5 Questions with Alex Ellison

Marketing Communications Manager, demandDrive

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Succeeding as an SDR is more than just actioning tips, advice, and best practices.

There’s a human element to the role that transcends all of that.

SDRs are people. And people, whether we know it or not, operate by their own sets of values.

These values drive your actions and reactions. They’re the reason you express identical tips and advice in your own unique way compared to your colleagues.

Understanding your values can illuminate:

• How to best work with your colleagues to create a more successful & cohesive team
• Potential career pathways – within or outside of your current company
• The type of feedback and advice you need to succeed as an SDR

And this isn’t just reserved for individuals – companies have values as well. And when senior leadership can accurately articulate and operationalize a company’s values, it trickles down to the employee level.

You see it in the types of people they hire, the strategies they use to approach challenges, and the methods they use to communicate with current employees.

And ultimately, when everyone’s values are aligned, teams and companies can collaborate and grow with less friction.

But all of this is easier said than done.

That’s why we’re talking with Alex Ellison.

Not only does he understand the value in knowing your values and the impact that can have, but he also has a solid grasp on the process required to identify, build, and operationalize those values.

Tune in to see how we built our values at demandDrive, and how you can do the same for yourself & your company!

As Alex mentioned during the episode, we pulled a lot of information and insight from the works of Brené Brown. Both her book, Dare to Lead, and the content on her website are excellent resources for anyone looking to try this process out.

Alex also dives a bit deeper into this process & some of Brown’s work in his blog post: Finding Our Values and Finding Yours. Specifically, he talks about our own process around identifying, building, and operationalizing our values at demandDrive, and how you can learn from & replicate that on your own.

The finished product of that process (aka our core values) can be found here.

Special thanks as well to Annie Dean, Scott Levy, Megan Killion, Austin Fuller, and Mary Bisbee for providing examples and stories around their values-finding processes. Here are some bits of wisdom we learned from those conversations:

• Adopting values into your company culture doesn’t happen overnight – it has to be a step-by-step process. If you truly want your employees to work by the values you set for the company, you have to encourage them to do so. Some examples of how you can do that:
  • Build a “peer-to-peer” award system where individual employees can call each other out for times they demonstrate a company value. Make it a points system and give out gifts / company swag to those who surpass a certain score.
  • Tie values to your employees compensation. It should be as simple as “did they demonstrate these values – yes or no?” Make it a carrot, not a stick.
  • Leadership needs to buy-in and make an effort to shout-out employees that demonstrate company values on a regular basis. Think bi-weekly all-hands meetings or periodically in Slack/emails.
• Build a culture committee of employees that are dedicated to spreading values throughout the company. Have them run focus groups and surveys to get a pulse check on employee sentiment. If they find detractors, have them ask for suggestions to continually improve how the company values are represented.
• Consider asking your employees to complete an optional assignment around what your values mean to them. We’ve heard of employees recording a short video where they talk about what the value means to them. We’ve seen quotes & short stories doing the same. We’ve even heard of employees who painted a visual representation of the value to hang up in the office.
• Begin to consider your values in your hiring process. If a candidate doesn’t match your company values, consider how much effort you’ll have to put forth to get them on board. Remember, the goal here is to reduce friction, and if a candidate looks great on paper but could cause friction down the line, that should impact your decision.
• Make your values as visible as possible. Name conference rooms after your values, put them all over your website, and hang them up physically in your office somewhere. The more you’re exposed to them, the more reminders you have to follow them.
• Anything you do needs to be low-friction. The easier it is for an employee to operationalize a company value, the better. You want these to become subconscious and find their way into the everyday.

And if you’re looking for additional readings, here are a handful of resources we recommend:

• 15 Effective Ways Leaders Can Communicate Core Business Values To Employees
• 10 Best Ways To Communicate Core Values To New Employees
• Make Your Values Mean Something
• Building Core Values vs. Permission to Play Values
• How to Bring Your Company Core Values to Life

SDRs are people. And people, whether we know it or not, operate by their own sets of values.

These values drive your actions and reactions. They’re the reason you express identical tips and advice in your own unique way compared to your colleagues.