The Advice Beast

Let me paint a picture for you. It was 2016, and I was an SDR at Namely, a hyper-growth startup. I was fortunate (and humbled, looking back) to spend four years there, starting as an SDR and eventually becoming a Team Lead. Along the way, I sourced more qualified opportunities than anyone else in Namely’s history. But here’s the problem: that success unleashed the advice beast hiding in plain sight.

A beast that didn’t reveal itself until I became a Team Lead at Namely. SDRs started coming to me with questions about prospecting, cold calling, cold emailing, and social selling. Naturally, I jumped in with the best advice I could offer. Why wouldn’t I? After all, I was the top SDR in Namely’s history.

The beast was fantastic until the first time I returned from vacation to chaos. SDRs had missed their activity KPIs and fallen behind on sourced opportunity goals. That’s when I realized the team I was player-coaching had grown too reliant on me. My advice had become the very beast I’d unleashed, and it flipped my world upside down.

At first, I panicked. But that panic gave way to an ah-ha moment, and I had to tame my advice beast. Constantly solving problems for SDRs had turned me into an enabler, not the leader I wanted to be. I realized it wasn’t my job to always have the answer. Sometimes it was better to let them find their own. Giving everyone the answers had become my red flag as a leader, and I knew it had to stop.

That’s when I decided to stop talking and start listening. The less I said, the more I listened, and the more I tamed my advice beast. Shutting my mouth and truly listening let me take a back seat, giving SDRs real ownership of their questions. I stopped assuming I was always right or had to solve everything.

What I really did was stop being the loudest voice in the room. Humbling myself wasn’t easy, but once I accepted I needed to step back, I noticed my team relied less on my answers. I could still share my wisdom but only when it truly added value.

Fast forward to 2025, repaint that picture and you’ll see a 3× SDR Manager whose team stays on track even when I’m on PTO. No more chaos, no more missed goals, because I tamed my advice beast. If you haven’t yet, now’s the time to tame yours. Start by saying less and listening more.