Building your sales team can be a nightmare.
You’re basically tasked with creating the dream team that is ready for anything.
Finding the right potential customers, understanding why they’re in the market looking for solutions, and asserting yourself as the best people for the job.
And from one founder to another, you’ve probably come across the term “SDR” and thought to yourself:
“What does SDR stand for? And do I even need them in my team?”
Don’t worry, because I’ll give you everything I have learned in my 10+ year career about SDRs, how they fit into your sales team, and if there’s a way to make them even more efficient.
By the end of my blog, you can answer everything from:
🔥Why do you need an SDR in your team?
🔥Skills to look out for in a good SDR.
🔥And finally, the one automation tool that can supercharge your revenue streams forever.
So, what are you waiting for?
Buckle up, and get ready to take some notes!
What does SDR stand for?
“SDR” in sales stands for “Sales Development Representative”.
There you go, burning question answered, see ya round everyone.
In all seriousness, there’s a whole lot more to SDRs than just a fancy acronym.
They’re responsible for most of the top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) activities in your sales cycles.
SDRs are sales reps that take an active part in:
- Outreach.
- Prospecting.
- Lead nurturing.
- Lead qualification.
Speaking of fancy acronyms, there’s probably another one you’ve heard of if you’ve been serious about forming your sales team.
Let’s talk BDRs.
SDR vs. BDR: What's the difference?
Nothing, they’re pretty much the same thing. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
Super anti-climactic answers aside, let me answer what makes SDRs an important addition to your sales team…
Why SDRs are essential for your outbound sales teams
Think of them as a solid foundation for your sales team that supports nurturing a lead till they convert.
SDRs typically engage with prospects in the beginning of their buyer’s journey and booking meetings with the dream customers.
Once a SDR spots a prospect that fits the bill of your company’s ideal customer profile (ICP), they will work with an account executive (AE) by handing them off and pushing them forward in the sales pipeline.
Here’s what the responsibilities of a SDR includes:
🧑🏻💼Prospecting:
Finding the right clients is difficult, especially the time it takes to research the ones that fit your ICP.
A SDR keeps your sales pipeline active by creating a buyer persona for your company, and then they search for clients based on it.
SDRs take into account the industry, job titles, roles, location, etc.
Prospects can be found in sources like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, or in-person events like seminars and trade shows.
With the potential customers selected, SDRs reach out to them with cold outreach strategies like email and LinkedIn messaging with valuable content and information.
From the prospect’s point of view, a SDR helps them identify pain points and offers relevant solutions (WITHOUT trying to pitch a product).
Based on the prospect’s needs and goals, the SDR can decide if they should be moved forward into the sales funnel.
🔍Lead qualification:
Moving prospects to the next stage of the sales funnel involves qualifying them into leads by judging their unique challenges, pain points, and if your company has relevant solutions on offer.
SDRs qualify these prospects with outreach strategies like cold calling, emails, product demos, consultation, etc., to build a relationship.
The whole idea of that is to hand them over to AEs and closers.
Professional SDRs use sales automation tools like SalesRobot to take over repetitive tasks that come with LinkedIn and email outreach.
SalesRobot can reach out to your prospects and follow-up with them on auto-pilot, helping SDRs qualify leads 2X faster.
And since generic, cookie-cutter messages won’t get you anywhere, SalesRobot also personalizes your messages in bulk based on the relevant prospect data it finds.
🪴Nurturing:
Why did I bring up follow-ups earlier?
That’s because most (if not all prospects) are unlikely to respond to the first message you send them.
SDRs need to follow-up with prospects after a reasonable delay to keep them engaged, educate them about your company’s solutions, and build rapport.
This gives a SDR more time to research on the reasons a prospect is holding back on converting, or gather more data based on their behavior to personalize their outreach better.
The end goal of the outreach process for an SDR is always the same…
📞Book meetings:
With the prospects gathered and the lead nurtured, the only thing left to do for an SDR is to book a meeting or sales call with an AE or a closer.
SDRs are also responsible for preparing the sales rep with all the knowledge necessary about the prospect to close the deal.
Essential skills for a good SDR
Now you know the meaning of SDR in sales, and why you need them on the team.
But how can you spot a good one?
And if you’re an aspiring SDR yourself, how do you become a cut above the rest?
While it’s difficult to give you an accurate guidebook to follow, there are a few essential skills every professional SDR has in common:
✅Research:
Like it or not, not doing your homework will cost you tons in revenue.
SDRs need acute research and analytical skills to find prospects, check their background, understand market trends, and so much more.
Research work for SDRs centers around two main areas:
✅Market:
Market research serves to inform who to look for when generating leads, i.e., identifying the correct target audience and buyer group.
SDRs conduct competitive research to find how your services can fit in as solutions, and how you stand out from your competition.
✅Prospect:
SDRs also go deeper into a particular account or prospect to find background data like education, interests, hobbies, etc. for warmer conversations.
Beyond that, SDRs determine the key decision-makers of a particular company.
✅Communication:
Being an SDR means you are a great communicator.
While all communication skills are important, active listening is one that is non-negotiable.
Because you’re supposed to act more like a consultant and less like a sales rep!
SDRs need to form human connections with the prospect to understand if they’re a good fit as a customer.
Of course, communication also includes writing and speaking persuasively.
A solid email copy or a webinar can do wonders to your sales pipeline by flooding it with more qualified leads.
✅Curiosity:
Seems like a random bit of skill to have, no?
But in reality, inquisitive SDRs make prospects feel catered to, and genuinely interested in learning about their challenges instead of simply closing a deal.
More than that, SDRs are always needed to learn more about the market and the competition to position your brand better.
And the more they know, the more information they have to persuade prospects.
✅Self-awareness:
SDRs always need to be vigilant about their tone, body language, and choice of words when talking to a prospect and figuring out if they’re ready to move towards making a purchase.
✅Creativity:
Creativity can be quite an edge to have when you consider just how cutthroat the competition is out there.
SDRs always need to find new and creative ways to catch the attention of prospects that fit your ICP.
It could be a small joke in their LinkedIn message, or a personalized sales call, the possibilities are endless.
This skill can also prove to be useful when it's time to find a solution for complex problems.
✅Organization:
SDRs balance a lot on their plate.
First they need to organize prospecting, outreach, follow-ups, research…and who knows what else.
But beyond that, SDRs also need to manage the tools that help gather and nurture prospects, CRMs to centralize prospect data, etc.
✅Technical skills:
SDRs need to know your product front-to-back before they can interact with prospects.
This gives them the confidence to sit on sales calls, answer questions, and advance to the next stage of the sales process.
And as you saw in the last point, tools like CRMs are an absolute necessity for SDRs.
When do you hire a SDR?
So, answer “What does SDR stand for?”, check.
What SDR and a BDR do, check.
Why do you need a SDR, check.
With all that answered, there’s one thing you should know about.
And that’s WHEN you need a SDR.
And truth be told, you know it's time to hire a SDR when the sales manager is spending way too much time researching prospects instead of communicating with warm leads down the funnel.
Worse yet, if the closers in your sales team are too busy prospecting, and not closing more deals.
Logically, that means you can still manage in the early stages of your lead generation process by combining the job roles.
But as the leads start getting funneled into your pipeline, it's time to get the help of an SDR.
How to get hired as an SDR
For the aspiring SDRs out there, let me state the obvious first:
If you want to be a SDR, start by learning the basics from training courses.
That said, it's not exactly mandatory.
What you need to have is the dedication and the will to learn the job, key skills, and responsibilities.
But beyond learning the technical aspects of being a SDR, there are a few more things you can try out if you want to be hired as a SDR a lot faster:
- Networking: Good place to start is by making more connections with professionals in your target industry.
Stay active in online groups and events, attend seminars and networking events, and make yourself known to the people there.
And don’t just stop there!
Follow-up with your new connections on platforms like LinkedIn to stay memorable
- Contact target companies: If you’ve set your mind on becoming a SDR, you have probably thought about the kind of company you’d like to work for as well.
So if you have found a company that feels like you’d want to be a part of, find the number of the hiring manager and make a call, or reach out to them with a personalized message.
With this, you show your research and communication skills before you have introduced yourself.
- Do the homework: Before you put your plan in motion, remember to get yourself prepaid for the best case scenario.
Learn everything you can about the company and hiring manager.
But that’s just the start. Because you also need to know how to handle common sales scenarios in case you’re asked for your opinion.
AI vs. Human SDR: Which is better?
For anyone that has spent more than 5 minutes in the current B2B sphere, one thing is pretty clear:
AI is pretty much everywhere.
And it is inescapable.
Naturally, business owners and sales managers want to cut out a lot of the busywork that can be handed over to AI instead.
But when it comes to SDRs, can AI really take over ALL of their responsibilities?
Let me break down what SDR tasks AI can do, and when it's time to call in the humans:
AI in sales development:
🤖Automated lead qualification:
AI sifts through large databases to identify potential leads based on predefined criteria (industry, job titles, location), speeding up the initial stages of the sales process.
🤖High-Volume Outreach:
AI can automate personalized outreach sequences and follow-ups, reaching a large number of prospects quickly.
This further frees up human SDRs from repetitive tasks.
🤖Data-Driven Insights:
AI provides valuable data and analytics on buyer intent and campaign performance. This helps optimize sales strategies and improve conversion rates.
Human SDRs in sales processes:
👨Empathy and nurturing long-term client relationships:
Humans can recognize subtle cues and adapt their approach to individual prospect needs.
This can help prospects feel like they’re being heard and builds trust, crucial for customer loyalty and repeat business.
👨Complex conversation handling:
Human SDRs can navigate complex conversations, address objections, and handle unexpected questions.
A well-researched SDR can move a prospect to the next stage of the sales funnel a lot faster by resolving doubts that stops a prospect from becoming a qualified lead.
👨Adaptability:
Humans can quickly adapt to changing situations, and modify their sales approach in real time.
Prospect not ready to discuss solutions yet? Follow-up with them with relevant content. No response on emails? Send them a personalized LinkedIn message.
Human SDRs can make decisions based on previous conversations they’ve had with prospects to chart the next course of action.
So, with all the laid out, the best approach seems pretty clear:
AI is for higher efficiency, human SDRs are for building genuine connections.
AI handles repetitive tasks, and humans focus on strategic, high-value interactions.
That means if you’re a human SDR reading this, don’t worry, AI is not coming for your job. 😅
The best way to look at AI tools is that it can help SDRs cut out a lot of manual tasks and focus on gathering the dream customers.
Since you’re here, what if I left you with a tool that can do all of that (and more!) in helping your sales team win more at less than half the time?
You’ve heard the name before, let me show you just what SalesRobot is capable of…
How to increase the efficiency of an SDR?
SalesRobot is a sales automation tool that takes away the boring, repetitive tasks that come with prospecting and outreach.
SalesRobot can help your SDRs pull prospects from LinkedIn/Sales Navigator URLs, LinkedIn events, posts, groups, and even custom CSV imports.
That means you can configure the search filters to target your ICP, and SalesRobot will fetch the prospects for you.
And if your SDRs are having a hard time finding prospects in your industry (or they don’t want to deal with the 31.4% data inaccuracy), they can use SalesRobot’s B2B prospect lookalike database.
SalesRobot lets you find prospects that match your winning customers, giving your AEs and closers more meetings that end in conversions.
Once your SDRs know which prospects to target, they can qualify and nurture them into sales-ready leads with multi-channel outreach campaigns on LinkedIn and email.
SalesRobot can automate InMails and run only-email campaigns too.
SDRs can choose if they want to create a campaign from scratch, or use one of our winning templates for common scenarios, which they can edit as needed.
SalesRobot will send outreach messages and follow-up with prospects on auto-pilot. Our Smart Reply Detection feature will automatically pause campaigns once they respond.
At which point the SDR can swoop in, carry the conversation, and hand it over to your AEs and closers.
And if you’re worried about how your message might sound, SalesRobot has an “AI brain” that calculates the probability of a positive response based on your message draft.
So all a SDR has to do is keep drafting till they see a high score!
Instead of personalizing every message manually, SDRs can leverage SalesRobot’s Hyperise integration to personalize messages in bulk.
Our tool will scan your prospect’s profile for relevant data that can be included in messages and media content like images and GIFs.
SalesRobot also helps you bypass the weekly LinkedIn limit of 100 connection requests a week with free InMails and emails.
SalesRobot also keeps your account safe with configurable delays to make your SDR’s outreach feel more human, while keeping them under LinkedIn’s radar.
But honestly, I’m saving the best for last…
SalesGPT 2.0: Meet your new AI SDR virtual assistant
What if I told you, SalesRobot can:
✅Create an outreach campaign in seconds.
✅Personalize messages with AI.
✅Engage prospects on auto-pilot with carefully crafted responses.
✅Book meetings for you when your prospect wants to get on a sales call.
Your job? Define your ideal customer profile (ICP) and buyer persona, and SalesRobot will do the rest.
Think I’m spinning a fairytale? Not quite.
Because that’s the power of SalesRobot’s AI SDR virtual assistant, SalesGPT 2.0. 🧙
That means your (human) SDRs don’t have to sweat the outreach process at all.
Describe the prospects, we target and engage, and your SDRs build meaningful relationships.
It’s a win-win for everybody involved. 😄
Conclusion: Can anyone be an SDR?
While answering “What does SDR stand for?”, I have told you everything you needed to know about their role, responsibilities, and the tools that help them achieve success.
Being a sales development representative (SDR) can seem like a moderately easy role to fit into, requiring a little training and practical knowledge.
But the truth is, SDRs form an important part of the sales team by hunting for prospects that fit your ICP, filtering every prospect by qualifying them as leads, and most importantly,
Engaging with them till they’re sales-ready leads, ready to book a meeting.
At that point, all a closer has to do is sit on a sales call and convert them into long-term customers.
Without a SDR on your team, all those tasks fall on the AEs and sales managers, keeping them from closing more deals.
And with SalesRobot backing them up, you can effectively 2X the number of booked meetings you get every sales quota.
So, what do you think? Feel like SalesRobot is on to something cool?
Then why not try our features with a 14-day free trial? No credit card required 😇.
And who knows, you might just end up with $20k in new business like Jack Z. did with SalesRobot:
Feel like you have some more questions?
Want a sneak peek into how SalesRobot works behind the curtains?
Then let’s chat over a quick 10-min call! Coffee’s on me 😄.
Until next time,
Good luck!
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