This document provides tips for motivating a remote SDR team. It discusses the importance of intrinsic motivation over extrinsic motivation alone. Types of intrinsic motivation include autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Some tips include over-communicating, building trust and accountability, enabling team development, investing in the right tech stack and processes, and building personal relationships to understand individual motivators. Regular coaching, praise, and rewards tied to goals can also help motivate remote team members.

1. How to Motivate a
Remote SDR Team
Tenbound

2. About Me:
● Ellen Stafford
● Director, Business Development at
Vidyard
● ellen.stafford@vidyard.com

3. What’s Vidyard?
The fastest way to record and manage videos online.
The all-in-one video
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● Easy screen recording and video creation
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https://www.vidyard.com/free/

4. Motivation

5. Motivation
● Motivation is the “Why” behind anything that
we do
● Changing my own perspective on Motivation:
○ Daniel Pink - Drive: The Surprising Truth
About What Motivates Us
● Two main types of motivations; Extrinsic &
Intrinsic

6. Extrinsic Motivation
● Doing something to produce separate
outcome such as receiving a reward
(Carrot) or to avoid a punishment (Stick)
● “If, then” incentives
● Can be useful in certain scenarios in SDR
but when used alone, often only motivates
short term behaviors and short term
results

7. Intrinsic Motivation
● An inner drive that encourages someone to
perform an activity.
● From Daniel Pink, three types:
○ Autonomy - is trusted by their leader and feels
that they take ownership of their task and
their outcomes
○ Mastery - is challenged by what they are
doing and feels they are constantly learning
and getting better
○ Purpose - understand the impact they are
making for the team, for the company, for
themselves

8. Engaging your Remote Team

9. Engaging your Remote Team
● Benefits of being part of a team
○ Grind of SDR - we’re in this together
○ Gaining energy from others
○ Learning from each other
○ Much more
● The shift to remote survey: missing their teammates and the team
dynamics
● Recreating this remotely

10. Building the right team
● Starts with hiring the right people for your remote team
● Hire for soft skills vs what we can teach - experience is a plus
● Ask interview questions around:
○ Drive
○ Ability to take ownership
○ Genuine Curiosity & Love for Learning
○ Trustworthiness
○ Creativity
○ What else?

11. Your Remote Team Culture
● Build a Culture of Accountability
○ Set clear expectations
○ Allow flexibility in how they get there
● Demonstrate Trust
○ Avoid micromanagement!
■ Something seems off: Assume the best intentions & seek to
understand
● Exemplify Work / Life balance
● Give them Ownership:
○ Promote collaboration & solicit frequent feedback on whats working,
and what isn’t

12. Team Communication
● Over-communicate with your remote team
○ Build an effective team communications plan that
doesn’t rely on virtual meetings only
■ Asynchronous updates:
● Executive Updates, Campaign Reviews,
Process Changes
■ Virtual team meetings:
● Q&As from updates, Enablement, Guest
Speakers, Hot Topics, Results
○ Encourage frequent cross functional
communication

13. The fun stuff
● Find creative ways to have fun and build relationships remotely
○ Team events.. not just zoom happy hours
○ Celebrating wins, gong channel, slack giphy
○ Inside jokes
○ What else?

14. Investing in your Team

15. Team Enablement
● Continuously develop your team’s skill set through remote team
training
○ Mix of virtual meeting or self guided
○ Leverage internal and external facilitator, SDR and non
SDR topics
● Build enablement content to encourage resourcefulness
● Promote personal development outside of company
● Frequently investing in your own development
○ Network for you and for your team

16. Programs for your team
● Build programs that will motivate SDRs and BDRs
to own their personal professional development
● Micro Promotion Program
○ Always working towards a goal
○ Define tasks and certification to progress in
role
○ Progression is 100% owned by the rep

17. Tech Stack & Process
● Invest in right tech stack;
○ Tools to do their job effectively and to work
autonomously
○ Let them participate; free to paid
● Implement clear process (the how)
○ Get feedback on gaps to build efficiencies and
reduce frustrations
○ Set expectations, but promote creativity
■ What they must follow vs what they can be
flexible with

18. Tech Stack & Process
● Invest in tools that help you to develop & work effectively with your
remote team
○ Chorus/ Gong
○ Slack
○ Vidyard
○ What else?

19. Motivating your Individual
Reps

20. Invest to your relationships
● Invest the time to build a trusting, personal relationship with your
team members
○ backgrounds, learning styles, goals, pet peeves
○ Do a discovery, get beyond the surface and uncover their true
motivators
● Leverage this knowledge to effectively tap into their intrinsic
motivation
○ Radical Candor - Kim Scott

21. 1-1 Coaching and Development
● Schedule and keep regular weekly 1-1s
● Never just check in, have a plan
● Shared agenda ownership
● Give and get feedback regularly
● Always be coaching
○ team based theme - competitive. individualized - micro promotion

22. Praise & Incentives
● Recognition
○ Public Praise, Encourage Peer to Peer Praise, Kudos folder.
○ Tie to purpose and impact
● Rewards and Spiffs
○ Use effectively - Short term impact
○ Have fun with them, get creative, get team input
○ Tie back to intrinsic personalized goals

23. Motivating your Managers

24. Motivating Managers
● Leverage many of the same tips
○ Autonomy - Ownership of their own team and the results they
drive. Trust them, Guide them, and hold them accountable
○ Mastery - challenged them by giving them opportunities to
development new skills
■ Ie Project leads
○ Purpose - ensure it is clear to you manager the impact they are
making for their direct team, for the department, and for the
company

25. Q&A