Episode 12: Florin Tatulea, Senior Sales Development Manager at Loopio

(Transcription Automated)

Jan Mundorf 00:00

If you have been, you’ve been an SDR by yourself, and I appreciate you taking the time. So basically, how I start, like every question before I actually go into that, I just want to like ask you Florin, what are you truly passionate about in your work?

Florin 00:22

In my work, I think I overall I’m extremely passionate about sales development, I think one of the starting from like a very young age, actually. So probably going back to grade nine, like I was selling newspapers, door to door. I was selling paint jobs. I don’t know, if you have a college pro in Europe at all, but you’re in Canada, a lot of like different college students try to start up their own like painting franchises and stuff. And I was always just an extremely competitive person. I was one of the top tennis players in Canada when I was in my younger years. And then that didn’t end up fully panning out. And I ended up giving up on the dream. So I’ve always had that very competitive spirit. I’ve always enjoyed sales and not just talking to people, but like listening to people ask them questions, to try to help them solve problems. And I think that’s what sales is ultimately all about. And that’s what’s led me to this path, I think.

Jan Mundorf 01:25

Yeah, I love that. Like I’m I’m also coming from a semi professional background, you know. So you know, the competitiveness the thrill, it’s just great to have it in your professional life as well. Right? Going into a game and you know, you have to win the next round, otherwise, you don’t make quota. I think, you know, the drill. Thank you so much.

Florin 01:48

I was just gonna say I think there’s a lot of similarities between sports and sales. In a sense, I almost look at sales reps as the professional athletes of the corporate space in a way. So I think that’s why a lot of athletes, or people with a background in some kind of competitive sport do really well.

Jan Mundorf 02:11

Yeah, I love the analogy, you know, they are extreme sportsmen. And so like, are you still doing like, I mean, you probably do some other sports Now on the other side, or, like, when you are not work? How do you keep your mind and not focusing about sales?

Florin 02:29

Yeah, so I Funny enough, I haven’t actually played tennis probably in quite a while now. And definitely over a year. I used to play it just like a recreational league just to kind of maintain it and everything. But more than anything at this point. And I think it’s just a lot of working out on a on a weekly basis, three to five times. So just making sure that you know, you’re sharp bodies, feeling good, minds feeling good. Yeah.

Jan Mundorf 02:55

That’s great to hear. That’s great to hear. Are you more morning or evening person for your workouts?

Florin 03:02

I’m more of a evening person myself.

Jan 03:06

That’s good to hear. That’s good to hear some early bird service. Yeah, it’s nice to end the day like this cool. Now so long ago, I went out and asked like, hey, what what would you love to learn from Florian? And like, the major thing I want to ask you about is like, Why? Why are you passionate about elevating other SDRs? Because that’s like one of your big things like, demand for you’re not just an SDR, like, how did you fall into that?

Florin 03:34

Yeah, I think like one of the main reasons I’m extremely passionate about elevating SDRs is because I truly believe that it is one of the most like fundamental skills that you can have. Pretty much like in anything in life. Myself, like a lot of other salespeople, like we at some point, or we’re either entrepreneurs or potentially want to become entrepreneurs. And I think like if you think about the SDR role, it’s like, if you can convince someone to take a meeting out of the blue with three four sentences in an email or like one minute on a call, that’s an extremely powerful skill to have, I think not just for starting a company but like for for your career and getting like different types of promotions for something as simple as getting like refunds on something that you don’t want to like if you can understand people and and communicate ideas and and value and be empathetic I think that’s something that’s going to help you in like so many different aspects of life and I just want more young sdos and young professionals to kind of understand how important this skill is. In your in your life.

Jan Mundorf 04:42

Yeah, love that. How do you how do you communicate this, you know, in your reps, like imagine you have a rep who is maybe not motivated anymore, like after six years, after six or nine months they start to say like, Oh, you know, I’m ready for the next move. How do you enlighten a fire in those situations with your with a team.

Florin 05:04

Yeah, I think like any other person, even myself included when I was an SDR it’s like you’re very antsy, you’re always looking for the next best thing, especially someone that’s been in sport, you’re extremely competitive, you’re always like looking for the next thing. And I think one thing that my mentors have told me is like, Hey, you need to understand that mastering a craft take takes a lot of time. And I have known for myself that even when I was an SDR, I was certain things started clicking along the way, and I was getting better. But I didn’t really feel like I had a full grasp of a majority of the skills like objection handling, writing emails, phone calls, and really understanding our market in our buyer until like about a year. So I think one of the main things I tell a lot of people. And this is what my mentors told me is like, just take your time, whether you were a professional athlete, whether you know you had a separate type of job, or whether you have another hobby, even if it’s like video games, or whatever that might be, like, if you think about the number of hours that people are putting in to do that. It’s it takes years and six to nine months is not going to make you an expert in that. So don’t focus so much on the future focus on the present and what you can do to become a master of your craft.

Jan Mundorf 06:19

Yeah oh my gosh, that’s that’s so true. That’s so true. Like, the moment you start to rush things are actually getting worse, right? But if you start to appreciate and settle, you’re like, okay, I get the master, the ninja in different crafts. So that’s great, man. So I mean, now now that you are leader, you are in like one of one of the best profits to follow out on LinkedIn. What what what are the things you you learned in your time as an SDR that you’re applying now?

Florin 06:50

I think it goes back to what I was saying earlier. But like a lot of the fundamental skills that you use as an SDR you use as an account executive, you use as a manager. If I was still listed for you, I’d probably say like one like how do you help people solve problems? So whether that’s through product or somebody comes to you that you manage and is like, Hey, I have a problem with this, you kind of diagnose before you give advice, you ask them questions first, understand more, and then you’re pointing them on the right path. Another big one, and this is something that I kind of focused on quite a bit on LinkedIn. And I’m also going to do like a two hour copywriting like workshop that I do for companies.

Jan Mundorf 07:28

I want to attempt that I want to attempt that. You’re the master of your last latest post. I was like copy paste.

Florin 07:40

Yeah, exactly. So that’s one thing I’m I’m kind of working on the copywriting. Like, how do you write a compelling story in a compelling message to be able to convey like a message, provide value and get people to actually be interested in what you have, if you can do that, you can pretty much do do anything in your professional career. And probably another one is like negotiation. So in sales, everybody knows, like, there’s always going to be some kind of negotiation. So how do you master that skill? And I think it’s a very important one to have in life to get what you want.

Jan Mundorf 08:15

Yeah, yeah. Love those. I think it’s very true. Like, now, when you I mean, you’ve recruited a lot. And you also have seen successful reps going abroad. And you also wrote an article about that, like, what made you very successful? What are the patterns that you see in those reps that really make it, you know, make it in a sense that they are successful?

Florin 08:39

Yeah, I think at a high level, it’s a few things one, I think passion. So like people that are actually passionate about the craft and getting better and have like, a good understanding of like, why are you doing what you’re doing? Another one, I think is no excuses. I think a lot of things you’ll notice in like people that are not necessarily top performance, top performers, is there’s always a reason as to why it’s not happening. The reason is never themselves. So I think people that are self aware and can look inside and not make excuses and just get things done, even if certain circumstances like are getting in their way. And probably like the last big one for me is like curiosity. At the end of the day, when you need to help people solve problems, and if you get objections, that the what you need to do is not just pitch back, we need to understand people where they’re coming from. And I think that takes like curiosity, curiosity and asking questions.

Jan Mundorf 09:37

Yeah, yeah, we really good. We will I look also for this, but I mean, I’m also new to this role in hiring. So that’sgreat. So what are your top three things that you ask when interviewing a rep? When you sit there for loop? You’re the next superstar?

Florin 09:58

I would say like the first question, I think is is very basic, nothing revolutionary, but just understanding like, why are you passionate about sales? And I think that answer can kind of tell you a lot about whether someone is actually wants to be in sales and an SDR or this is something that they just think is like a stepping stone. And then a day, this is like an extremely tough job. Everybody knows that. So if you don’t have a good why and a passion for doing this acting, it’s very difficult to succeed. Another big one, I think is, so we love to do some kind of like a pitch or a cold call in the interview. So just like a relatively high pressure situation that you don’t know about, can you kind of run through a cold call with us? And then I think the most important thing is not necessarily how the initial cold call went. But once we provide you feedback on how the cold call went, can you kind of adjust? And how are you actually taking feedback. That’s one of the main things. because, yeah, so at the end of the day, it’s like you need to be coachable, right. And if you can’t take feedback in an interview, you’re probably not going to be able to take it in the role when feedback is given to you constantly. And then I think the one of the last ones that I personally like is more of a creative question. So

Jan Mundorf 11:19

no, I’m excited.

Florin 11:22

So we we want to think about, like some creative ways of how people would prospect so we usually ask, like, let’s say you had 24 hours to get a message to Elon Musk, like how would you go about making sure that you get his attention? And that kind of just shows like the creativity side of things like how are people thinking about, you know, creative ways to prospect getting people’s attention and stuff and it’s kind of funny to see different answers.

Jan Mundorf 11:50

Yeah. How would you prospect Elon Musk Florin? What would you do?

Florin 11:58

That is a good question. Well, so, I know that Elon Musk is like a very, he’s very big on Twitter. And I actually saw somebody essentially kind of make a little campaign on Twitter where he was like, I want to tweet to Elon Musk every day for 365 days until he responds to me. And I think like on day 165, Elon Musk actually responded to him. So I thought that was like kind of a cool idea. Yeah. And he’s also I if you know, Elon Musk, like in his patterns of responding to people, he usually answers questions about like, rocket ships and space and stuff. So maybe thinking of a very, like creative question around rockets, or maybe criticizing one of his rockets or something. He would respond, I feel like that would get to.

Jan Mundorf 12:48

Yeah, getting to the know, as fast as possible. I love that. Back in the day, you know, when you when you started a couple of years ago, you walk first day into the offices in the str, what are the things you would have told your younger self going into that role?

Florin 13:04

I think probably one of the first things is state staying level headed. I think a lot of the times like, I would wear my heart on my sleeve. So it’s like through the ups, they felt really good. And the downs felt really bad. And there’s certain situations where you’re just so frustrated with like, a prospect or a customer and you’re just like, don’t understand the reasoning and just like taking a step back, and just learning to be more level headed through such a roller coaster, that’s going to happen. Because I think it’s easy to get caught up in that and, and if like, if you’re in a rut, it’s hard to get out of the rut, but like, if you just focus on what you can control, I think that’s the best way for you to become consistent and good. Yeah,

Jan Mundorf 13:53

that’s what that’s so true. Like, I remember first time I like I did prospecting I forgot to follow up. I felt shit for a week, you know, I was like, scared Oh, know what they’re gonna think about me. You know, like, Oh, my boss, you know, and I felt so bad. And I think I even like did the email that in the evening because I have just forgot it. And but you go through this rollercoaster, like now now that you I mean, you, you have been in the industry for for quite some time. How are you ways now to stay level headed? I think one one part you already said. It’s like working out, you know, getting getting out of work. But how do you? Yeah, what are your tips there?

Florin 14:38

Yeah, obviously, like, being physically and mentally, like, you know, healthy i think is always going to be important. And I think what some people don’t do it enough is like just talking to other sales people like everyone is going through the same types of stuff. So whether it’s like your colleagues or friends that you have, that might be like somewhat similar industries. I think just sharing like your ups and downs with them, and just being able to get through things together. And that’s why I think we all need to like kind of elevate ourselves. And that’s why I post like so much on LinkedIn and, and try to help different people through like career coaching and stuff. You just want to make sure that we’re all there for each other. Because obviously, it’s a tough role, but I think it’s one of the most rewarding roles on the planet. Really?

Jan Mundorf 15:19

Yeah. And I think that’s all true for and I think that’s what people really appreciate about about you as well. Like, if there’s a question, you know, I remember, I think a year ago wrote to you, and that you helped me like, exceed 200% of my quota, you know, and you just answered immediately, I will never forget that. And so yeah, that’s fantastic. I think the crowd loves you for that. So thank you, once again. You are a master of objection handling. I gotta, I gotta be honest, you know, when you posted that, that amount of objections you were able to handle, we now have doing weekly objection handling master classes, right, because we’ve done it before we do it in a steady stand up. But I’ve now put like an additional focus on objection handling. And what’re your tips around handling objection, why do you think it’s so important? And what are your like tips and tricks there?

Florin 16:20

The thing with objection handling, I think a lot of people just treat it as like, people don’t look behind the objection and realize like, there’s a person there that has like reasons for their objections. And a lot of people you hear an objection right away, you try to handle it. And usually, the one thing that I always like tell str is and my reps is, like, whenever you hear an objection, take a step back and ask questions. There’s a person behind it that has their own motivations, their own story, their own reason, their their own circumstance, if we don’t truly understand why a person is, is saying an objection, we’re never going to be able to handle it in a proper way. So I think objection handling and to be good at it. Like you really have to understand human psychology. And one of the best ways I think, for most SDRs to do that, especially if you if you haven’t like read Chris Voss Never Split the Difference. I think that’s a fantastic place to start. And there’s a whole other ton of the book, I think, like influences is another good one. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Yeah, is a book that I read in high school that kind of changed my life and thinking about like, how people, you know, react to different situations and how the mind works. So I think that’s the most that’s the most important part of objection handling.

Jan Mundorf 17:42

Yeah, that’s, that’s great. And how do you sort of structure objection handling? Like, do you also do a lot of training? Or, you know, how, and making sure that that you’re, you’re putting your reps in a situation where they are constantly like applying those things as well, because it’s a lot of practice, you know? And my opinion?

Florin 18:04

Yeah, it’s definitely. Obviously, like, there’s training sessions that we do on objection handling, and we want to make sure that we’re doing it on a consistent basis. And then on a weekly basis, we do like, I personally hold office hours for my team, so people can just drop in. And if they ever have like situations they need help with, we kind of run through them. And then another thing that we do is something. So every Wednesday we essentially have this meeting across the whole SDR team called SDR swarm, where that whole meeting is specifically meant for the whole SDR team to come together, if you have a certain situation or objection, we brainstorm and swarm the idea together. And I think like, if you have a collaborative space where you can do that on a weekly basis, that’s like when people actually learn and get better at it.

Jan Mundorf 18:50

Yeah, I love that idea. Like, like bees or something, you know, a team coming together and solving a problem. Exactly. Yeah, thank you so much. I would love to ask you also the staff about the email and copywriting. And, and I think, actually, you know, we all sort of know what you think are the patterns of cold email? You know, it’s in your content. It’s actually a question that I’m not necessarily want to ask because it’s all there. You know, you’re very welcome. Yeah. And, but, you know, how do you think about the whole, like, scale personalization. And I know that you’re also very big about relevance topic, actually. So, you know, when do you think it’s, it’s okay to like, scale? And how do you sort of keep that balance from strict rules towards freestyling? Or, more, more, more freedom?

Florin 19:48

Yeah, I think. I guess like a couple of thoughts on that. Like, there’s obviously it’s always going to be a fine balance between skill and like personalization or what I think is more important. relevance over personalization. And what I mean by that is like, people kind of go for like triggers of like, oh, like someone who’s on a sports team, or they have this hobby or like the they say something. And then it’s like, if you can’t connect that personal trigger to why you’re reaching out with your product or solution, I think the message kind of falls flat. So when I say personalized, or relevance is more important, it’s like, Can you find a trigger that’s relevant? Like, has the sales team grown? Is there some kind of like funding that happened is there like a new position that’s available or job posting that you think can make your your product help the team a bit more? I think that’s like how I usually like to start off with email and contacts as to why I’m reaching out as opposed to something like super, super personal, which tends to be more difficult to tie back to the value of your software solution, whatever that is, right. Yeah. But I think like, the way that I look at it, there’s different levels of accounts. Like if you’re dealing with huge enterprise accounts, and like, this is a strategic account that the company needs, I think at that point, scale is not as important, you need to have a very, like customized and personal message to those people. And that’s where like, you kind of want to get away from templates or anything like that. And you want to focus on actually crafting a full like story in in a brief email. But I think there’s like if your carrier accounts you have like a, b, and c accounts, if you have certain accounts that are not as important, kind of a higher volume, maybe like history that you’re just like checking out, I think it’s okay to spend less time and focus more on having like a template and message and maybe just a little bit of tweaking or one sentence of customization if needed.

Jan Mundorf 21:42

Yeah. Great. What Kyle also said is, you know, personalization, not doesn’t like good personalization doesn’t necessarily have to be scalable, right? Because otherwise everybody would do, like you said, right, it’s still a craft to be able to find that relevancy. Otherwise, we would all be computers. And they could do that. So yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. Four minutes left. I know you’re busy. And so you also get prospected a lot. What’s the craftiest way you have been prospected.

Florin 22:16

the crappiest way that I’ve been prospected. Funny enough, like Funny enough, I feel like I haven’t been prospected in that crappy of a way. With why statement. I’m serious. I think like, I mean, don’t get me wrong, like people have sent like, you know, potential like gifts or like made videos and like all that different kind of stuff. But I think a lot of that is like gimmicks in a way it’s like, just because you’re gonna send some kind of like a your swag or a gift. At the end of the day. If you’re a manager or director or somebody that’s making decisions, you have problems that you’re dealing with every day, there’s a ton of decisions you need to make, like a gift in itself, if I don’t see value in your platform is not going to be very useful to me. So this is actually something I tell my teams to it’s like, let’s don’t go with the gimmicks or don’t just make a video for the sake of making a video because you think it’s different, like tell a good story. Like, why is this a relevant time for that person to reach out to you? And I think that’s when you actually book more meetings. And I think some of the industry forgets that. In this day and age.

Jan Mundorf 23:26

Yeah, I really like that, like, I was I had never the opportunity to send any gifts, you know, we don’t have that yet. And so, you know, sometimes seems like they are sending all those swag, you know, they’re sending golf ball. It’s like, that’s cool. But yeah, can mean pick up the phone or like come up with with a challenge that they actually need to solve. So I I’ve always admired that the possibility even send stuff, you know, it’s like, Yeah, exactly. Cool. Um, I think one more minute left. So what are the things that you are excited about in the next five years? in our space?

Florin 24:09

It’s a good question. I think like, technology’s getting interesting. And I think a lot of like, different Artefill artificial intelligence, like type of things with like, I think it’s called k by outreach where you have like, your, the cards that pop up on calls, and it’s like, oh, they just talked about this, like, here’s information that pops up for you. So that, you know, as a rep, like how to handle those situations, or even tools like Gong where like, they’re machine learning, and artificial intelligence is getting better to help provide you insights into like, what you’re doing well on calls and different things like that. I think that type of stuff is interesting to me. But we always have to remember like, the fundamentals of sales are always going to be there. Make sure that you’re not using these different types of tools or technologies as a distraction on your calls, because I think It can go both ways. It’s like a double edged sword. Yeah. So we have to remember as like as SDRs. And as as leaders that are coaching, like, we need to always make sure that our teams are fundamentally sound in in that, because no matter what’s going to happen with technology or the future of the industry, like, that’s the whole point of fundamentals that they never are really going away, right? Yeah.

Jan Mundorf 25:24

Yeah. That’s great. Yeah, man, thank you so much. Yeah. Yes.

Florin 25:30

No, no worries at all. I, I know, I can do a couple more minutes here. Last question. I thought, I thought it was important to kind of answer because I think it’s quite helpful, like in terms of like the best tip for starting to build a personal LinkedIn brand. Yeah. So I started writing when I was an SDR in 2015. I didn’t actually even get any traction at all on LinkedIn. Until I probably in the last like, year or so like maybe two years. So my biggest tip, and I think a lot of people say this is just start start writing, if you’re an SDR and you face challenges every day, and you find a good way to like prospect or something that’s working for you, I promise you, there’s 1000s and 1000s of other people out there that could use that. And it could help them. So don’t think that just because you know, you’re relatively new in a role that you don’t know anything, I think there’s a lot of people that could use your help. And I think you might be pleasantly surprised if you just like consistently start writing maybe just once a week, maybe it’s once a month to start, you just have to start doing it. And again, we have to lift each other up as an industry and like we’re all going through difficult times, especially like in the last year and a half in COVID and being an SDR and sitting at home in your room and calling all day and like getting the 95% knows. And it’s like if we’re not there for each other and we don’t help each other then you know, we’re gonna be lost. And I think that’s why I’m passionate about why why I do it just to help elevate the profession.

Jan Mundorf 27:02

Yeah, Florin, thank you so much for so. Yeah, for stating that it was the same for me. I you know, the people were already going, you know, grabbing grabbing a drink. And I was like, No, I bought this meeting in an X in a crazy way. You know, I want to write about it. Doo doo doo doo doo. And then I just, you know, like I said, like you like you record just recommended, like, once a week. Okay, I’m gonna do it. Like my learning. It’s like a memoir. You know, what have I actually learned and what works? So yeah, thank you so much for for highlighting that. Cool. Anything you would like to add anything? Yeah, you want to want to put out there.

Florin 27:42

I would just say like, I mean, follow me on LinkedIn. I think one of the things that I try to do is I don’t post anything that we don’t personally use as a team and that is successful. So if you’re interested in just like tips on objection, handling copywriting, if you ever just want to, like reach out to me and just have a conversation, I’m always happy to help different people here in str space or in the SEO space in general. And you know, I hope you keep doing your thing too, because you’re killing it.

Jan Mundorf 28:10

Thank you, man. Thank you. I appreciate that. I can only recommend you Florence. You’re like my my top five or top three even it’s UK I like Devin Of course. Of course and yeah, but you’re you’re one of them who wants to talk so yeah, thank you so much. Like how did that feel like to like that you like to format where the questions good you know i’m also like testing this out so I’m you know on episode out right now, so if you have any feedback, let me know

Florin 28:45

100% No, it felt good. It felt natural. Like I thought you have some good follow up questions and importing questions. So I think the biggest thing is just keep doing it if you can talk to like good leaders and like your different ideas people will listen to you you’re building a brand so keep doing you my friend.

Jan Mundorf 29:00

Thank you man. Appreciate it. And also if you have somebody else you know I usually ask that a Kyle actually said to speak to Florin. Nice so like let me know if you have any like other recommendations. Lauren from saying one was also very interesting. And so yeah, if you have anybody in mind, send them my way. If you think it’s it’s fun to share and 100% goodbye via another SDR. Awesome, man. Have a great rest of your day to say crush it. Bye bye.