it goes to the right person. Even though all SDRs leverage the same views, they will only show you leads that have been specifically routed to you. You will be responsible for following up with all of the leads in your MQL views by sequencing them using Outreach.io. Once sequenced, their lead status will change and they will move from your MQL views allowing you to have an empty view. Managers monitor all views to ensure they are cleared out. If you choose not to work a lead please unqualify it and state your reasons in the lead record.

SDR Lead Routing Levels

Lead Routing Level Procedure

The SDR Managers will be responsible for facilitating lead routing level changes at the beginning of each new month (when applicable) by making the requisite moves in Traction and Qualified.

Lead and Contact Views

SDR Lead Views

  • S1 View - MQL’s,and “Hot” leads that need to be actioned within 60 minutes (i.e event)s, and Qualified conversation leads for tenured SDRs
  • S2 View - Only leads that are active in a HT touch sequence and have a phone number
  • S3 View - Qualifying leads. These are leads that you are actively qualifying in a back and forth conversation either by email or through phone calls. Each lead needs to either be active in a follow-up sequence, have an active task, or have a future meeting scheduled which can be seen in a future “last activity” date.

BDR Lead Views

  • B1 View - MQL’s and “Hot” leads that need to be actioned within 60 minutes
  • B2 View - This is a view that you will clone in order to see leads associated with “Actively Working” accounts where you are the BDR Assigned. After you clone and modify the name of the view to include your name, you should enter your name into the 1st rule. Save and run the view. Sort by Last Interesting Moment Date to see the most recent. Here you can select which leads you should reach out to as part of your strategy for those account. You’ll select the ones you want and change the owner to yourself. These will then show up in your B3 view so that you can easily sequence them.
  • B3 View - Needs to be sequenced. They’re leads you chose to move into your name but they have not yet been sequenced.
  • B4 View - Active HT sequenced leads that have a phone number - to help with call downs
  • B5 View - Qualifying leads. These are leads that you are actively qualifying in a back and forth conversation either by email or through phone calls. Each lead needs to either be active in a follow up sequence, have an active task or have a future meeting scheduled which can be seen in a future “last activity” date

BDR Contact Views

Contact ownership is based on the BDR Assigned and Account owner fields. If you are the BDR Assigned on the account, you will be the owner of all contacts associated with that account. If there is no BDR Assigned, the account owner will be the owner of the contacts.

  • B1 View - Includes MQL’s, Hot contacts that require quick follow up
  • B2 View - Contacts related to Actively working accounts that you can choose to sequence. Helps if you sort them by Last Interesting Moment date.
  • B3 View - Active HT sequenced leads that have a phone number - to help with call downs
  • B4 View - Qualifying leads. Contacts that you are actively qualifying in a back and forth conversation either on email or through phone calls. Each contact in this status needs to either be active in a follow up sequence, have an active task or have a future meeting scheduled which can be seen in a future “last activity” date.

Duplicate Lead and Contact Videos

BDR Territory Movement Rules of Engagement

When a territory moves from one BDR to another but the previous BDR remains with the same team (ex: moves from one MM territory to another) the BDR vacating the territory will have the chance to temporarily retain ownership of accounts with which they have generated ongoing engagement (subject to manager approval). At the time of the holdover, an issue will be created that will be reviewed in 30 days to verify account ownership. This includes:

  • The outgoing BDR will be allowed to hold back for 30 days any account with which they can demonstrate two-way engagement that could potentially lead to an IQM and new opportunity. If, after 30 days, no IQM has been set and no stage 0 opportunity exists, the account will be moved by the manager to the new BDR assigned to the territory. If the outgoing BDR is successful in generating a new opportunity, the account will remain with them until the opportunity is either qualified or unqualified.
  • The outgoing BDR will be allowed to hold back for 30 days any account with which there is an existing stage 0 opportunity where they are listed as the BDR. After 30 days if the opportunity is not qualified, the account will be moved by the manager to the new BDR assigned to the territory.
  • In instances where an account has been reassigned to the new BDR and the outgoing BDR had two-way engagement more than 30 days ago with the account but was unable to convert them to an SAO, and the account later returns unprompted and with no prior activity from the new BDR assigned to the territory and wants to pursue a conversation with sales, the team (manager) will receive SAO credit from any resulting opportunity.
  • Any other situations that arise which result in a credit dispute will be investigated and resolved by the BDRs’ leader and senior leader.

Inbound Lead Management

Begin with Enriching and using Find Duplicates

  1. On SFDC lead record, you will be using the Find Duplicates button and LinkedIn and follow the workflow below.

  2. First Click “LinkedIn” to see if you can enrich any title or company info which will help ensure correct search of duplicates and inform the collection you’ll use in Outreach.

  3. Check “Matched Account” and ZoomInfo sections:

    • For Commercial leads (SMB and MM), if the existing SFDC account type equals “Customer”, press ‘Convert to Account’ and convert the lead to a contact for that account. Once converted, please also chatter the Account Owner and inform them of the details of the lead for them to potentially action. An exception exists if they’ve only bought CI/CD or storage; these leads can still be worked by the SDR. Leads should only be converted if the Customer account purchased Premium or Ultimate.
    • Also for Commercial leads, if the existing SFDC account is not a customer but contains an open opportunity, update the Lead Status field to Recycle and the Recycle Reasons field to Evaluating. Once the status has been updated, please also chatter the opportunity owner and inform them of the details of the lead for them to potentially action.
    • For Universities/Education leads (non-US Pub Sec), if the SFDC lead/contact is a technical contact (not student) then work this as a regular lead as these will not qualify for educational pricing.
    • If an existing SFDC Large/Enterprise Customer account already exists, verify that the SFDC lead/prospect is not part of the existing GitLab subscription before working the lead by sending a short snippet like, “Hi XYZ, Thanks for reaching out. ABC company currently has a GitLab subscription, are you presently using a GitLab license and if so, what version?”. If they are, please follow the “Convert to Account” instructions above.
    • Read the ZoomInfo description to check for USA PubSec indicators which will include words like the following in the description: County, City Of, State, University, College, Defense, Intelligence, Agency, Mission, Mission Critical, Mission Support, Speed to Mission, System Integrator, Contract Vehicle, Government Bid, Government Contract, Civilian, or Task Order. Canadian government leads get routed to the AMER commercial team.
  4. Press Find Duplicates

    • SDRs/BDRs should use this screen to check to see if 1) the matched account (make sure to use the core company name for the search, removing Inc, plc, Ltd etc.) is an “Actively Working” account that would cause the lead to need to be re-routed to the BDR Assigned or 2) whether there is a duplicate record that needs to be merged Ensure you keep oldest Initial Source. See video here or 3) whether there is another lead at that company active in sequence.
      • The lead owner will make sure to use search techniques that allow for the most accurate results. On the Find Duplicates screen, they will need to scroll to the Matched Account section to see if the BDR prospecting status is “Actively Working”. If so, they will need to transfer to BDR.
      • If it is not an Actively Working account, then the next step is to scroll to the top to see if there are Matched Leads or Matched Contacts that are a match. If so, then our merging process here will need to be followed.
      • The lead owner should also check the Matched Opportunities Section to see if there is an active Opportunity for the account be it SAE/AE-owned or Channel owned (Resale Partner last column) The lead owner should determine if this lead is related to any active opportunity and then pass along the lead if relevant.
      • If there is another lead at the same company with a Lead Status of MQL, ownership is determined by the lead whose MQL Date is the earliest. If there is another lead at the same company with a Lead Status of Accepted or Qualifying, pass the MQL to the owner of the accepted/qualifying lead.
    • Should a BDR receive a lead not associated with an Actively Working account, they are responsible for assigning the lead back to the SDR who assigned it to them. If it came from Traction, they should chatter mktgops support on the record so that it can be routed correctly.
  5. Qualified leads associated with “Actively Working” accounts

    • BDR assigned to the Actively Working Account will have the lead routed to them

Outreach & Marketo

If the lead is yours to work based on all of the above, sequence them in Outreach using the FY24 inbound sequence that correlates with the Last Interesting Moment. You can also look at the initial source and Marketo insights to get a holistic view of what a lead is looking into. There is an Outreach collection of sequences for inbound leads for each region. These collections contain a primary sequence for nearly every inbound lead scenario.

High touch and Low touch sequences:

A high touch sequence should be used for higher-quality leads. High touch sequences require you to add in more personalization and have more touch points across a longer period of time, including phone calls and LinkedIn Connect requests. Low touch sequences are typically automated and run for a shorter period of time. We define higher quality leads based on the volume of inbound you have to manage as well as whether the lead has has 1-2 of the following for MM/Large accounts:

  • Valid company email domain or company name
  • Phone number
  • Title related to our buying/influencer personas
  • 6Sense intent
  • Set up for company/team use checkbox equals true
  • Account has X # of Developers (MM/Large nuances)
  • LinkedIn profile
  • SMB lead may only need to have 2-3 of the above
  • Different teams may have nuances so please check in with your manager for their feedback.

Questions about a lead?

  • If you feel you have been misrouted a lead, chatter mktgops-support on the lead record. They will reassign.
  • If you have a question about the behavior of a lead or any other operational issue, you can use the slack channel #mktgops
  • If lead is associated with an account where there are duplicates, chatter sales support on the account record with links to duplicate account(s) and ask them to merge. The chatter should be on the record that seems to be the most active account.
  • For contact requests received requesting event sponsorship, please change ownership to GitLab Evangelist in SFDC & be sure to “check the box” to send a notification.
  • If a lead only has compute minutes, but no paid subsriptions they are considered a prospect and not a customer.

Technical questions from leads?

  • Docs
  • Slack channels
    • #questions
    • #support_self-managed
    • #support_gitlab-com

Dealing with spam and or unneeded leads

Every so often you may be assigned a lead that has no value to GitLab and is not worth keeping within our database. Qualities that define these types of leads include:

  • Lead info is an incoherent, jumbled combination of characters with no meaning
  • Lead info is an obvious forgery, e.g. The odds of someone being named Batman Batman are very low
  • Email supplied is from a temporary email domain that cannot be contacted after a certain time limit due to email self-termination

When you come across leads that fall into this category, it is best to remove them from our Salesforce database entirely. The process to remove leads is to add the lead to the SPAM DELETION Salesforce campaign. A few details about this process:

  • Only add leads to this campaign if you are 100% certain they are worth removing from the database
  • MktgOps cannot recover leads removed through this process. You should consider the removal permanent, so be careful
  • The campaign member status used when adding to the campaign does not matter, only campaign membership matters for this process
  • The removal process, which is completed via Marketo, runs once a day at 12:05am PDT
  • If you require leads to be cleared out before the scheduled time, please ask in the mktgops Slack channel. Please keep unscheduled requests to a minimum
  • If you spot a number of leads with the same domain, please create an issue with Marketing Ops to have that email domain added to a block list. You can still follow the steps above to delete them.

Lead sequencing and dispositioning through Outreach

Lead/contact statuses allow anyone in Salesforce to understand where a lead is at in their journey. The automation mentioned below is all done through an Outreach.io trigger.

  • Once the first step of an Outreach sequence is complete, the lead status will automatically change from MQL, Inquiry, or Raw to Accepted marking that you are actively working on this lead.
  • When a lead responds to you via email, their status will again automatically change. This time it will change from Accepted to Qualifying. You will manage these leads from your S3 and B5 lead views.
    • If you are not working on qualifying this lead further, you will need to manually change the status to Recycle so that this lead is back in Marketing recycle and isn’t stuck in your My Qualifying view. If you have spoken to the lead by phone and are qualifying them, you need to manually change the status to from Accepted to Qualifying
  • When looking at your qualifying view please sequence leads that have no recent last activity + no active tasks + are not actively being sequenced into one of our follow up sequences that have the “Follow up Ruleset Sequences”. You can read more about our rulesets here
  • If a lead finishes an Outreach sequence without responding, the lead status will automatically change to unresponsive or recycle in seven days if there is still no response.
  • If a lead responds, the BDR/SDR is to schedule a call/meeting using Outreach’s meetings feature.
  • The only time you will need to manually change lead status outside of what is mentioned in the previous bullets is if you for some reason don’t use an Outreach sequence to reach out to someone or if you need to unqualify a lead for bad data etc.
  • If you check the Inactive lead or Inactive contact checkbox, signifying that this person no longer works at the company, any running sequence will automatically be marked as finished.
  • If you notice your leads are being reassigned to Inquiry Queue, that’s due to a scheduled clean up job in Traction that updated Status = Inquiry to Inquiry Queue. To resolve this, you will want to add your leads to Outreach sequence. Note: The scheduled clean up runs daily at 10:30 PM EST/EDT.

Follow Up Outreach Sequences

Automatic Enrollment to Sequences

From FY24Q4 onwards, we will pilot automatic triggers through Outreach. As a first iteration, we will be automatically enrolling leads that indicate a high Propensity to Purchase (PTP) score to a full High Touch outreach sequence. The filters applicable for this trigger are:

  • Lead has direct phone in their record
  • Lead has a high PTP score (4 or 5)
  • Lead is actively enrolled to a Low Touch Sequence

Process for scheduling an IQM with AE/SAE

Qualification Criteria and SAOs

Qualification criteria is a minimum set of characteristics that a lead must have in order to be passed to sales and become a Sales Accepted Opportunity (SAO), these are split into Inbound and Outbound Criteria.

As an SDR or BDR, you will work to connect with inbound/outbound leads that you get a response from to obtain the applicable information required. This information is tracked on the qualification criteria on the LEAD, CONTACT, and OPPORTUNITY objects in Salesforce. In order to obtain an SAO, you will need to have the ‘required’ information filled out on the opportunity including documented 2-way communication on the Contacts in the Opportunity. Professional Services opportunities are not credited to sales development, these need to be passed straight to the account AEs for them to qualify.

When do I create an Opportunity?

  1. You have scheduled time with AE/SAE to speak with the prospect.
    If you are scheduling time with an AE/SAE to speak to the prospect based on a qualifying conversation you have had with the prospect, an opportunity needs to be created and placed in stage 0. On the opportunity, all “required qualification” fields need to be filled in.

  2. You have obtained a commitment/willigness from a prospect to discuss further.
    If you have a meaningful two-way communication with a prospect, but have not had the required qualification criteria to move to the Sales team, you can create an opportunity under your name so that you better track your warm conversations. These opportunities may also be used for better collaboration with your team, as they can be reviewed and brain-stormed upon during team meetings.

Who owns the opportunity at this point?

  1. You have scheduled time with AE/SAE to speak with the prospect.
    When you have entered the qualification criteria onto the opportunity, and have received calendar confirmation from all parties for the intro call with sales, you will change ownership to the AE/SAE. After you have saved opp owner, you will add yourself to the BDR/SDR field. The opportunity will remain in stage 0.

  2. You have obtained a commitment/willigness from a prospect to discuss further.
    At this point, the opportunity will be in your ownership but you can not have yourself listed in the Business Development Representative or Sales Development Representative field. There is a validation rule that will not allow the opp owner and the SDR/BDR representative field to be the same member.

When will it be credited as an SAO?

After the AE/SAL meets with the prospect to verify and supplement qualification criteria, they will move the opportunity into Stage 1 Discovery. The AE/SAL is expected to move the opportunity into the correct stage within 48 hours of the meeting reflected in the “Next Step” date field.

If an opportunity has incorrect data after it has moved into Stage 1 - Discovery, please Chatter your manager about the required changes, they will then Chatter someone from Sales Dev Operations (Ramona, Panos, Ed) once final changes are agreed upon. No one else from Sales Dev can edit opportunities once they are in Stage 1, so please try and ensure you have all the information on the opportunity before you ask the AE/SAL to accept it.

If the opportunity is for a new group of users in a Large account where sales is working on a large “central” opportunity, then your opportunity should be merged to that opportunity for you to get credit for the users you have brought to the deal. See under Stage 8 in the Sales Go To Market Handbook

  • Identify any relevant two-way communications that you’ve had with the prospect, leading up to the opportunity’s creation. These can be email exchanges, call records from outreach, discovery calls or LI messages. These all have to be a properly logged activity on SFDC, and associated with the person, company, and opportunity properly.
  • Select the specific activity records that highlight your involvement, and press “related to”
  • Select the Opportunity that corresponds to this activity and press save.

Before scheduling the meeting with the AE/SAE, you will need to verify the sales organization RoE

  1. On ZoomInfo or other sources, verify the parent/child segmentation:. All accounts in a hierarchy will adopt the MAX segmentation of any account in the hierarchy and ownership between segments is determined accordingly.
  2. On ZoomInfo or other sources, verify the HQ of the company or the ultimate user. Unless the account is Named, lead ownership is determined based on the HQ of a company, regardless of the lead’s location geographically.
  3. If there’s an account already assigned to a different segment, please do not immediately pass leads that your research says should be for another segment. Instead, please chatter ASM and the current account owner with your data. If there is a consensus, please then tag Sales Support for the reassignment. Please be mindful of discrepancies between our SSOT and LinkedIn. There are many cases where LI employee count does not indicate the reality of their employee size. For example, in companies with commonly used names, LI can overstate their employee count. On the other hand, LI can understate the employee count of companies that do not have a very strong tech presence.

Overriding Incorrect Account Assignments

Before proceeding, please familiarize yourself with our Account Creation Policy and Sales Segment and Hierarchy Review Process.

Our data isn’t perfect. There will be times when ZoomInfo is not reflecting the proper address or employee count for the organization you are working or a parent-child relationship is not properly documented. We have an established workflow through which you can get your accounts assigned to the proper territory and sales team member in these situations.

Please note that as a standing rule, SDRs and BDRs should never directly Chatter Sales Support with these issues.

What do I do when ZoomInfo has improper data on an account?

  1. The first (and most timely) opportunity to override incorrect ZoomInfo data is when working with a Lead record in Salesforce. When you have verified a correct address/employee count through an accepted source, you should navigate to the Lead/Contact Review Admin section on the lead record. Here you can input the correct address and/or employee count, along with the source by which you verified the information. You should always try to input a full address including street number, but in order for the record to route correctly, a postal code, state (when applicable) and country are required. Vital to this process is that you check the box labeled [Admin] Exclude from Enrichment. Failure to do this will result in the ZoomInfo data overwriting your changes. This process is modeled in this video courtesy of our Marketing Ops team. If you are overriding the employee count, you will also need to navigate to the Segmentation section on the lead record and update the “No. of Employees” and “Employees Bucket” fields appropriately.

  2. If your Lead record override is unsuccessful, you just have an existing account record that you need overriden, or you need a parent-child relationship adjusted, or you need number of employees altered, Chatter the appropriate Sales Dev Director to assist you: Brian Tabbert (Global Commercial and ENT AMER), Elsje Smart (ENT APAC/EMEA) or Mona Elliott. In your chatter you need to include the full company address and/or employee count as well as your source for the correct information. The Director will then complete the appropriate Account Review Admin fields on the account record. After completing the override, the Director will Chatter you letting you know. At this point, the SalesForce automation process takes effect. This process consists of the following:

    1. Overnight the segment/hierarchy updates
    2. Territory rules run and update the territory
    3. Account job runs and updates the account demographics fields and the Owner/BDR Assigned on the account

This process could take up to 72 hours before completing the reassignment. If after 72 hours the account is still not properly assigned, the Director will reach out to a member of the Territory Ops team to assist.

AMER SDR - IQM Standards

Prior to the IQM

  • Schedule IQM within 48 hours of the DC. Give at least 24 hours notice to the AE Send calendar invite + Zoom link
  • SDR asks the AE to notify at least 24 hours prior to the IQM if the account is incorrectly routed to them, given the SDR’s best efforts to ensure correct routing + SF/Zoom data being correct
  • Send the opportunity to the AE via Slack or email
  • AE verifies they reviewed the opportunity beforehand
  • AE and SDR review the specifics of the call, responsibilities (if differing from the below-referenced introduction), and any nuances SDR sends meeting reminders
  • For booking meetings use Outreach and use Google to get a detailed view
  • Ask lead to accept while they still are on the phone - more likely to attend
  • Send pre-meeting emails
    • (ATTENTION REQUIRED) - Sent every other day till meeting is accepted
    • (MEETING STARTED) - Sent at the time of the IQM
  • If the SDR is unable to attend SDR will notify the AE via Slack and/or email as soon as possible
  • AE will acknowledge the notification
  • AE will add their Zoom link to the calendar invite

IQM

  • AE and SDR show up on time or up to 5 minutes beforehand
  • Cameras on
  • Location is quiet and indoors for AE and SDR
  • SDR introduces the call
    • SDR: Good morning/afternoon. Thank you for joining us today, (lead). I discussed your goals with (AE) prior to our call so s/he is best equipped to walk through (insert goals/needs in this section). They are prepared to continue our conversation. I will mute my line but will be here when you and (AE) need me for additional insight or support.
    • AE: Thank you, (SDR). AE takes over the call.
  • Cameras stay on

Responsibilities

  • AE - Further qualification, note taking, slide deck (if applicable)
  • SDR - Camera on, available for questions and insight
  • To help develop the SDR skills for their next role, take notes as well. This fosters learning and the skills required for their next role. See note format that is expected in Commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMMQ5R0pq8I
    • Notes Structure:
      1. Attendees
      2. Raw Notes
      3. Questions
      4. Summary
      5. Next Steps

Post IQM

  • AE and SDR debrief within 24 hours re: the opportunity flipping or being disqualified
  • Reasons are shared in writing via Slack and/or email AND added to SalesForce by the AE
  • SDR adds IQM notes to the Initiative section in the opportunity Title – IQM Notes - SDR name 1. Attendees 2. Raw Notes 3. Questions 4. Summary 5. Next Steps
  • If the opportunity is accepted
  • AE must accept/”flip” within 48 hours of the IQM

No-show IQM

  • SDR’s responsibility to rebook
  • Outreach rebook sequence https://web.outreach.io/sequences/12249/overview
  • Calls and emails
  • Will conduct outreach for 2 weeks. If IQM cannot be r/s, AE will unqualify the opp
  • Ongoing follow-up by SDR - 1x cycle/month
    • Week 1
      • AMER SDR - No Show IQM - Email
      • VM
      • Do not leave message
    • Week 2
      • VM
      • Do not leave message
    • Week 3
      • Do not leave message
      • LI message
      • Invite to webinar/online workshop
    • Week 4
      • Resend AMER SDR - No Show IQM - Email
      • VM

Assigning SAO Credit when a Territory Change is Uncovered during Discovery

There will be times when an SDR or BDR is working a prospect and, after connecting with the prospect, discovers that the corresponding account actually belongs to a different segment than originally thought. This could be due to newly uncovered information regarding employee count, HQ location, or parent account relationship. SAO credit in these situations will vary based on the circumstances and will be determined on a case-by-case basis. Specifically:

  • If the SDR or BDR has done their due diligence to verify account information and still ends up finding an opportunity outside of their territory: as long as the related account isn’t an AWA and there is no related activity from an SDR in the past 30 days, and the SDR or BDR’s manager has verified that the accurate information could not have been uncovered prior to engaging with the prospect, then that SDR or BDR and their team will get SAO credit.
  • If the related account is an AWA or there is related activity from an SDR in the past 30 days, SAO credit will belong to the BDR assigned to the AWA or the SDR working the lead related to the account.
  • If the related account isn’t an AWA and there is no related activity from an SDR in the past 30 days, but the SDR or BDR’s manager determines that the accurate information should have been uncovered prior to engaging with the prospect, SAO credit will be assigned to the team manager assigned to the correct territory.
  • Any other situations that arise which result in a credit dispute will be investigated and resolved by the SDR or BDR’s leader and senior leader.

In situations where an SDR or BDR has received conflicting information and it is unclear what the correct territory is for an account, they should Chatter the AEs assigned to the potential territories and have them figure out who owns it.

How do I request SAO credit on a Web Direct opportunity?

On the opportunity record in Salesforce, compose a new Chatter message that includes the following:

  1. Tag a member of the Operations Team (Ramona Elliott or Ed Bao) or the Director of Global Commercial Sales Development (Brian Tabbert). Do not tag Sales Support Yourself
  2. Include a link to the record in Salesforce that shows your related two-way activity in the past 60 days. If your related activity is a phone call, you must have entered the details of the phone call into the Qualification Notes field on the lead record at the time of the call in order for it to be considered. Qualification Notes entered after the Web Direct opportunity has been created will not be considered for credit. If your related activity is a Zoom meeting, you should follow our process for creating an opportunity.
  3. Explain how you influenced their decision to purchase GitLab (helped with evaluation, uncovered a need, provided value, etc)

The Operations team and/or Director will review the information and decide whether SAO credit is warranted. If confirmed, they will Chatter Sales Support to add you to the opportunity. If rejected, they will communicate to you the reasoning for their decision.

Opportunity Creation Workflow

Opp-Creation-Workflow

SDR/BDR to AE SAO Handoff Process

The purpose of the BDR-AE outbound handoff process is three fold.

  1. Ensure Outbound prospects get the best experience possible.
  2. Ensure the BDR team enjoys operational efficiencies and have clearly structured ways to collaborate with the AE team on outbound accounts.
  3. Ensure the AE team is set up for success is receiving outbound leads in a structured manner and have the appropriate information to utilize in converting them.

To make sure that the hand-offs maximize internal efficiencies, it is required that:

  • The BDR team makes sure to book calls, with a minimum notice time of 48 business hours.
  • The BDR team makes sure to properly fulfil Outbound SAO criteria, or work with AE to create a mutual command plan.
  • The AE team makes sure to:
    • Accept SAOs within 8 working hours after an IQM call.
    • To leave a chatter note on the opportunity record, tagging BDR and AE manager with feedback on the level of qualification and handoff in case of discrepancies.
    • To be responsible for managing the prospect relationship after all handoff types have taken place. This includes re-scheduling conflicts.

1. BDR Qualified Meeting

  • Are leads that have been qualified by the BDR over a Discovery call.
  • CoM principles have been applied to the call and some of the Before/After Scenarios, Positive Business Outcomes, Requirements and Metrics have been identified and agreed upon between the prospect and the BDR.
  • There is a clear need or intent identified from the side of the company, and the prospect has clearly articulated a path to the ultimate decision-maker, as per the guidelines for outbound SAO criteria

BDR steps after discovery call

  • Summarize CoM principles uncovered during the call
  • Schedule next step through Outreach while being on the call with the prospect
    • Meeting Type should be 45’ Evaluation Orchestration Call and body of invitation should be adjusted to meet the prospect’s needs.
  • Send AE Intro Email
    • For demanding hand-offs, customer-facing agenda may also be copied and attached to intro email.
  • Log Required SFDC fields and populate Notes field as per the guidelines here
  • Unless there’s a scheduling conflict for the BDR, attend Evaluation Orchestration Call and kick-off the call:
    • Summarize the BDR qualifying conversation by mentioning and verifying the before and after scenario of the prospect, as transcribed on the SAO notes.
    • After prospect acknowledges that their internal situation have not changes inbetween BDR and AE call, recap the expectations and metrics as transcribed on the SAO notes and handoff to AE to move forward.

2. Joint IQM

  • Are meetings booked with leads that are from pre-agreed upon Actively Working Acounts.
  • Calls scheduled for these prospects will be taken as a joint IQM with both BDR and AE attending, and leading the qualification.
  • CoM principles will be applied during the call, with the goal of uncovering a clear need and path to the ultimate decision-maker, as per the guidelines for outbound SAO criteria

BDR steps before discovery call

  • Schedule next step through Outreach while being on the call with the prospect, and schedule straight to the AEs calendar.
    • Meeting Type should be 15’ Discovery Call.
  • Create SFDC opportunity, and log any pre-determined or relevant information from your past reseearch.
  • Communicate with AE, and create a mutual command plan for the call.
    • When kicking off the call, summarize the BDR research and reason for reaching out, such compelling events, Persons with LIM, etc
    • After prospect acknowledges their compelling event and internal situation, discovery call continues with pre agreed upon structure with AE.

Shared BDR-AE-SA Demos

Organizing a shared demo makes it more simple for us to offer spontaneously a demonstration of GitLab, which should result in a easier handover of opps, and ease to create opps. As BDRs, we arranged the execution of this demo by creating a zoom webinar, and configuring the whole event so that the administrative side is automated.

Process For Running a Group Demo

  1. Define the criteria that qualifies an opportunity as eligible to go to a shared demo.
  • SAL/AE is involved only: The SAL can invite his/her/their customers or contacts in order to add value to their ongoing discussion, if the AE/SAL finds it relevant. This is in the context of a conversation with the prospect/customer.

  • SAL/AE and BDR are involved: the BDR schedules a discovery meeting with the SAL (whether it is a prospect or customer) that generates a qualified opportunity. Once the opportunity is created, the SAL/BDR suggests the shared demo instead of the individual demo based on the priority of the opportunity (importance of the account, number of licenses, amount of the opportunity, persona). This is in the context of a conversation with the prospect/customer. There needs to be an opportunity in this case to suggest the demo, for the sake of collaboration between the SAL and the BDR.

  • BDR is involved only: When a lead with decision power or significant influence in the org (no individual contributor) expresses a high interest for GitLab (aka: high read/open rates on an email, response received by phone with interest confirmed) AND when the BDR has a tangible reason to think that there is a need in the division/team/company (research, information obtained through other leads in the same org), the BDR can leverage the shared demo for HOT leads to create interest or a sense of urgency, the goal being to have the lead jump on an introductory meeting after the shared demo."

  1. Define the criteria for different groups of attendees who can join this demo:
  • Attendees coming from a BDR conversation: in order to attend a demo, this attendee needs to be part of an opportunity in at least stage 1- Discovery.

  • Attendees coming from the AE’s conversations: the AE can leverage this shared demo to invite his own contacts.

  1. Step-by-step guide to plan a demo:
  • Get a Zoom Webinars license: you don’t have a Webinar licence by default, so you need to open an access request issue on GitLab to ask for one: here.

  • Go on Zoom SSO > Webinars (on the left under Meetings) > Schedule a webinar. You will be able to save the entire configuration of the webinar as a template, in order not to set it up again.

  • Change the topic (this will be the title of your demo, and the name of the event on Google Calendar), the description (describes the content of the demo, the idea is to adapt the focus of the demo depending on your attendees), set the date/time of the demo, and the duration (note that setting a certain duration will not stop the zoom webinar once the time has gone).

  • Tick the box ‘Required’ next to registration.

  • You can change the Dial country to the country of the demo attendees if the demo is language specific.

  • In the Option Category, tick the following: Q&A, Automatically record webinar, Include email address in attendee report.

  • In the Alternative Hosts category, put your SAL and your Solutions Architect.

  • Click on ‘Schedule’

  • In order to add the event on your calendar, click on the calendar button next to ‘Time’

  • Now you can start changing a few settings. Let’s start with the configuration of the registrations. First go on ‘Invitations’ and click on Edit next to Registration Settings:

  • You can choose to manually or automatically approve. Automatic approval is advised.

  • You can tick ‘Send an email to host when someone registers’

  • Then go on Questions next to ‘registration’ (same window). Here you can set the fields asked in the registration form. Email and first name are already there by default. You can tick: Last Name, Organization and Title, and tick the box ‘Required’ for each.

  • Lastly, go on Custom Questions and create a new question to ask: “what are your expectations for this demo? What do you want to see?” or something that gives an idea to the SA of what are the attendees’ expectations (configure the question as ‘Short answer’).

  • Let’s change general settings. Go on Email settings and change:

  • The email language if your demo is delivered in another language than English. It will automatically change the language of your reminder/follow-up emails/confirmation emails.

  • Email contact set as: you as a BDR or another person, as your team prefers.

  • Confirmation email to registrants: you can add another subject and/or a little paragraph in addition to the event information.

  • Reminder email: you can choose to send one or several, 1 hour and/or 1 day and/or 1 week before the event starts. Change the subject and/or add a little paragraph.

  • You can activate follow-up emails to attendees, and choose the subject + how much time after the demo the email will be sent + the paragraph to be sent (you can add resources that are relevant to the content of the demo that was delivered).

  • You can also activate a follow-up email to absentees.

  • Go to Q&A : a few boxes are already ticked already (attendees can submit questions, allow anonymous questions, allow attendees to view answered questions only). You can choose to enable attendees to view all questions and upvote/comment them, or only answered questions. This is a way for your team to control questions that may be sensitive to answer.

  • Last but not least: click ‘Save as Template’ above email settings! This way you will not have to set this up again. Now you are done!

BDR FO Outbound Process

BDR outbound lead generation is done by prospecting to companies and individuals who could be a great fit for our product. Prospecting is the process of finding and developing new business through searching for potential customers with the end goal of moving these people through the sales funnel until they eventually convert into customers.

BDRs will work closely with their dedicated SAE or AE to choose which accounts move into “Actively Working”. Together they will build a strategy for those companies. It is crucial that outreach is very intentional and strategic. When reaching out, we want BDRs to offer value and become a trusted advisor, ensuring a positive impression is left whether there is current demand or not.

The FO Outbound process is split in four phases, which should be followed on a weekly basis to ensure a steady outbound pipeline in alignment with our internal KPIs.

Planning Phase (4-5 hours/week)

1A. Create a set of achievable objectives

These goals should be based on what you know you can achieve when focusing on First Order accounts. It is particularly important to know your equation so you can map your activities to specific outcomes and goals in a predictable way.

The main objective you should be focusing at is to measure and plan what activity is required to achieve or increase the amount of First Order meetings.

1B. Map your objectives to your data

Research your territory to identify the true First Order (FO) accounts, ensuring no other subsidiaries have licenses, verifying there hasn’t been a lost renewal in the past 180 days, and confirming there are no open opportunities. The goal here is to vet your TAM (Total Addresable Market) so that you can start matching cohorts of accounts with the objectives that you’ve outlined in the previous step. Indicatively, you can export these accounts to a Google Sheet, or other SSoT of your preference, for tracking since these accounts will be marked as Actively Working at a future step further down the process.

Utilizing these accounts, create an outreach strategy and plan for the upcoming month and quarter. This strategy should include considerations such as the number of accounts to include in sequences per week and per month, the quantity of prospects from these accounts to add into sequences weekly, whether you intend to target specific personas, if you plan to employ targeted messaging, whether sequences will be used for high-priority targets, and the messaging approach you will implement. As previously mentioned, knowing your equation is important for your planning here. Please refer to the sheet linked above to determine your exact metrics.

Account Research Phase (4-5 hours/week)

During your research phase for accounts to include in your sequences, thoroughly investigate and document pertinent information, which may include:

  • Identifying new strategic hires.
  • Discovering recent job openings in DevOps.
  • Monitoring for security breaches or threats.
  • Scanning for relevant news articles.
  • Gathering intelligence on competitors.
  • Examining future plans, such as digital transformation initiatives.
  • Noting recent company acquisitions.
  • Investigating LinkedIn connections.
  • Identifying instances of GitLab usage by employees or as a past customer.
  • Exploring 2nd and 3rd-degree connections.
  • Seeking mentions of DevOps.
  • Reviewing relevant 10K reports or financial disclosures.

This comprehensive research will provide valuable insights for crafting effective outreach strategies further down the funnel. Regarding account research, in addition to our B2B database toolstack, we also use 6Sense to pre-qualify the accounts that should be considered for our pipelines since 6Sense scores accounts based on their market and profile fit.

There are two ways utilize 6Sense:

  1. Through the SFDC iframe integrated dashboard (mandatory for FY24Q3)
  2. Through the 6Sense Platform (optional for this Quarter)

2A. Using 6Sense through the SFDC dashboard

  1. Navigate to SFDC
  2. On the main tab with options (leads, accounts, etc), click on the “+” sign
  3. Select 6Sense dashboards, you can also click “customize my tabs” to add the 6sense dashboard to your homepage permanently
  4. On the 6Sense dashboard, click the cog icon on the top right
  5. On “Search by User” select “BDR Assigned” and add your name
  6. On “Other filters” select “Salesforce Account fields” and type “BDR Prospecting Status”
  7. On the “BDR Prospecting Status” field, select “Actively Working”

The dashboard will now display the top actively working accounts in your name. Do note that these are only accounts that we currently have on our database, while you can find greenfield accounts by visiting the SaaS platform (instructions in section 2B). Section 3 below explains how you can review and utilize this data.

2B. Using 6Sense through the SaaS platform

  1. Navigate to 6Sense through Okta
  2. On the left-hand bar, click on the Segments tab
  3. You will find all of the relevant resources for BDRs and SDRs on the first 5 folders. These folders can be be used as per the table below.

(In each folder you will find a saved template that can be cloned and edited for your individual territories.)

Folder Usage
1. AWA’d Accounts These segments will display the top accounts in your current actively working list according to 6Sense intent data. By manually investigating each of those accounts you will be able to uncovered further prospect engagement data, and adjust your strategy in converting this account. This report has the same functionality as the SFDC dashboard outlined in step 2A.
2. Non-AWA Greenfield Accounts These segments will display the top accounts in your territory that we do not have on our SFDC database. These accounts should be manually investigated and considered for adding to your outbound pipeline. Note that we have approx. 15% of our TAM on our SFDC database, while these reports are an automated way to identify great accounts from the other 85% of the TAM in your territory. Please note that the Sales Dev Ops team is here to work with you to generate these reports, as the particularities of our Sales Territories require some editing with the filters. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us so we help you work through these.
3. Non-AWA SFDC Accounts These segments display the accounts that currently hold on our database that display high 6sense intent scores, but are not part of your actively working list.

After choosing the type of report you’d like to work, please follow the steps below:

  1. Select the template in each of the BDR folders that starts with the prefix “-[TEMPLATE]”.
  2. On the title, add your name or territory as suggested by the naming convention. Please make sure to delete the Prefix “-[TEMPLATE]”
  3. Click on “Edit Segment”
  4. For folders 1 and 3, you’ll see a prompt on one of the filters to add your name to the “BDR Assigned” Field.
  5. For folder 2, you’ll see a prompt to add your region to the “Address: Region” field. Do note that based on your territory there are other datapoints like “Address: City” or “Address: Country” that can be used. We’re always eager to work with you to help build those reports accurately.
  6. After having done the edits on steps 4 and 5. Press “Save Changes”. Make sure that you’ve updated the naming convention accordingly and click “Save As New Segment”.

3. Manual Research on Accounts

No matter how efficiently we’re trying to use our toolchain, these tools are still prone to error, and manual research is required to best shortlist the prospecting lists that cross-referencing will provide.Manual research will also provide additional context that can be used to hyper-personalize your outreach to your prospects.

For each account that you want to investigate, start with SFDC to make sure that there are no duplicate accounts. The report templates in 6Sense should exclude existing customers or accounts actively prospected, but we cannot automatically exclude accounts that have a different naming or domain on salesforce (ie. GitLab and GTLB)

The importance of diligent manual research will lead to the below efficiencies:

→ Better use of time in the long-run by making sure accounts are indeed within your segment and territory, or are not duplicates.
→ Avoiding unecessary RoE conflicts by making sure there are no hidden parent accounts that would cause SAO ownership to be re-assigned to other segments in the future.

To double-check the account on Salesforce:

  1. Search for the account name on SFDC
  2. Search for the account email domain on SFDC
  3. Search for the account website domain of SFDC
  4. Search for the Account’s HQ address, along with any regional business unit address.

To hyper-personalize your messaging:

Please follow the steps below to understand how to research the data provided on 6Sense, and to cross-reference this data with our internal knowledge base so that you create your account strategy accordingly.

  1. Understand and utilize 6Sense data.
    i. Each segment has an accounts tab that displays all the accounts that correspond to this segment. This view can be shortlisted further by using the three analytics tabs as all datapoints in these tabs is clickable.
    ii. Predictive Analytics filters accounts by their propensity to buy. This data can be used to split prospecting efforts between high-priority outbound campaigns and low-priority awareness campaigns
    iii. Behavioural Analytics filters accounts by the intent/value-driver that they mostly focused on. This data can be used to split accounts into specific value-driver focused campaigns.
    iv. Profile Analytics filter accounts by the demographic of each company in terms of location or size. This data can be used to run location-specific campaigns.

  2. Search for past opportunities on SFDC
    i. Check the qualification notes
    ii. Check the unqualified reasons by the AE team
    iii. Check past email communication on the activity records

  3. Search for the account record on SFDC
    i. Check Account Rank notes by the AE team
    ii. Check the PathFactory, ZoomInfo, Marketo integration tabs
    iii. Check their product usage information (if applicable)
    iv. Check their LAM Dev Count

  4. Search for relevant leads on SFDC
    i. Check for past communication
    ii. Check for Last Interesting Moment and how it connects to their title and lead source to determine their compelling events
    iii. Check for Web Activity on Marketo and PathFactory to gauge past interest

  5. Cross-reference with External sources
    i. Search LinkedIn Insights for company growth, financials and recent news
    ii. Search company webpage for recent news, career openings or specific technologies used
    iii. Search online sources like newsletter or crunchbase

  6. Cross-reference the above with HighSpot
    i. Check for relevant playbooks based on company size
    ii. Check for relevant messaging based on persona
    iii. Check for relevant pain-points based on value driver

Execution Phase (5-10 hours/week)

4. Exporting Accounts and Leads to SFDC, and adding to your Outbound Pipeline

After having manually shortlisted the accounts that are applicable to your campaign, the next step is to determine the relevant prospects per account and export them to SFDC. It is important to add accounts to your outbound pipeline so that AEs and other SDRs/BDRs know this is an account that is already being touched, and to avoid confusion or multiple people approaching the same prospects. Before moving an account into “Actively Working Status”, make sure there have been no MQLs or opportunities created from that account within the past 30 days, and there are no leads from that account in Qualifying status with activity in the last 30 days or with a future task date set. If you are not sure, double-check with the related AE, SDR or BDR.

To determine which prospects to enroll per account, please follow the steps below:

  1. Identify the idea value drivers to be used for the account’s pain-points through your manual research, as outlined above
  2. Determine which personas would most benefit from the specific value drivers by using our CoM documentation on HighSpot
  3. Run queries for the specific titles on ZoomInfo, and export to CRM

You should explore the specific personas you intend to target, such as VPs, Directors, Developers, Security, Architecture, DevOps, DevSecOps, Procurement Officers, and IT Buyers. Determine the number of prospects you plan to add to sequences, with a minimum of 25 per day. Utilize LinkedIn Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo or Cognism to identify these personas within your target companies.

In Step 7, compile the selected prospects and create LinkedIn Sales Navigator lists for each persona. Save these lists for future use.

To export to CRM, please follow the guidelines below:

  1. Click the Export to CRM button on ZoomInfo
  2. That’s it
  3. No, really.

To fill in the BDR fields, please follow the guidelines below:

  1. Use the format found on this template
  2. Copy-Paste the Structure to the BDR Account Research field and populate accordingly.
  3. Populate the BDR Next Step Date to be at the end of the account’s sequence length (typically one month out)

6. Maintaining a clean pipeline, and using BDR fields for cross-functional collaboration.

  1. To review your current pipeline, along with any leads with next steps, please refer to your segments dashboards by going to SFDC > Dashboards and searching for Watch and Help. Team specific variants of these dashboard components will also be found on your team’s dashboard. These dashboards will give you a bird’s eye view of what actions are required from to maintain a clean pipeline, in terms of: i. Accounts with BDR fields past due ii. Prospects with sequence steps past due iii. Prospects that have been moved to Qualifying status but have not had any outreach since.

1:1 Dashboards and other collateral

We have created a master set of dashboards that are meant to be used for strategic 1:1 planning with the AE team, in alignment with our BDR fields. These dashboards offer a robust set of reporting across both Accounts and Leads, each with an associated help-text to help drive better understanding of each indivdual component. Additionally, some further report templates that can be used for strategic outbound collaboration are linked below.

  1. The full list of dashboards may be found on the issue here or by going to the SFDC dashboards list here and searching for the keyword 1:1
  2. Queued Accounts Template - This report will indicate the accounts that the AE/SAE has nominated for outbound efforts by switching the account’s BDR Prospecting Status = Queued
  3. Actively Working Accounts Template - This report will indicate the accounts currently being worked on a BDR, and will include next step dates and relevant strategy fields. The logic behind using these fields in outlined here, with a practical example here
  4. Closed:Lost Template - This report will indicate past Closed: Lost accounts in your territory, it can be expanded further by adjusting the Close Date field.
  5. CI Usage Template - This is the list of CE users with a high purchase rate of compute minutes.
  6. CE Users Template - This is a list of CE users per territory
  7. In addition to the above, the BDR team has got access to DemandBase, the template list for which may be found here

Important Note You do not have to wait until the end of the month or quarter to change the BDR prospecting status, you just have to make sure you stay under the limit for your segment and move the account to either “Queued” or “Worked in FY” based on criteria.

BDR Account views are to help with territory organization. It is very important for BDRs and their manager to update the BDR assigned field for their territory. Contacts ownership will be based on the BDR Assigned to the account. BDRs will be responsible for contact follow up should they MQL. BDRs will also be responsible for any leads that MQL when they’re related to accounts where they are the BDR Assigned and the account is in “Actively Working” status.

Account views

  • B1 View- My BDR Assigned accounts, (clone) - This view will need to be cloned and customized to accounts where you are the BDR assigned. You’ll need to know your territory name in order to populate. Once set up, it will allow the BDR to mass update the ‘BDR Strategy’ field and then the ‘BDR Prospecting Status’ field to show which ones they will be “Actively Working”. You can also use this view to move leads into other statuses.
  • B2 View- My Actively Working accounts, clone - This view will need to be cloned and customized to show “Actively Working” accounts where you are the BDR assigned.
  • B3 View- My Actively Working accounts, clone - This view will need to be cloned and customized to show “Actively Working” accounts where you are the BDR assigned.
  • B4 Biew- »B4 BDR Recycle Date Past due (Clone) - This view will need to be cloned to show AWA accounts where the Recycle Date is in the past two weeks.
  • B5 Biew- »»B5 Mvd to “WorkedinFY” this wk (Clone) - This view will need to be cloned to show Worked in FY accounts with a recent Recycle Date.

Before moving an account into “Actively Working Status”, the BDR will make sure there have been no MQLs or opportunities created from that account within the past 30 days, and there are no leads from that account in Qualifying status with activity in the last 30 days or with a future task date set. If you are not sure, double-check with the related AE, SDR or BDR.

If a related AE or SDR relays information that was not picked up in the BDR’s research, the BDR should end any active sequence if the prospect hasn’t engaged and change lead ownership to the team member whose been engaged so they can reach out. If the BDR has engaged with the prospect, there will need to be a coordinated handoff worked out between the BDR and the related team member. Note: Only activity logged in SFDC will be recognized as activity.

Exception to the process:

  • the BDR can see that the MQL was put into a low touch sequence, or;
  • the existing MQL is from a large account where BDR outreach can be made into different units or subsidiaries in that account. If so, can ask SAE to request via chatter on the lead record that this account be placed into “Actively Working” so that BDR can reach out to others at the account.

Accounts should not be moved to “Actively Working” until the BDR is ready to begin account research, strategy, and sequencing leads. There will be a set # of days that a BDR has to complete these actions before the account moves back to a BDR prospecting status of “Queued”

Ideas for account research and strategy: “coming soon”

  • Example: You can focus on Closed Lost Opportunities once they are older than 30 days, in line with the Sales Handbook Opportunity Stages

Best Practices for Outbound BDRs

Cold-Calling and Email Checklist

Before calling any Lead or Contact, BDRs must ensure that the Do Not Call box is unchecked. If you speak to any anyone, including prospects and existing contacts, who ask you not to call them again, you must check this box. However, please do not delete the number as we need to know which number requested not to be called again. For any individuals who are opted-in to email, you may ask them if they wish to be called. If they express a desire to be called, you are then permitted to uncheck the Do Not Call box if it was previously checked. Also, if an individual expresses independently via email a wish to be called, you may uncheck the Do Not Call box. This email must be present in SFDC as proof of your authority to uncheck this box. You cannot send email requests to individuals not opted-in to email asking whether they would like to be called.

Our cold-calling best practices typically consist of 4 elements. A pattern interrupt, an elevator pitch and, if required, objection/trap-setting questions and Up-Front Contracts.

To be effective, these need to be customized to the individuals we call as per the logic below:

  • Different Geographical Business Cultures
  • Personality Type as per the DISC model
  • Individual’s Role and Responsibilities
  • Business’ Needs and Objectives

The main documentation may be found here and the library of resources here

An unsubscribe link must be included on every email sent by a BDR, including responses to a prospect or contact. Please reach out to the Privacy Team via #privacy-team-help for the recommended language that should appear at the bottom of each outbound email.

Do Not Call and Do Not Email Automations

Leads with certain criteria will be automatically labeled as Do Not Call and or Do Not Email shortly after loading into our database. It’s understandable this can be frustrating for certain territories. Please keep in mind, the criteria behind this automation has been set in order to follow local law. Please see the Internal GitLab handbook for more information on the triggers.

Up-Front Contract

Typically used for scheduled calls and Up-Front Contracts. UFCs can also be used as a defense mechanism when cold calling does not go as planned. For cold-calling, UFCs are used when the prospect can commit to 15’ at the time of the call. If they commit to a 15’ for a later time, UFCs are used to open the call and set the agenda then.

Explore the main documentation here

Decision Maker Discovery

The questions below are suggestions to be used while doing a discovery call, in order to identify the decision making process, and to meet the outbound accepted SAO as per the guidelines here

  • Who gets involved while evaluating a tool at {{company}}?
  • Would you expect anyone to challenge your initiative, and if so can I help by connecting with anyonse else on your end?
  • If you as a {{title}} wanted to purchase GitLab, what process internally would you have to follow, and how can we help you navigate it?
  • What challenges do you expect to face when trying to pitch this change internally? Who has a say in this and what do they care about the most?

Email Writing Cheat Sheet

The table below shows the Command of the Message Email Writing Checklist.

It aims to outline the structure of the emails we write to prospects. Emails should be written in each person’s language and tone and make sure to include the CoM frameworks as per the outline below. You can find additional resources here

Subject Line
Personalized Quote Familiar Names: Use Prospect’s name, Company name, or colleague’s name. Relate to their situation: Use recent company initiatives, technologies they use, Projects they have planned etc.
Curiosity and Urgency Provide an image of their future situation: Guide the reader to imagine how their situation could change. Use compelling events to give a clear image of where they are currently.
CoM Proof Points: Quote Case Studies or other customers. How We Do it Better: Make use of our defensible differentiators.
Opening Line
Avoid cliches Stand out: Avoid losing email real-estate with cliche phrases like “just following up” or “hope all is well”. Brand yourself: Demonstrate that you have an understanding of the reader’s current situation and a clear idea of his required solutions.
CoM Before Scenarios: Paint a clear image of their current situation and how that is causing them professional or personal pain. Ater Scenarios/PBOs: Tie the current situation with a clear image of a future situation that’s beneficial for the business and the individual.
Main Body
Addressing Questions and Information provided No Free Consulting: Answer questions just enough to give a narrative to your email and tie into the CTA. No Transactional Answers: Don’t make the reader feel like he’s interacting with an online form, a robot, or a sleazy salesman that doesn’t care.
CoM Discovery Questions: determine which discovery questions tie into their current situation, questions asked or information provided. Trap-Setting Questions: if competitor technology or objections come up, use trap-setting questions to guide the reader into understanding our differentiators.
CTA
Clear Next Step, Agenda and benefit Valuable: phrase your CTA in a way that’s clearly valuable to the reader and his specific situation. Defined: outline what will happen in the next step and how long will it take
CoM Measurable: present metrics or PBOs that will be covered in the next step
                                                                                                    |

Additionally, you can use the matrix below as a quick-cheet to determine what datapoints can be used for personalization.

Location Information
LinkedIn Have they recently been promoted? - What are the specific responsibilities stated on their page you are trying to help them with?
Company strategy from website What are the company’s strategic initiatives? (become more agile?, improve internal business systems?, focus on speed to market on delivery? Streamlining expenditure?
Google search name of contact Do they have any blogs? Have they featured in any articles?, Have they any personal achievements celebrated?, Do they have any side projects?
Keyword search company “COMPANY” AND (“Agile” OR “digital transformation” OR “DevOps” OR “business process improvement” OR “Cloud” OR “digital strategy”)
Leadership Focus Find articles of leadership through boolean searches and ask propose how we can help them achieve these goals
Company News Celebrate company achievements
Check support tickets Are they experiencing issues that upgrading deployment options could help resolve?
Mutual Contacts Do you have mutual contacts on LinkedIn you can talk about?
Use cases on website Do they have the same customers as us? How do they help them?
Speak to a user of the tool to create personalised message to decision maker Speak to someone who uses out tools everyday to uncover pain-points (performance degradation at peak times) and take that information to a decision maker

Database Segmentation

The SFDC prospect database is split into five segments: Core users, free GitLab.com users, trial prospects, current customer “leads” and other prospects. We have checkboxes for these, most of which will automatically populate. However, the Core User checkbox in Leads and Contacts needs to be checked by the BDR/SDR or Sales rep once the prospect has confirmed in writing or on the phone that they are using Core as we cannot rely on our product analytics alone as it does not cover all users.

Outbound Workflow

IMPORTANT: Any EU lead/contact that was brought into our system prior to May 2018 should not be contacted unless the same contact also came into our marketing systems independently, at a later date. Any new leads/contacts can only be called or emailed if they have been brought in from ZoomInfo, Cognism, Dun & Bradstreet, or LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

The BDR | framework (sample is linked) will walk you through both strategy and execution of outbound prospecting.

When creating new prospects in SFDC these should be added as Leads to the system. New Leads can for example be prospects you are talking to on LinkedIn, prospects you are introduced to by someone at GitLab, or by other Leads or Contacts in SFDC. Everyone you are contacting should exist on SFDC so that you, your manager, and the Account owner have a full picture of who you are prospecting into. LinkedIn conversations can be sent to SFDC using the “Copy to CRM” feature within the LinkedIn Sales Navigator chat platform.

If you have a list you would like to import to SFDC please follow this List Import process on our Marketing Operations page which outlines how to import CSVs and ZoomInfo Prospects into the system.

Outbound Messaging

Outreach Sequence Library

Persona-based Messaging: Used for focusing on specific titles or personas

Business Resilience Messaging Revamped value driver messaging for companies impacted by the pandemic

Value Driver Messaging: Developed to align to the GitLab value framework

Situational Snippets Developed to help BDRs and SDRs respond to common prospect responses

RoE Common Questions

Q: Should BDRs flag duplicate accounts? A: Yes. However, they do not have the ability to merge it themselves so should chatter @Sales Support to do it.

Q: How do we resolve a dispute over SAO credit?: A: SDR and BDR first try to talk through a solution If no agreement: Managers will determine a solution If no agreement between the managers: Escalate to Senior Leadership Double credit nor double compensation will be given

Q: Who will be handling inquiries from an SDR/BDR standpoint? A: Inquiries will go to an open queue. SDR’s will not work them. We want to give marketing time to progress these to MQLs. A: BDR’s can work leads in all statuses if they are related to their “Actively working” accounts. Outreach to these leads would be part of their account strategy.

Q: What if a prospect comes back directly to the BDR much delayed, when the account is not marked as “Actively Working” anymore, but resulting from personalized messaging? A: Yes, if they email, reply via LI, or call the BDR directly, the BDR will need to check that the lead is in queue ownership. If so, they must move the account back to “Actively Working”, so that the lead can be put into their ownership.

Q: Why are my leads being reassigned to Inquiry Queue? A: Marketing Operations has a daily scheduled clean at 10:30 PM EST/EDT that update Status = Inquiry to Inquiry Queue. To prevent the reassignment, you’ll want to update the leads from Inquiry to Accepted or add to an Outreach sequence.

Q: What should BDRs do when a prospect or contact responds with a complince related question or objects to being contacted? A: Immediately reach out to the Privacy Team via #privacy-team-help and forward any email from the contact to dpo@gitlab.com.

BDR Event Promotion and Sales Dev Org Follow Up

To increase engagement at Field and Corporate events, it’s helpful to have BDR’s involved with pre-event outreach, on-site participation, or a combination of both. Learn more about Field and Corporate Events via their linked handbook pages.

Approvals Required

The FMM Regional team & the AMER or EMEA/APAC Regional Senior BDR Manager will review the upcoming quarter event calendar to discuss which events needs BDR support and what level of support would be needed. The Regional Senior BDR Manager will sign off on the related event support by referencing the “BDR approved” column in the Marketing Calendar SSOT worksheet. FMMs will then open the related FMM/ISR/SDR issue mentioning the Regional Senior BDR Manager. The Regional Sr. BDR Manager will assign a Manager DRI who will then include related BDRs participating in the event’s BDR pre and post tasks.

Sales Development Team Member Selection Best Practices

Best practices for selecting sales development team members to represent GitLab at field marketing events include:

  • Selecting qualifying BDRs and only SDRs as a last resort.
  • Selecting team members that are certified for field marketing events by checking this spreadsheet. Team members that are marked as “FM ready” have been tested to understand our sales amd value drivers. Only select team members that have been marked as “FM ready” with approval from sales development leadership.
  • Have team members review this sheet before the event. This sheet includes information on our process to receive expense reimbursement and event ettiquite.
  • Select applicable team members in a round robin manner. For instance, every available BDR gets invited to one event before a single BDR gets invited to a second, etc.

Levels of Support

Support might include pre event outreach by BDR’s to help drive attendance/meetings. Also could include event booth staffing either in person or virtually by SDRs and/or BDRs.

BDRs should not support joint partner related events where there the routing plan is to have the leads worked by the partner. Additionally, the following routing should be taken into the routing workflow.

  • MQLs or Good/Hot leads related to BDR Actively Working Accounts + leads in qualifying status + leads active in sequence should not be passed to the partner but rather to the BDR Assigned or the current sales development lead owner.
  • Any meetings booked at the event via Qualified will automatically route to the SDR team.

Routing Nuances

  • Any BDR ‘Sales Nominated’ prospects added to the campaign who respond to invite sequence will be worked by the BDR Assigned. If the account isn’t in Actively Working status, they will be notified to move the account into Actively Working status so they can continue to work the engaged lead as well as begin strategic outreach to others at the account leveraging this compelling engagement.
  • Qualified meetings scheduled related to an Actively Working account will be facilited by the BDR Assigned. All others will route to the SDR org per the normal routing workflow.
    • Qualified Leads will appear as MQLs in the SDRs S1 lead view if the SDR engages the prospect and receives a business email from them. The SDR who receives the MQL will be decided by which SDR closed the conversation in Qualified, had a meeting booked with the prospect on their calendar, or was the last routed user to receive the lead.
  • To test whether speed to lead increases conversion of event leads we will be moving High Priority campaign leads directly into BDR priority views with corresponding SLA of 60 minute response time. Any campaign checked as High Priority will have any members that relate to Actively Working accounts marked as High Priority irregardless of their lead status. These will show up in the BDR’s priority view.
  • All other leads will route based on our normal routing workflow.

Routing Workflow Chart

Routing-Chart

Current asks into the Sales Development Org

Field Process

When our Field Marketing Managers (FMMs) begin preparing for an event or campaign, they will create an issue using the process outlined here. This will include:

  • DRI’s and Event details in the section: Field Marketing Brief and Pre-Event Request(s) Defined
  • Pre-event/campaign goals
  • Post-event/campaign goals
  • Targets (title and number of attendees)

Once the sections are populated and up to date, the senior regional Sales Dev Manager is looped in. That senior regional Sales Dev Manager will assign a BDR manager to be the manager DRI for this event.

The BDR Manager DRI will:

  • Select BDR(s) who will be involved in sourcing/attending the event/combination of both.
  • Showcase who is assigned to which tasks and due dates based on the event date. (in the issue chart)
  • Ensure that we hit our BDR support goals by communicating any gaps to other involved team managers
  • Update issue with post-event reporting (# of folks sequenced post event, # of meetings booked
  • Make sure pre and post sequences are created, reviewed by Sales Dev Ops, communicated to appropriate members of the team around the start/end dates.
  • Update the issue grid to show which tasks have been completed by adding task metrics, i.e. # of sales nominated added and # of people added to pre-event invite sequence.
  • If needed, communicate to wider team when there is any gap in plan.

The mentioned BDR(s) will:

  • Read the issue to get an understanding of the event
  • Complete any tasks under the ‘Pre-event/Post-event’ section based on the deadlines next to each bullet.
  • Slack their manager and/or the FMM if they have questions.

Corporate Process

The corporate process is the same as the field process detailed above with the exception that they have a separate issue when looping in the Sales Development Organization for assistance that will link to the larger event issue.

Event Deadlines

Event Promotion

  • The BDR/SDR manager needs to be assigned a minimum of 45-days prior to the event, but the sooner they can start prepping, the better.
  • Related tasks to be completed by the BDR(s) involved can include: Sourcing net new leads, sequence creation and managing Sales Dev Ops approval, sequencing campaign members, event attendance
  • Related tasks to be completed by the BDR manager DRI: Populating the High level Calendar View of tasks due, monitoring and updating progress made in the Tracking Goals section , communication to other BDR(s) should there be potential for them to be involved
  • The BDR DRI manager(s) should have their teams begin compiling lists as soon as possible. Focus lists need to be completed three weeks prior to the event so that we will have three weeks of promotion
  • The BDR DRI lead needs to have their focus account list as well as the shared sequence completed, reviewed, and approved at least three weeks prior to the event so that we will have three weeks of promotion
  • For strategic marketing campaigns categorized as direct mail or workshops, where there was BDR assistance in strategically driving attendence, we will ask marketing to import campaign MQLs and other designated “Hot” leads to the BDR assigned on the associated account.
Event Follow Up
  • BDR project lead needs to have the follow up sequence cloned, revised and reviewed with management and FMM one week prior to the event. Other event sequences can be found in the FY24 Events/Campaigns Outreach collection. The copy doc for the event is linked in the event Epic and can be used for reference.
  • FMM will ensure leads from Field Marketing initiatives will be routed within 48 hours.
  • BDR Project lead should keep an eye on the Event List Upload Slack Channel for the announcement of the lead list upload. Once the leads are in SFDC, BDR Project lead to announce this and share the Outreach Sequence with the relevant BDR/SDR team Slack Channels dependent on the location of the event.
Sequence Information
  • Please clone one of the Master Event Sequences found in the Events Outreach collection and pre-populate as many of the variables as possible. If all of the variables can be populated manually or through Outreach/Salesforce, change the email type from ‘manual’ to ‘auto.’ Work with your manager and the FMM to make any other additional adjustments that may be needed.
White Glove Event Follow Up Sequence (SAEs Included)
  • For more personal events, such as Executive Roundtables, there many be more detailed Last Event Notes that have an ask to include the people who interacted with the prospect at the event. For these situations we have a specialized white glove sequence. The goal of this sequence is to reach out to the prospect quickly and to include our SAEs/AEs in the conversation.
  • The first step is to put the prospect in the Sequence. From there customize the first email step to include the people mentioned in the Last Event Notes. You can also delay the time that the first email goes out so you have more time to get feedback from the SAE/AE if needed.
  • Next send a screenshot of the first email step to the SAE/AE’s that will be CC’d. Explain to them that this strategy creates space for them to engage with more specific messaging if the prospect is unresponsive. NOTE: There is a generic task on Day 12 to reach out to the SAE/SA if there has not been any engagement. The goal is to keep them in the loop and for you to work together to engage the prospect.

PubSec AMER BDRs

The US PubSec team covers all US Agencies, US Government Contractors (Federal Systems Integrators), and US-based Universities. For interal questions about PubSec Lead routing, please contact Josh Downey.

A Federal Systems Integrator (FSI) is a private company whom requires US-based support and/or has 75% or more of their business coming from the Government. In the case that a commercial SDR/BDR comes across a company that may or may not meet this ROE because they do both Government and Commercial work, they should work with the FSI BDR to determine if it meets the ROE. If it is not possible to determine if it meets the criteria and the prospect is definitively discussing Government work, the Commercial SDR/BDR must air on the side of caution and let the FSI BDR handle the lead until the criteria can be determined.

The US PubSec team does not cover Universities, Agencies, and Contractors who are not based in the US. These prospects will be routed to the respective Commercial BDR/SDR covering that territory.

The PubSec BDRs will work closely with PubSec FMM’s and MPM’s on pre and post-event outreach. For events that are limited in attendance capacity, the PubSec ISRs & SAEs will own pre and post-event strategy, not the BDR’s.

SDR PubSec Issue Board - used to track relevant GitLab issues involving the PubSec BDR team. This is a global issue board and will capture all issues in any group/sub-group in the GitLab.com repo when any of the following scoped labels are used.

  • SDR Pub Sec- Issues concerning the PubSec BDR team. When PubSec FMM’s/MPM’s add this tag to an event, these issues will appear on our board. When applicable, the PubSec BDR manager will create a BDR follow-up issue and relate it to the event issue so that marketing members can easily track our work.
  • SDR Pub Sec:: FYI - Needs attention.
  • SDR Pub Sec:: In Progress - Related work needed is in progress.
  • SDR Pub Sec:: Completed - Related work is completed and ready for BDR manager to review/close.
  • SDR Pub Sec:: Revisiting - Campaign is being revisited and additional outreach is being done.
  • SDR Pub Sec:: Josh FYI - Issues pertaining specifically to Josh.

Global Enterprise Land BDR Team

The Enterprise Land BDR team is responsible for creating qualified meetings and sales accepted opportunities with net new customers in the Large - Enterprise Segment. The team is composed of BDRs who focus on account-centric, persona-based outreach, strategic outbound prospecting, social selling, and creative outreach to educate and create internal champions that align with the GitLab value drivers and use cases.

AMER Enterprise Land Alignment

AMER Enterprise BDRs are aligned by accounts - see Salesforce report.

If you are trying to route a lead and the account is First Order Available and does NOT have an BDR Assigned on the account, please chatter Shamit Paul and she will assign to the BDR via round robin routing.

Expectations

Land BDR

Named BDRs are responsible for:

  • Leading account planning efforts and creating in-depth account plans for top focus accounts
  • Qualifying and converting marketing-generated leads (MQLs) and inquiries into sales accepted opportunities (SAOs)
  • Aligning prospecting efforts to the field, corporate, strategic and account based marketing campaigns
  • Educating prospects and making positive impressions
  • Generating awareness, meetings, and pipeline for sales
  • Collaborating with peers, marketing, and sales teams

Requirements:

  • Meet monthly quota
  • Maintain a high sense of autonomy to focus on what’s most important
  • Participate and lead planning, execution, and cross-functional meetings
  • Participate in initial qualifying meetings, discovery calls, and follow-up conversations
  • Maintain exceptional Salesforce hygiene, logging all prospecting activity, conversations, and account intelligence uncovered
  • Generate IACV Pipeline

Working with Sales

BDRs and SDRs should be in regular communication with the SAEs that they support. When taking on new accounts or supporting a new SAE, it is the responsibility of the BDR/SDR to set up a kickoff call to:

  1. Review the focus accounts
  2. Gather actionable intelligence from SAEs/AEs
  3. Review outbound BDR plays, campaigns, field tactics, and other offers
  4. Document the plan using docs, a spreadsheet, or the Sales Development quarterly issue plan

Recurring SAE<>BDR/SDR meetings can be scheduled or take place on an as-needed basis. As BDRs/SDRs are not directly aligned with SAE we encourage async updates as much as possible

Slack is encouraged for informal communication, but anything related to strategy, approach, or outreach should be documented.

Geo BDR Account Prioritization Model

ICP - Ideal Customer Profile

  • High LAM - High # of Estimated Dev Count left to purchase GitLab (you will need to consider the number in relation to employee size)
  • High DB QS - High 6Sense Qualification Score (greater than 70)
  • SAE Insights - Detail any SAE/AE given direction: sometimes found in Account Rank Notes/AE Notes fields
  • Persons with LIMs - Uncover via 6Sense or SFDC reporting that there has been recent engagement from persons at account
  • Tech Used - List technologies they use that signal they may be a good fit
  • Triggers - List any compelling events or “Why’s” that signal this is a good time to reach out. If there are none, write “None”.

Please add the above ICP Notes to your Account Research Fields on Salesforce

Account Scoring & Prioritization

The next step after identifying all of the Net New focus accounts in a region is to prioritize them. The scoring model below should be used to determine the Priority level of the Net New Account which will help guide prioritization and prospecting efforts using the Outbound Prospecting Framework (below).

Priority 1 Actively Working Accounts (15%)

  • Strong ICP Qualities
  • Compelling Triggers
  • Strategy is Tailored and Targeted
  • Future based next step dates
  • Specific next step notes

Priority 2 Actively Working Accounts (35%)

  • ICP qualities
  • No Triggers
  • Strategy is Targeted (persona/industry based)
  • Future based next step dates updated weekly/bi-weekly
  • Next step notes should just include week #

Priority 3 Actively Working Accounts (50%)

  • ICP qualities
  • No Recent Triggers
  • Strategy is nurture based
  • Future based next step dates updated monthly
  • Next step notes should just include recent release # or event invite

Other Good Account Scoring Qualifiers:

  • Current CE Usage
  • 250+ employees in IT/TEDD positions
  • Good Fit Industry / Vertical (High Growth, Technology, Financial, Healthcare, Regulated Business)
  • Early Adopters / Innovative IT Shops (Identifiers & Keywords): Kubernetes / Containers, Microservices, Multi-cloud, DevOps, DevSecOps, CICD (and open-source + proprietary tools), SAST / DAST, Digital Transformation
  • Current DevOps Adoption (multiple DevOps roles on staff or hiring for multiple DevOps positions)

** Outbound Prospecting Framework**

Priority Level Account Strategy Includes Next Step Date Next Step Notes
Priority 1 Priority #, Any Details Future based next steps Hyper-personalized, simultaneous outreach, creative, direct mail, ads, groundswell, events
Priority 2 Priority #, Weekly Plan or Length of Sequence Future based next steps depending on account strategy Include the weeks outreach and overall strategy
Priority 3 Priority # Update Next Step Date to next months outreach BDR Next Step, What kind of nurture (Product Updates, Events, Ect)

Examples of the Outbound Prospecting Framework Can be found here

Expand and Territory Alignments

Working with Sales

BDRs should prioritize communication with the SAEs within territories they are aligned to. BDRs will organize and schedule a kickoff call to:

  • Gather actionable intelligence from SAEs/CSMs/ISRs and discuss key expand strategy
  • Research the account with the SAEs/CSMs/ISRs, see if LinkedIn introductions can be made
  • Research the account on LISN and select 10 - 15 contacts who follow GitLab or who fall into the personas we target
  • Review outbound BDR plays, campaigns, field tactics, and other offers
  • Review Outreach persona sequences with SAE:
  • Document the plan using docs, a spreadsheet, and/or the BDR quarterly issue plan

Recurring SAE|BDR meetings can be scheduled or take place on an as-needed basis.

Slack is encouraged for informal communication (team slack channel), however, anything related to strategy, approach, or outreach should be documented.

Expansion Strategies, Account Ranking, and Rules of Engagement

Strategies:

  • Growth within an existing customer account: BDR should strategically partner with SAE/ISR to identify additional business units to bring into the conversation as growth opportunities. Renewal dates should be exploited.
  • Expansion into parent/children/subsidiaries of existing customer accounts: These are accounts that fall within the corporate hierarchy within Salesforce. If a child/subsidiary account is identified via ZoomInfo but not in our system, then BDR should follow the following process: Create a LEAD for that account and then convert to CONTACT to create the ACCOUNT when you qualify your first lead.
  • Free to paid upgrades: Existing Core/CE users can be targeted to upgrade to a paid version of GitLab

Ranking and prioritization of accounts:

  • Rank 1: Expand with Purpose (EwP) accounts should be closely/strategically worked with SAEs. These accounts have High 6Sense intent scores and should therefore be High touch by BDR.
  • Rank 2: ICP Ultimate parent accounts that have Core/CE-Users in a hierarchy, Total CARR/LAM for account, Med/Low 6Sense intent scores, and small renewals in current FQ.
  • Rank 3: As above but are not our ICP

Professional Services Opportunities

A Professional Services Opportunity will be used to cover any integration, consulting, training or other service that a Sales rep will sell to a prospect/client and needs or wants to be invoiced separately. To invoice separately a new quote and opportunity must be created.

More information on the steps needed to create a Professional Services Opp can be found here

Sourcing Process

The manager will create a list of their focus area and criteria similar to what’s outlined here. Past Business Development Representatives have shared their best practice steps related to the sourcing process here.

Sales Dev Org Trouble Shooting and Frequently Asked Questions FAQ

  • I can’t see certain Outreach collections!: You potentially were added to the incorrect Sales Dev Team in Outreach. Please reach out to Sales Dev Operations.
  • My version of Salesforce seems very basic…: Make sure you are using the Sales version of Salesforce. To check, please go to the top right corner of your Salesforce window and click the blue button with the drop down window. From there select “Sales”.
  • I have not received access to all of my tools and it has been a week: Notify your manager and have them comment on your Onboarding Role Entitlements Issue.
  • I have uploaded more leads from ZoomInfo than what are showing up in my Salesforce ZoomInfo Lead View: This most likely due to these leads aleady being in our Salesforce. The problem is that they are listed as a contact in Salesforce and will only appear in your ZoomInfo Contacts view rather than your Zoominfo Lead view.
  • I do not know what this person did to score as an MQL: First check the last interesting moment description on Salesforce and then check the Scoring tab of the Marketo Sales Insight widget that is also on the Salesforce lead page. If no points were allocated to behavior and only to demographic type information please Slack the Marketing Ops group so they are aware that this lead did not take any new action.
  • I received a personal data subject request by a prospect: Our MOPs team has set up a process to address any data subject requests for deletion or access to data. If you receive a request for deletion or access to data, please re-direct inquiries to the Personal Data Subject Request. This messaging snippet can be used and tailored.
  • Why are BDRs no longer the Account Owner in Outreach?: BDRs are no longer listed as the account Owner in Outreach to improve Sales Dev and Sales visibility across all prospects/accounts (excluding PubSec). If you want to filter to see just your accounts, please use the ‘BDR Assigned’ field.
  • A prospect said they were going to buy through our website (known as a Web Direct). How can I tell if they did?: SDRs get credit for opportunities where the SDR had meaningful two way communication with a prospect 60 days before they bought GitLab through our website. The best way to search for a web direct opportunity is to use this report. First, set the date range to the time you think the prospect would have bought. Next, find the opportunity that is tied to your prospect’s account. Then follow this process to request SAO credit.
    • Note: Sometimes someone else from your prospect’s company actually made the GitLab purchase, leading to the opportunity being related to them instead

Sales Development Organization Time Off

In accordance with the Time Off Policy, you need give your manager a heads up early of your intended time off so that they can help arrange cover for your tasks, if necessary.

We want to help our team members being able to fully unplug from work during their PTO, while not having to worry about their workload or target attainment. Based on this, we have created this PTO Territory Planning Issue that you can use to strategize your work and be aligned to the GitLab value of being a Manager of One.

To log a PTO Territory Planning request, please go to the Issue list on the SDR GitLab project here and choose PTO_Coverage_Template from the Description drop-down list.All of these requests are then managed through the board here. and all next steps and guidelines are on the issue description.

Flexible working

At GitLab we have flexible working hours. This means that you can organize your working day as you like and are not expected to arrive and leave at a set time every day, but we do expect MQL’s to be followed up within 1 hour (during business hours) so communication with your manager will be necessary if you plan to be out for an extended period of time. Managers will provide direction on the routing of leads during that time.

With a prospect-facing role in Sales Development, do keep in mind when you are calling and emailing prospects:

  • The best times to call are early and late in the business day, so these may be best blocked for this activity.
  • Outreach allows you to schedule emails at set times. For outbound prospecting, the most effective emails are those that come in the early morning and early evening, so you can take advantage of this feature. On the other hand, inbound MQL’s must be handled regularly throughout your day as they come in.
  • Lunchtimes are good for outreach as most prospects have meeting blocks for three hours in the morning and then two hours mid-afternoon.
  • The above blocks you can use for account research and planning, customer meetings, or meetings with your sales reps, manager, peers, and teams.
  • Although you are not expected to start work and end work at the same time every day, please do keep in mind the normal business hours of your prospects, and make sure to schedule your own working hours to ensure you maximize opportunities.

In short, working at GitLab means that if you start the day early you can take a long lunch break to hit the gym or go grocery shopping in the middle of the day when it’s quiet, yet you can still do a full day’s work around that and don’t need to be accountable all the time, as long as you are available to call prospects and be available for prospect meetings during normal working hours for your region/territory.

Sales Development Org Announcement Process:

  • There are three deciding factors on what channel you should use for your announcement:

    • Urgency: How crucial is it that the Sales Dev Org or team/teams see this announcement right now?
    • Who: The entire Sales Dev Org, SDR/BDRs, or a specific SalesDev Team
    • Impact: How much does it impact the audience’s ability to sell and create SAOs?
  • Announcement Channels

    • Email Newsletter
    • Weekly Team Meetings
    • Sales Dev FYI Slack Channel
    • Monthly All Hands Meeting
    • Specific Team Slack Channels

Channel Decision Grid

Decision Grid Not Time Sensitive or Important Important and/or Time Sensitive
Impacts Multiple Teams Email Newsletter, Weekly Team Meeting Sales Dev FYI Slack, All Hands Meeting, Weekly Team Meeting, Email Newsletter
Only Impacts a Select Team Weekly Team Meeting Sales Dev FYI Slack, Team Channel Slack, Weekly Team Meeting

Qualifiers by Channel

Channel Qualifier(s)
Sales Dev Global Slack Shoutouts, Questions, Concerns, Share something that’s working, Fun for Multiple Teams, New Team Members
Sales Dev FYI Slack Announcements and Reminders that involve multiple teams or are of high importance
Email Newsletter Impacts Multiple Teams
All Hands Meeting Important updates that affect multiple teams
Weekly Team Meeting Any updates that affect that specific team
Team Slack Channels Important or Time Sensitivem, but only related to that specific team
  • Team Meeting Announcements:

    • Some team specific announcements should be introduced and or reiterated in the relevant Sales Dev Team’s weekly team meetings. An operations associate will update the Weekly Manager Announcements Issue
  • Monthly Newsletter

    • A monthly newsletter from the Sales Dev Ops and Enablement team that summarizes the important past and upcoming announcements

Announcements FAQ

  • Who can post in Sales_Dev_FYI?
    • VP of Sales Development, All BDR/SDR Managers, Sales Dev Operations/Enablement, and Marketing Operations
  • How can I request an announcement be made?
    • Send your announcement to one of the people in the positions above depending on the type of announcement
    • If the request has to do with enablement, reach out to the Sales Dev Enablement Manager
  • Where can I find info on how to title my Sales_Dev_FYI posts?

New Outreach Sequence/Workflow creation.

In an effort to better iterate, and refresh, our outreach content and workflows, we have a structured process for BDRs to create/measure new Outreach sequences.

Please log an issue here by selecting the template BDR_Sequence_Creation_Request.

The issue description will walk you through all the next steps.

This process aims to:

Implement Measurement Clarity and Decision Velocity

By dogfooding GitLab we have a structured and simplified cadence of quantifying sequence creation in terms of value and results without limiting agency.

Maintain Equal Contributions in a Shared Reality

By maintaing a Single Source of Truth (SSoT) we give the best possible forum for cross-functional collaboration with specific guidelines

Making Changes to the GitLab Handbook (for BDRs and SDRs)

Video Walkthrough of how to make changes to the GitLab Handbook for the Sales Development org

One of our Values is being handbook first. In order to align the SDR organization more closely to this ideal, below are suggested steps. Please remember that the Handbook is a living document, and you are strongly encouraged to make improvements and add changes. This is ESPECIALLY true when it comes to net new solutions that should be shared so the whole organization has access to that process. (aka The DevOps ideal of turning “Localized Discoveries” into “Global Knowledge”.)

Steps:

  1. Have a change you want to make to the handbook? Great!
  2. Navigate to the source code of the page in the handbook (e.g. Link to edit the SDR page in the Handbook )
  3. Click either “Edit” or “Web IDE” to make your changes.
  4. Have a brief but descriptive “Commit message” (e.g. “Add new section on ‘How to Make Changes to the Handbook’”) and commit your changes
  5. Fill out the Merge Request details

Working with 3rd Parties (resellers, partners, consulting firms, and/or companies that buy GitLab for their customers)

The end-user account determines the BDR/SDR alignment: If you are the SDR assigned to the 3rd party lead, please gather the information in point 1 and pass the lead to the correctly assigned BDR (the BDR assigned to the end-user account) who will complete points 2-6

  1. Gather billing and end-user details from the reseller:
    • Billing company name/address:
    • Billing company contact/email address:
    • End-user company name/address:
    • End-user contact/email address:
    • Snippet in outreach
  2. Create a new lead record with end-user details
    • Ensure that all notes are copied over to the new LEAD as this is the LEAD that will be converted.
  3. Converting the new lead
    • Name opp to reflect reseller involvement as shown here: “End-user account name via reseller account name”
  4. Convert original reseller lead to a contact associated with the reseller account
    • If an account does not already exist for the reseller, create one when converting the lead to a contact.
    • Assign the record to the same account owner
    • Do NOT create a new opportunity with this lead.
  5. Attach activity to the opportunity
    • On the reseller contact, go to the activity and link each activity related to your opportunity to the opp.
      • Activity History > click edit to the left of the activity > choose ‘opportunity’ from the ‘related to’ dropdown > find the new opportunity > save
  6. Update the opportunity
    • Change the business type to new business and stage to pending acceptance.
    • Under contacts, add the reseller contact, role as reseller, and primary contact.
    • Under partners, add the reseller account as VAR/Reseller"

You can now find our new Manager Resources page here
Inbound
Sales Development Onboarding
The Goal of Sales Development Onboarding As BDRs and SDRs, you work closely with the larger marketing org as well as the sales team. Due to this, your onboarding will encompass training on tools and processes related to not only your role but a blend of marketing and sales. This learning experience involves virtual self-paced learning paths in the form of a general company-wide onboarding issue, a Sales Development specific issue, as well as a Google Classroom course to prep you for Sales Quick Start (SQS).
Sales Development Tools and Manager Resources
Sales Development Tools This page is to act as your guide to the many tools and best practices that the Sales Development Organization uitlizes. Salesforce Salesforce is our CRM of record. It integrates with all of the other applications in our business tech stack. Salesforce stores prospect, customer, and partner information. This includes contact information, products purchased, bookings, support tickets, and invoices, among other information. Salesforce Training Resources Lead and Contact Views SDR Lead Views S1 View - MQL’s and Hot leads that require quick follow up (i.
Tanuki Tech
Tanuki Tech Tanuki Tech (short for “Tanuki Instutite of Technology”) is the world class sales/technology bootcamp that we are provide for the sales development organization. Our goal is to powerfully equip our sales development team members to be successful in their current role as well as prepare them for their next role, whatever that may be. We are doing this because we care about our team members. Goals How do we measure success?
Last modified March 11, 2024: Add related activities guidance (496d196c)