In addition to having little historical information, once the BDR team sent opportunities “over the fence” to the AE team, they had little visibility into what happened next.
These opportunities would be passed on to the AEs, but that would end the BDRs visibility into that prospect. They wouldn’t know the assigned value or whether that opportunity was won or lost. This meant that the team couldn’t prepare the pipeline effectively.
They needed to see how their opportunities were being treated in order to understand how they could improve and if they were doing enough.
If opportunities are pushed or values decreased, and the BDR team is unaware of this, then the pipeline has unknowingly shrunk. Suddenly there are calls from further along the funnel for more opportunities. Without the requisite knowledge, BDRs are left in the dark about whether this is because opportunities have been lost, pushed, or devalued.
Again, this means that not only are the BDR team scrambling for more opportunities to quickly fill the pipe, but they have no idea what’s working and what isn’t for the AEs.
Better Knowledge With Better Visibility
Once everyone in the organization can see pipeline being produced and used, it gives BDR managers the ability to push back against the argument that they aren’t producing enough pipeline.
Within WhiteHat, “visibility empowered the BDR side,” says Alex.
With visibility of the pipeline coverage, the BDR management could see how their opportunities were being used. This report helps you review how much of your starting pipeline you close each month and figure out whether you’ve got enough pipeline for the coming periods.
A common theme for AEs is always to want more opportunities pushed their way. This gives them a higher chance of winning deals. This means that the BDR team are under constant pressure to increase the amount of opportunities in the pipeline. But because they don’t control those opportunities and the value, they had no way of combatting questions about why there was so little pipeline.
With greater visibility, they could see the additional pipeline needed to meet the monthly or quarterly bookings goal and develop the strategy to meet this number. They were able to show the sales team overall that they were hitting their goals and push back on pipeline production.
It wasn’t just the BDR team that benefitted from this visibility. The leadership was also now able to get involved in the conversations around pipeline production. At WhiteHat, the CFO and CMO got in on the conversation and could surface real results.