The Definitive Guide to Building An SDR Team

The Definitive Guide to Building an SDR Team

Contents
Introduction

The Core of the SDR

Always Be Prospecting
Increase Meaningful Conversations
But, What About Inbound?
Building an SDR Profile

The SDR at Work

From Good to Great Managers
Prospecting 101
The Motivation Metric
The Career Growth of an SDR

Outreach Strategies for SDRs

Sales Reps as Mini-Marketers
The Right Messaging
Never Send a Blind Email

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In Conclusion

17

The 5 Item SDR Checklist

18

ToutApp: SDR Edition

19

About ToutApp

20

References

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Introduction
Most sales organizations are structured in a way that a salesperson handles the
entire sales cycle. From prospecting, leaving voicemails and running product
demos to closing dealsthe whole cycle runs through one salesperson.
That was sales yesterday. Today, the sales world is changing.
This isnt the first time youve read about the changing world of sales. There are
hundreds of articles about this. But, were going to go deeper than that.
Well be exploring how you can increase the productivity of your sales team by
segmenting the role of a salesperson between prospecting and closing; were
talking about building a Sales Development team.
The three chapters in this book present a look into the future of sales development
teams and their cutting-edge strategies. The strategy is simple: segment and specialize your sales team. As an increasingly large number of younger sales teams
are growing fast, many large companies are taking notice and adopting the sales
development methodology.
If you want to keep up and drive serious sales for your business, you need to build
a Sales Development team.
Heres some insight on how a few experts did that.

The Core of the SDR

Prospects are your companys biggest asset. But, prospecting can be difficult. Today,
prospects have so much more information available to them. In The Challenger
Sale, authors Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson state that 57% of the purchase
decision is complete before a customer even calls a supplier.
Thats why you need a team of reps to capture the interests of your prospects.
Enter the SDR.
SDR stands for Sales Development Representative. Elsewhere, this role might be
called a Business Development Representative or Lead Qualification Representative,
but for simplicity, well call them SDRs.
No matter their title, SDRs are specialized to do one thing insanely well: outbound
prospecting.

Always Be Prospecting

SDRs learn how to craft a proper email and

how to break down that No, I dont want
to talk to you road block. They get larger
prospects with bigger logos and larger
prices. Thats the trajectory that you have to
hit to be a sustainable company.

In 2011, Ross and Tyler, the co-authors

of Predictable Revenue, advocated for
a segmentation of roles within the
different stages of the sales cycle.
Ross then applied this segmentation
at Salesforce and it changed the sales
industry.
An SDR often is the first point of contact
someone has with your company.
Theyre the ones making the first
impression and educating prospects.
Prospects have limited time and may not
want the whole sales song and dance.
However, SDRs are there to get your
company name in front of them and
open the door for further conversations.

Neal Donahue
Director of Sales
Development

KISSMetrics provides web analytics solutions

to assist companies in customer acquisition
and decision making.

Offices
San Francisco, CA
Company Size
51 - 200 employees
SDR Team
5

Sales is moving away from the one-person-does-all model to more specialized and
segmented teams. An SDR is there to generate interest, get your companys foot in
the door and get meetings booked for Account Executives (AEs).
And with that, SDRs are changing the way sales gets done.

Increase Meaningful Conversations

SDRs open deals. They prospect into targeted companies and book meetings for
Account Executives. But of the many invaluable assets that an SDR brings to the
table, the most important one is their tenacity. SDRs are the reps that are proactively
talking to your prospects.
SDRs want to feel well established with their account territory and prospects. Since
not every prospect thinks in the same way, its important to allow SDRs to have
the autonomy to prospect as resourcefully as they see fit in order to book more
meetings.

Chris Calkin

Businesses are so specific in terms of

their needs that SDRs need to spend extra
time learning about their needs before
even beginning to nurture those prospects
and educate them about your companys
product.

Business Development
Manager West Coast,
Brands & Agencies
Tune builds products to help marketers drive
better results with technology for growing
businesses.

Offices

Seattle, WA (HQ), San Francisco, CA

Company Size

201 - 500 employees

Sales Team
2

But, What About Inbound?

Inbound Sales Representatives are responsible for the leads that are delivered right
into your sales funnel, generally from marketing efforts, referrals or organic means.
An inbound lead requires no prospecting. These leads flow in and can be highly
engaged with your companys product. But, they also can be unpredictable and hard
to target.
On the other hand, outbound prospecting is targetable and manageable. You
can structure your team so that you have SDRs going after prospects in specific
industries or specific company sizes. Theres no ceiling to outbound prospecting.
But, lets get back to SDRs.

We look for curiosity and coachability,

which is really important to the SDR
function where that rep needs to be open

We have named territory accounts. With

an SDR, we have an opportunity to go after
them and generate significant revenue by
targeting those accounts.

Ash Alhashim

Michael Gultz

Director of Sales &

Market Development

Lead of Inside Sales and

Direct Response (Cloud Sales)

Optimizely is a website optimization platform

enabling A/B and multivariate testing for
companies and individual users to enhance their
website content and traffic.

Informatica is the leading provider of data

integration software for over 5,000 enterprise
organizations to fully leverage their information
assets ffrom mobile, social and big-data.

Offices

Redwood City, CA (HQ), Austin, TX, Boston, MA &

Dublin, Ireland

Company Size
1001 - 5000 employees
SALEs Team

Offices
San Francisco, CA (HQ) & New York, NY
Company Size
201 - 500 employees
SDR Team
13

10

Bachelors Degree or Equivalent

Resume

6 -12 months of phone experience

high energy level, motivation and drive to succeed
proven track record of excellent communication
Versatile enough to be a team player, but effective
enough to be an individual contributor
strong passion for selling and ability to communicate
a products value
knowledge of salesforce (a Plus)

Building an SDR Profile

Beyond wanting a career in sales, SDRs

should have an entrepreneurial bent in
their DNA. This entrepreneurial streak
gives the SDR an opportunity to make
an impact through prospecting, and then
quickly rise through the sales ranks.

Lets say you agree - now; lets talk about

how to build the right SDR team for your
company.
For many companies, a rubric for hiring
is quite useful:
As you think about hiring SDRs, you
should ask yourself: Which qualities are
foundational and which are coachable?

I look for someone who carries themselves well.

Someone who can stare me in the eye. Someone
who isnt shaken by tough questions, such as,
Why didnt you hit your revenue quota?

Having an SDR rubric not only simplifies

the hiring process for managers - but
also helps with training and long-term
career goals.

Charles Rummelein

Once you have a written description of

your SDR role with responsibilities and
requirements, its time to assemble your
team.
I like to build diversity. Theres no
cookie cutter candidate. What Im
looking for is someone who is organized
and is driven to succeed. I want someone
who has the ability to dig and find the
unseen route to getting a prospect on
the phone and being savvy, said Neal
Donahue of KISSmetrics.

Team Lead of US Sales

Nexmo provides innovative cloud communication APIs that enable applications and
enterprises to connect with their customers
through phone and SMS.

Offices

San Francisco, CA (HQ), London, UK, Madrid,

Spain & Hong Kong

Company Size

51-200 employees

Sales Team

30 worldwide

The SDR at Work

An SDR needs to have the drive to sell today and the aspirations to be a sales leader
tomorrow. To get an SDR from point A to B, theres one person that needs to be
present: a great manager.

From Good to Great Managers

What sets apart an average manager from a great manager is credibility.

What does credibility look like for your SDR team?
There are three main factors in the credibility assessment:
Front-to-Back Knowledge: Have a detailed understanding of what your SDR
team does every day.
A Shared Ambition: An SDRs goals are your goals. During 1:1 time, talk to
them about your ambitions for the team and how they can contribute to
those goals.
Ownership: Take ownership of the SDR team you manage - in both
successes and failures.
Alongside credibility, its important to
SDR to manager ratio
have a manageable ratio between you and
your reps. To the right are manager to rep
ratios across different companies.
As companies continue to grow, their
ratio will vary as more reps and managers
are brought on to meet the demand.

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10

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Prospecting 101

One of the best parts of being a manager is working with your SDRs to make them
better - whether theyre brand new or seasoned SDRs.
SDRs are able to grow and broaden a company because theyre embedded in
conversations with prospects. The amount of time it takes to prospect into a
company is a moving variable, but as illustrated, the process remains the same:

Measuring SDR PErformance

A manager can then measure an

SDRs performance. Measuring
performance can help you formulate
an understanding of the progress of
your SDR team. The simplest and most
traditional form of measurement is
tracking revenue within your pipeline.
An example of tracking revenue is
figuring out whether a closed deal was
sourced by an SDR.

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The success of the company has been

one of the most rewarding parts of being
an SDR Manager. The company is doing
well, and a big part of that is from the
efforts of the Sales Development team.
I just think its rewarding seeing each
member of my team high up on the
Leaderboard each month.

I motivate my team in various ways.

If they come in early, Ill buy them
breakfast. If they stay late, Ill take them
to drinks afterwards. Its close-knit,
said Charles Rummelein at Nexmo.

John Swartz

Sales Development
Manager
Adpative Insights is the global leader in cloud
business analytics that integrates BI & CPM
suite in the cloud for midsize and enterprise
companies.

Being a well-rounded and close knit

team affects the camaraderie of the
team as a whole, but it also helps ramp
new reps.

Offices

Palo Alto, CA (HQ), Boston, MA & London, UK

Company Size

201 - 500 employees

SDR Team

The Career Growth of an SDR

The SDR role is a foundational one

within the larger structure of a sales
team. For many SDRs, this role is a
stepping stone for upward mobility
within their company.

The Motivation Metric

SDRs are a hungry, awesome and hardworking group. Theyre eager to win,
especially with a fair base salary and
the right incentives.

SDRs gain an invaluable skill set that

prepares them for long-term success.
Every day they craft emails, break
down blockers from prospects and are
personable educators. This success is
only the beginning of an SDRs career
in your sales organization. Many SDRs
want to fast-track their sales careers, so
lets get them on that track.

In a 2014 survey of SDR Metrics and

Compensation, The Bridge Group found
that the annual base salary of an SDR
is $46k. Additionally, SDRs are eligible
to earn more based on performance,
such as number of meetings booked.
To motivate their teams, managers can
run weekly sales contests, give out gift
cards or pay out target-hitting earnings
as well.

For SDR managers, a success marker

of their team is in the promotion of
SDRs into closing roles as Account
Executives.

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We bring reps into our inbound role to

learn our product and the industry, then we
promote from within to an outbound [SDR]
role. This progression can be anywhere from
three to six months on the inbound role
before moving to the outbound role.

Kristina McMillan

Director of Sales
Development

Five9 is a leading provider of cloud contact

center software that enables more than three
billion customer interactions annually.

Offices

San Ramon, CA

Company Size
501 - 1000 employees
Sales Team
11

Steps in a Sales Career

12

Heres an example of this career

progression: in June 2013, Chris Flores
joined Namely as the companys
first SDR. Alongside the Director of
Sales, Chris generated sales pipeline,
onboarded new reps and championed
a need for on outbound sales team
for Namely. After seven months of
outbound prospecting and building a
solid sales funnel for the company, he
was promoted to Manager of Inside
Sales.

Chris Flores
Manager of
Inside Sales
Namely is the leading end-to-end HR and
payroll platform for growing companies and is
used by some of the worlds most innovative
companies in technology, media and commerce.

Offices
New York, NY
Company Size

51 - 200 employees

SDR Team
7

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Outreach Strategies for SDRs

As youre building your SDR team, its important to establish a solid set of tools that
will enable your reps to work smarter and more efficiently.
In a Sales Development study conducted by TOPO, of the 70 polled B2B companies
with an aggregate revenue of $11.7B,The
final crucial factor to the most successful
Sales Development organizations is
technology. We {TOPO] have found a
sales-development-specific tech[nology]
stack emerge. SDR teams build this
stack level by level as their organization
matures.
TOPO suggests that every Level 1 SDR team must put in place a technology stack
that consists of a CRM, LinkedIn, a phone system, sales-centric email tools and data
tools.

Technology isnt everythingyou will need to develop your sales strategy and tactics
supported by outbound best practices.
Email is still as popular as ever. But, canned responses are a thing of the past.
Instead, give your SDRs the right practices to do their job. Whether its building a
support system, peer to peer reviews or internal role playsfind what works for your
team.

Sales Reps as Mini-Marketers

For years, Marketing has utilized the power of campaigns. Its time for sales to get
on board. Think of your SDRs as mini-marketers with a specific outreach mission to
educate their prospects about your company.
With outbound prospecting, its going to take a certain number of touches and
conversations to reach a prospect. Some teams do all of this manually. But, theres a

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better way. Instead, you can use technology to your teams advantage and automate
the process without jeopardizing personalization.
Multiple personal touches at scale is what will amp up your teams productivity
and put you in touch with more prospects
faster. With a simple framework, called the
5x5 Method, your SDR team can maintain
a consistent cadence of conversation with
their prospects.
The prospect is always at the center of
your 5x5 Method. Train your SDRs to think
about what your prospects care about, and
then center your messaging on how your
company can add value. Whether each
email is spaced five days, weeks or months apartit builds trust and establishes an
ongoing relationship with prospects.
Sending relevant and spaced out emails over time, so were not sending a prospect
the same type of email every two days, is extremely important in our follow-up
strategy, said Chris Calkin of Tune.
Setting up your 5x5 campaign on ToutApp is simple. With the Email Automation
product feature, SDRs will be able to set up their chain of five connected emails to
any group of prospects. Each email within their 5x5 campaign can be tailored based
on the interests of their prospects.

The Right Messaging

As ubiquitous as email is, it still holds a

lot of mystery. Studies show that 20% 40% of the 182B+ emails sent out every
day are actually opened. Clearly you
need to break through the clutter so that
your SDRs emails are opened. Start with
a catchy, short and informative subject
line. The body of your email is where
you become more personal and add
value. Remember, keep it short, because
simplicity drives curiosity.

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Never Send a Blind Email

Email tracking is a valuable way to instantly increase your teams productivity. It lets
you see when someone opens your email, clicks on a link you sent him or views the
sales collateral that you attached.
With the ToutApp Live Feed that offers real-time email and activity tracking, SDRs
wont be going into their prospecting efforts blind.
Once an SDR has crafted the perfect
message, designed his 5x5 Method
and sent out tracked emails, the next
step is prioritizing his leads. With a
tool like ToutApps Lead Prioritization,
the SDR can get a list of his most
engaged prospects based on results
from email tracking.
A data-driven list of where an SDR
should allocate his time is a valuable
asset. It tells an SDR if his messaging
is engaging, gives him a better
understanding of his prospects and
how to authentically communicate
with them.
The beauty of our job as sales reps
is that it never stops. Theres always
more companies to find. Just stay
hungry and keep thinking about
the long term, said Chris Flores of
Namely.

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In Conclusion
Sales Development isnt a trend. Its the future of sales and is a key component of
kick-ass sales teams.
More and more fast-growing companies have adopted the Sales Development role as
a strategic asset for their sales teams. Now, many larger companies are taking notice
and adopting their own Sales Development teams.
The SDR isnt just an entry-level sales role or a junior sales rep. He is a distinct
strategic and competitive advantage for any ambitious sales team.

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The 5 Item SDR Checklist

Youve read all about SDRs; now its time to start assembling your awesome team.
Heres a 5 item SDR checklist to get you started:

1. Define an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

This makes your sales strategy tangible and ensures that everyone on the team has the same
understanding of the end goal.
Determine your buyer personas
What kinds of titles should your SDRs talk to?
What are their specific needs?
Use a database (Crunchbase, NASDAQ, NYSE, Fortune 1000) to understand
key characteristics of your customers (location, industry and employees)
Filter the database with your newfound customer characteristics to arrive at a
list of targeted companies
Determine the opportunity size of the target company in order to prioritize
outreach

2. Develop Account Territories

Based on your Ideal Customer Profile, compile a list of account territories for your SDRs/
AEs. This ensures that you wont have multiple reps going after the same target.
Size and distribute the territories across the SDR team so that everyone has
an equal piece of the pie

3. Write an SDR Playbook

Ask your first SDR hires to iterate on the playbook, as theyre the ones doing the role every
day.
The SDR Playbook should be no more than 3 - 5 pages and is a living document that should be updated often
The playbook should provide an introduction to your CRM, your companys
product, the Ideal Customer Profile and customer testimonials
Continue to test and update the playbook as your team grows

4. Determine an SDR Compensation Plan

On average, the annual SDR base salary is $46k. However, that average fluctuates based
on your company, location, experience and performance measurement.
Experience: Reps with less than a years experience earn less than reps with
more experience
Location: Base salary changes with varying costs of living in different cities

5. Start hiring

Work with a recruiting agency, or post a job description on your website or on job boards.
Network: Go to recruiting events and promote via social media and your
social networks
Interview: Phone screen and interview promising candidates

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SDR EDITION
Increase connects and book more meetings by catching prospects at the right time
with the power of email tracking, templates and analytics.

Catch Prospects at the Right Time

Prospect efficiently with complete visibility in
your outreach
Go after the right targets based on who is
most engaged
Know exactly when to follow up and take
immediate action

Accelerate Your Outreach

Increase productivity while maintaining
a personal touch with your prospects
Measure and improve messaging using
real-time data that tells you what works
Tailor each email to your prospects needs

Spend More Time Selling

Streamline your outreach and eliminate
administrative tasks
Book meetings faster by auto-inserting
calendar times into emails
Build customized lead, contact and account
lists seamlessly with two-click sync from
Salesforce

SDR Edition: Features

Email website, presentation tracking
Real-time Live Feed
Customized templates
Lead Prioritization

Calendar sync and scheduling

Scheduled emails
Engagement data with CRM
Personalized group emailing

about ToutApp
ToutApp helps sales teams streamline communications to prospect, book meetings
and close more deals. ToutApps robust email tracking, templates and analytics help
sales teams increase overall engagement throughout the sales process. Founded in
2011, ToutApp has more than 80,000 salespeople using its platform, with enterprise
customers including Atlassian, Dropbox, Optimizely, Jive, Namely and more.

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References
Dixon, Matthew, and Brent Adamson. The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of
the Customer Conversation. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2011. Print.
Gonzalez, Bryan. TOPO. Sales Development Council #3., Nov 2014. PDF.
The Bridge Group, Inc. Sales Development Rep (SDR) 2014 Metrics & Compensation,
2014. PDF.

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