Pattern Interrupt with Personality as an SDR w/ Alvaro Garcia

The Sales Lift Podcast
Episode #77
Pattern Interrupt with Personality as an SDR w/ Alvaro Garcia
Hosted by: Tyler Lindley

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[00:00:00] Tyler Lindley: Hey, Sales Lift Nation it's your host, Tyler Lindley. Today, I have Alvaro Garcia on the podcast. Hey, Alvaro, or as I like to call you Al how you doing today?

[00:00:13] Alvaro Garcia: I'm doing well. Hey, Tyler. It's

[00:00:18] Tyler Lindley: for those not looking at the video here, I'll just pull up his whiteboard, which we'll get into. But Al is a SDR over at reside worldwide.

They were going to be talking a lot about creativity in sales, which I think Al you've done a great job of being creative in your sales role as an SDR like creativity, mean to you. How do you inject creativity into your sales process as an SDR? Great question. Yeah.

[00:00:44] Alvaro Garcia: I come from a huge hospitality background.

And in the hospitality world, a lot of people will come to you with problems and they'll have, and you try to solve their problem in a creative way and do it in a way that they don't realize that you're really solving their problems. So at the start I learned a lot of these really interesting skills and adding creativity to my approach.

During my time at reside, I can create an emails and templates to use. And they just weren't grabbing any trash. And so it was like, how do I poke the bear? How do I peak interests? How do I pattern interrupts? I have a ton of energy. So I'm going to interrupt the pattern or the normal conversations with my energy and see if that gets anyone to open emails or respond.

I do videos. I do. The whiteboard, Hey Tyler, how's it going? It's out here. And it's worked. That's how I add a little creativity

[00:01:44] Tyler Lindley: into what I'm doing. And I think you bring up some good topics there, things that I try to tell new sales reps to focus on a lot where you talk about pattern interrupt and you talk, I'll just talk about energy and enthusiasm.

Obviously. I think your net just naturally a high energy guy. But how did you translate that into your sales messaging? Cause that can be hard to inject our personality, our energy or enthusiasm. Sometimes that can be a little hard, a little daunting or a little scared of putting yourself out there. How did that work for you?

Do you have to build up to that or is that just natural from the start for you?

[00:02:15] Alvaro Garcia: I like to say I'm an introvert extrovert. I care a lot about what people think. And so it's a little scary to start. Everyone's got. On LinkedIn about just doing it. Nike has the logo, just do it. And so I started thinking about, I'm just going to do it.

I'm just going to do what I think is right. And hopefully people will find that of interest.

[00:02:38] Tyler Lindley: It seems like for you, that was naturally done on video, which I think video, it should be in everyone's toolkit in sales these days, there's a million different ways that you can use video. But how has video changed the way that you've done your sales outreach?

Huge

[00:02:54] Alvaro Garcia: 10 X is like the common word nowadays. I am not great with emails in writing down how I feel on the email. So when someone looks at my email that can't really capture my

[00:03:06] Tyler Lindley: own,

[00:03:07] Alvaro Garcia: so videos actually giving me that opportunity to be. Hey, how's it going? It's Al road here. And I can't say that without a bunch of exclamation marks into the email.

So a lot of people will go, oh my God, this guy's yelling at me. I'm like, no, I'm not upset. I'm not yelling at you. I'm trying to be personable trying to show you that I am a human, a human and not a robot. And I can do that in video.

[00:03:32] Tyler Lindley: So that's awesome when we're on a cold call or whether we're on a video.

I like to say that we are the punctuation, and it's really hard to do that over text, because like you said, you could just add a thousand exclamation points, but that probably does not going to ring home the point that you're trying to get across. I think it's a lot easier for us to inject that punctuation, inject our personality, inject that energy.

When we're using the right medium, do you feel like maybe some reps, maybe they just haven't found the right way to communicate, right? Whether that's video or that's over the phone or whether that's email via text or whatever, do you think that reps need to worry about matching their style with the right medium?

And so that message comes across. Absolutely. And

[00:04:15] Alvaro Garcia: I think it goes back to the podcast I listened to a while ago. It was, I think you have him on your show. Andy Paul, we had a gentlemen on the show and the guy who was talking about how he wanted to use. The strongest skill set that the rep would have. They would talk to the reps when onboarding they'd figure out where they excelled and they just let them go do that.

So I think it starts with a lot of companies and allowing their reps to really use their biggest skillset. So having a conversation. The start of onboarding and saying, what are you comfortable with? Where do you think you're stronger with? Are you stronger with phone? Are you stronger with email? Are you strong with video?

Cause that is now a huge thing on LinkedIn is using video in your prospecting. Where do you think you Excel and let in that rep? But also being comfortable in allowing them to change if they don't see success. So if a rep is really strong and cold calling, then go with that rep do cold calling. If a rep is really strong at emailing and a great app and writing and copywriting.

Go let them just do 80% of their sequence with emailing. And for me at reside, my manager, Jocelyn qual at the time that she realized that my personality stands out, she felt like I was really likable on video and she just let me run with it. It was really cool. We saw a lot of positivity that came out of that.

And so she just let me run with it. And I think a lot of reps need to have that conversation with their manager. And sale. Some of my efforts aren't working, I need to figure out where I'm strongest. You can

[00:05:44] Tyler Lindley: go that path. I like that you brought up maybe bringing that into your onboarding. Maybe having the conversation that you have with reps at the very front end.

In my mind, I'm thinking you could even create little role play scenarios, mock scenarios, where maybe they're doing a sequence that includes an email and includes a video and an includes, a cold call. And it includes a voicemail. It includes a LinkedIn message and you can figure it. Where that rep might be strongest.

Is it in one of those is one of those stand out? Are they pretty, even in all of those, because I do think that your messaging should be multichannel. I will always be a huge fan of having a multi-channel approach, not just focusing on one. However, if a rep is really strong in one area, I'm with you Al I think that it's okay to have their sequences, their outreach skewed towards that type of communication, which is most likely to start conversations at the end of the day.

As an SDR, all we're trying to do is start conversations. And if you have an unfair advantage to do that via video, then do it via video. Why should we hold?

[00:06:42] Alvaro Garcia: Absolutely. If you empower someone or allow someone to do something that they're comfortable with, they're going to be happy doing it. And they're going to be pumped and motivated in the morning to go and do something that they have joy doing, calling on the phone, emailing

[00:06:57] Tyler Lindley: videos, just scope.

Let them do that. Yeah, exactly. Let's talk a little bit about that. Motivation, the SDR role, new to sales. It can be a grind, especially doing it remotely. You're at home. You're trying to do all this outreach, especially if we're having a hard day getting people. How do you stay motivated out? You've been an SDR now coming up on a year, but how do you get through that grind that day to day?

Which sometimes can be great highs. You're booking meetings and stuff. Other days, very hard. You don't talk to anybody and you feel like it was a rough day. How have you gotten through that? I break a lot of eggs and put them in a

[00:07:31] Alvaro Garcia: cup and I drink it. No, I'm just kidding. Totally get it. I wake up and one of the first things and it's on my LinkedIn profile, but I jumped out of bed and I said, okay, here we go.

And in that, I tell myself that there's going to be a lot of positives in the day. There's gonna be a lot of negatives in a day, and there's going to be a lot of loss, a lot of where the EKG machine is just like. You just know that in any moment in time, that situation can change and you can also influence that change too.

And you can influence that change in your attitude. So if you continue out throughout your day, like, oh, this day is horrible. Say it's the worst. Well, guess what's going to happen that. It's going to be the worst. If you wake up in the morning or you start your day with tons of positivity and you go drink a smoothie and then you go for a walk and you come back and you're like, all right.

Yeah, that was a great start to the day. Let's just keep that going. You're telling yourself, okay. Yeah, it's going to be a great start to the day. It's going to be a great day. So that's how I motivate myself in

[00:08:38] Tyler Lindley: the morning. Yep, exactly. It sounds like that in a combination of. You've figured out how to do the role in the way that highlights your skills, highlights your background earlier.

You mentioned you were in hospitality before getting into software tech sales. Do you feel like that shines through what have you taken from your hospitality career? And we have that in common. And what did you take from your hospitality back? To get into ply to tech sales, which is pretty different.

Obviously

[00:09:05] Alvaro Garcia: hospitality and tech is way different. I agree there, but sales in general or being in hospitality, coming from that background helps in sales because. You get an opportunity to be really creative. You get an opportunity to be yourself and not every day is the same. It's great working in the hospitality industry.

It's great for your mindset and also your wellbeing. You get an opportunity to change someone's day in seconds or minutes, however long all the time, and you make an impact. And then everything you learn in the hospitality industry. Literally can be applied everywhere, customer service. If you want to go basic county money, how to associate or Google relationship with someone.

So those are couple of those

[00:09:50] Tyler Lindley: skill sets. How do you solve problems? I feel like a lot of sales and especially the STR. You're problem solving, trying to figure out how can I open this door? And you do that a lot in hospitality too. You've got a lot of fires, literal fires that you're putting out. Sales is a lot of little fires that we're putting out.

We're trying to figure out how to get in front of this customer. What messaging is going to work for them and how can I be most effective? Give myself the highest opportunity to start a conversation. Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome. In addition to hospitality, another thing that you highlight on your LinkedIn profile is you have, I love tacos with a taco emoji.

You also have a golfer on there, and even your tagline, you put relationship builder, motivator opportunity finder. You highlight a lot of your individual personality. Do you ever get feedback on that from prospects? Or do you feel like that helps to start those conversations? It's a unique headline for you being an SDR.

Why did you make that choice and how does that work for you?

[00:10:44] Alvaro Garcia: Great question. I've gotten a lot of feedback on my personal approach and when I'm prospecting, but not so much on my LinkedIn profile. Why I love tacos is just because it's my favorite food, but also there's a little acronym to always create opportunity.

And I think it goes back to my hospitality background, where you're always creating an opportunity to change someone's attitude or creating an opportunity for someone else. Or creating an opportunity for

[00:11:17] Tyler Lindley: yourself. I did not know that taco had that acronym attached to it to always create opportunities.

Is it more than just the food? Is it also that acronym? Cause I didn't even know that it existed. I was having

[00:11:29] Alvaro Garcia: a deep thought one day. What am I going to say about tacos? When someone really would ask me, what does tacos mean? I always liked seeking opportunities and relationship building and it's on my LinkedIn profile for.

[00:11:44] Tyler Lindley: In essence, that's the SDR role. If you're talking about creating opportunity, you're literally creating sales opportunities out of seemingly thin air. Obviously we're targeting a specific buyer, ICP buyer persona. So we have some direction about who we're going to, but these are cold conversations. It's a lot of cold outbound.

I know you do a lot of outbound. And that's what we're doing. We're creating opportunities and starting conversations that then AEs can then continue. And I think that it's a really important part of the process. And one that think SDRs don't get enough credit for the hard work that you do. Do you feel the same way or what?

Yeah, I

[00:12:19] Alvaro Garcia: do. And they're still huddle shatter going on on LinkedIn STRs and not given enough credit. The STR role is like, you're the face of your. Company. So whatever you do, that's how your company's being presented in the hospitality industry. However you treat your customers is how people think about you.

So if you treat people with compassion and love, they're going to be like, oh, this is a lovely company. It's amazing. Sorry. I feel like I'm going off a tangent there, but as an SDR, if you are the face, your role is,

[00:12:52] Tyler Lindley: and at the end of the day, companies are made up of people and people work with people we're all in each stage, human to human conversation, whether you're B2B B to C, whatever industry you're in, we're all people trying to connect with other people.

And I think that gets lost sometimes. I think it gets lost that we are humans. And that's one thing that I. About your background is that you inject that human, that personality, that energy, that enthusiasm. I think a lot of reps are scared to do that. They're scared too. And it's, I'm training a lot of new reps when I tell them, oh no, you need to go more personalized.

You need to go deeper. And they're like, oh, I can't do that. Not in the setting that might offend them. I'm nervous about how that might go. You got to go further. You've got a pattern interrupt. I think so many folks are scared too. I think that's one of the reasons you've been able to stand out is because you have.

Energy that enthusiasm and the confidence to be yourself. Yeah,

[00:13:40] Alvaro Garcia: absolutely. For example, there you bring up a great point and go in diving in deeper people's LinkedIn profiles are set up. It's an opportunity for someone to post about themselves, an opportunity to capture someone's attention sometimes unknowingly, but.

Often their personality, but people often, I'm going to say 80% of the people that aren't on LinkedIn boast about themselves. That's an open window into changing the pattern of, I hope you are a well,

[00:14:10] Tyler Lindley: you can

[00:14:10] Alvaro Garcia: even deep dive down at the very bottom where it says. Someone's education. And often you'll notice someone will post about their GPA.

Their GPA may be 3.9, eight as an SDR or a BDR. Someone do an outbound or even AEs full cycle. Hey, we've never spoken before, but you seem like you're extremely, well-educated 3.98 GPA. That's super impressive. That could be your first touch. It doesn't have to be like, are you interested

[00:14:41] Tyler Lindley: in hearing more subject line 3.98?

Cause they're like wondering what the hell does that mean? And it's like, wow, your GPA was higher than mine. By the whole point you struggled. How did you do it? I like being self-deprecating too. Or if you had a high GPA to say, Hey, we're both in the high GPA. Cool. Yay us look at how far we've come speak it of coming far.

We help people like you go far by solving X, Y, Z problem. Tell a little bit of a story. I think at the end of the day, when we talk about being human, we are storytellers and we tell as SDRs, we tell really short stories. You have to get good at telling a really short story about something about them, and then try to weave it into something your company or service or product saw.

And then ask them, what do you want to do next? We give them a clear call to action. It's pretty simple. We're just telling that same short story with minor nuances based on the individual over and over and over again. Yeah.

[00:15:35] Alvaro Garcia: And I hear SDRs saying that that's really difficult. Here's the thing. Exercising is really difficult, but the moment you start doing it, And you start doing it consistently.

It gets easier and easier right now, getting on the bike and riding around the block. Guess what? The more that you continuously ride around the block, you're going to want to keep going and it gets easier to keep going. I think SDRs. Start making those emotions and

[00:16:03] Tyler Lindley: really, yeah, exactly. The hardest one is the first one.

The hardest rep is the first rep, but then once you get, like you said, it's, once you get that momentum, you just get better and better and more confident at it out. What haven't we talked about for other SDRs out there for folks newer to sales, any other pieces of advice or anything else you'd want to touch on that we haven't talked about?

Figure out your

[00:16:24] Alvaro Garcia: why for SDRs, figure out why you're in this role and it's not. Oh, because I want to expand my career. Okay. Yeah, that's great. And that's a great attitude and a lot of companies will latch onto that. Figure out your why and your role, and also figure out if that role or that company is really good for you.

If you're excited and you're motivated to sell what you're selling, then go do it. But if you're. Motivated about it, sorry, companies out there, but find another role that gets you motivated because that makes your job easier as an STR and also your attitude and your email approaches and your phone calls and your LinkedIn touches.

Bring that. People can feel that people want to interact with people that are excited being like the person in the center or the room. Everyone's always watching what they're doing. Say wish they could do that too. People will watch you, then they'll see your excitement and want to be a part of it. If you're an SDR and you're in a role that you're not too excited about, it might be time for you to rethink what you're doing and go find something that you're super excited.

Yeah.

[00:17:27] Tyler Lindley: Or find a way to get excited about where you are as an alternative. And if you feel like you can't, then maybe you need to find a different ship to hop onto. Awesome. Al thanks so much for the conversation today. If my listeners want to find out more about you online, how can they do so, all right.

I'm on LinkedIn

[00:17:42] Alvaro Garcia: as STRs should be in a lot of people in sales, you can just send me a message, happy to chat. If you're having a tough day, need some motivation. Let me know. I will bring this energy towards. If you need some great rap songs,

[00:17:58] Tyler Lindley: rap songs. Okay. We'll link to your LinkedIn profile in our show notes.

So if anybody wants to connect with Al just check out the show notes for this episode@thesaleslift.com Al. Thanks so much for coming on. That was a lot of fun. We've covered a lot, covered a lot. We'll do it again sometime soon. All right, man. Have it going? Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to today's show. You can find all the links discussed and the show notes@thesaleslift.com. That's the T H E sales S a L E S. Lift L I F t.com have questions for me. Email me@tyleratthesaleslift.com. We look forward to seeing you back here next week, and we hope today's show brings you the sales lift.

Your business needs. Remember ideas. Plus action equals. You've got new ideas. Now it's time to take action and the results will fall.

[00:18:55] Alvaro Garcia: See you next time. .