The role of a Business Development Representative (BDR) can be daunting. But the game completely changes when BDRs are armed with the right intent data showing where accounts are in their buying journeys, what keywords they’re searching for, and what personas are engaging.
Duo Security provides two-factor authentication and trusted access to applications. By partnering with 6sense, the Cisco business unit empowers its reps with:
- A clear list of priority accounts
- Information to customize outreach to match buying stages
- New opportunities and persona profiles to revitalize engagement
The Challenge
Before adopting 6sense, Duo Security used LinkedIn and Discover.org to research account leads and contacts. It used the information to craft messaging for those audiences.
Those tools offered Duo Security’s team some basic intelligence, but didn’t provide vital context such as:
- The accuracy of the account and contact info
- Insights into where accounts were in their buying journeys
- Or if even if accounts were in a buying journey at all
This ultimately meant BDRs were reaching blindly out to accounts — throwing darts at a dartboard to see what stuck. Duo Security needed a better way.
The Right Tool
By partnering with 6sense, Duo Security found a solution to help its sales team connect with the right accounts at the right time.
6sense empowers the company to discover the accounts that actually need to hear from a salesperson, explains Laura Kar, Business Development Manager for Enterprise and Mid-market Accounts.
“With 6sense, we can break accounts down into categories,” Kar says. “Here’s a list of accounts in buying mode. Then we break that list down further: what are they looking at? And then break that down by persona: who’s looking at it? This gives us a really targeted list of people to outbound with — and a much better chance of connecting with them based on that information.”
The Right Intelligence
Kat Mills, a Duo Security Account Manager, immediately saw the benefits of using 6sense.
“It’s the first thing I go to when starting my day,” Mills says. “I can see the activity that happened today, yesterday, last week, or a month ago. I can see where that account is in their engagement … and revise my messaging to be hyper-relevant and important to them.”
6sense’s value was immediate and sustained. Mills witnessed a new batch of accounts showing high-fit scores that she previously hadn’t been aware of. These kinds of aha! moments open up more opportunities for her and the sales team.
Starting Strong
6sense is also critical for onboarding new hires, Kar says. She can tell new BDRs which accounts to focus on because she knows which accounts are most engaged. 6sense data also fosters confidence in new hires since they’re sending accounts the right messaging at the right time.
The platform also improves Kar’s sales coaching. As BDRs schedule meetings, Laura audits them to see how the meeting was set, and what stage the account is in. This shows BDRs that 6sense data is “pretty darn accurate,” Kar says. It helps with team buy-in, too.
The Results
“There was so much guessing and hoping we were moving in the right direction,” Kar says. “But 6sense takes the guesswork out of it. Now we can see what an account cares about and who’s doing the research. The whole game plan has changed.”
6sense helped Duo Security reinvent its go-to-market approach, providing:
- A clear list of priority accounts
- Information to customize outreach to match buying stage, and
- New opportunities and persona profiles to revitalize engagement
