How to Successfully Build a Sales Development (SDR) Team

Who are your SDRs? What qualities should they possess? What do they look like? What should they have in common? These types of questions dominate the minds of most Inside Sales or Sales Development leaders. But the harsh reality is, that it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you need an effective strategy that will deliver qualified sales leads to your business or sales team. That sounds simple enough, and the good news is, it is. If this sounds like a challenge you want to take, keep on reading! We’ve got you covered with all the information you’ll need to build a solid SDR team that works!

Sales development is essentially a better way of doing sales – the right mix of personnel, processes, and tech automation. It focuses on finding, connecting, and qualifying leads then transferring them to the sales team for closing. Building a successful inside sales or sales development team is hard. For most startup Sales Development leaders or managers, it’s their first time not only building a team but leading a non-sales function. Obtaining the right mix of people who fit the company culture while also being great at sales development can be difficult. 

Sales Development Reps (SDRs) can play a major role in your company’s ability to close deals. In this article, we’ll take a look at how to build an effective sales development (SDR) team.

Who are the SDRs (Sales Development Representatives)?

SDR stands for “sales development representative” or “sales development rep,” and is the title given to the person building the pipeline for your outbound sales team. Even if you haven’t built an outbound sales team yet, you’re probably already thinking about how you’ll build one. 

An SDR performs three key functions: lead generation, lead qualification, and lead nurturing. The first part of their job is to generate leads by finding new people who might be interested in buying products or services from your company. For the purpose of generating leads, SDRs generally use several B2B lead generation or prospecting tools like ProspectDaddy (Free Linkedin Email Finder), Zoominfo, Crunchbase, Anymail finder, etc. Right from connecting prospects from several websites, and digging deep inside the social media to running cold email campaigns, an SDR does it all. It then qualifies those leads by determining whether they’re viable prospects or not (i.e., whether they have a budget, authority, and interest in making a purchase), this is done by manually reaching out to these prospects via email or Linkedin or using outreach automation tools like SmartReach.io, Outreach.io etc. Finally, once they’ve determined that someone is a good prospect, they’ll need to nurture them over time until they are ready to buy from you.

Key things to keep in mind when assembling a Sales Development (SDR) team

1. Provide a high-level overview of the company and its mission

To build a successful SDR team, you need to start with a clear vision. The first step is to provide a high-level overview of the company and its mission. This can be done by having the CEO or CMO speak about the long-term vision of the organization and then talking about ways that the SDRs will help achieve these long-term goals. As a sales development manager, you should also speak out about the goals and targets that the team carries. 

The next step is to talk about how each member of the team will be able to contribute. This can be as simple as explaining that they will be responsible for reaching out to new prospects and setting up demos for salespeople. Everyone on your team must understand what their role is going to be from day one.

2. Discuss the strategic goals of the team and how their job helps contribute to those goals.

Discuss the strategic goals of the team and how their job helps contribute to those goals. Make sure every member of your SDR team knows what these goals are and how their work contributes to them. If possible, make sure everyone on your team has a clear understanding of what success looks like for your organization. This way, everyone will know what’s expected of them at any given time and how their actions align with those expectations.

3. Describe the day-to-day work environment, including work hours and schedule flexibility.

Work environment: Explain the day-to-day work environment, including work hours and schedule flexibility. If you’re open to candidates who have families or other obligations outside of work, make sure they know it’s OK to talk about those things during interviews.

Compensation model: Make sure every candidate knows what kind of compensation model you use (a commission-based or salary structure) before they come in for an interview. That way, there aren’t any surprises when they’re offered a position and start working at your company.

Team dynamic: Explain how your team works together and what role each person plays within that dynamic. If you have an open floor plan where everyone can see each other all day long, let candidates know this upfront, so they don’t expect privacy or quiet time when they walk into the office for their first day of work.

4. Give an overview of your typical day in sales development, including meetings, calls, emails, research, and so on.

Sales development is a critical part of any organization’s sales process. It’s the function that helps identify and qualify leads and is also responsible for developing relationships with those leads over time.

The best SDRs are highly organized, detail-oriented people who are comfortable working independently but can also thrive in a team environment. They need to be comfortable with technology and software, as well as with their own emotions and those of others. A successful SDR must be willing to learn new skills quickly, be adaptable, and think critically about problems. The most important quality of an SDR is how-to manage rejection (self-motivation)

5. Technical Reliance on SDR

The best SDRs are good at building a pipeline. But they’re also technical experts who can troubleshoot concerns and be your first line of defense against bugs and downtime.

SDRs are responsible for everything from setting up new apps to making sure that customers are using their devices correctly. Because of this, it’s essential to have a support team that’s on the same page as you and provides query resolution to your team whenever required. If you don’t ensure quick query resolution, you’ll never be able to scale your team or grow your business as quickly as you’d like.

6. Showcase Career Growth

As a leader it’s important that your team is aware of the hierarchy and structure of the organisation. SDRs should be reminded of the benefits of consistent performance and the importance of conversions from “sales qualified leads” to an “actual sale”. You should ensure that the SDRs are using automation as much as possible and are adequately trained and certified. 

To sum it up,

When building your SDR team, it’s important to give them a brief overview of what they are going to be doing. That way, they know exactly what they are getting into and how their job will affect the rest of the organization. After you have outlined the basics, follow up with an in-depth discussion of their work and how it will impact your business as a whole. Finally, provide information on typical days in the SDR department so that they can determine if the work environment is right for them.

SmartReach.io can be used by SDR teams as an email automation tool. It’s designed to help users automate the scheduling and sending of personalized emails and follow-ups, improving response rates. SmartReach can assist SDRs in streamlining and automating their follow-ups, and repetitive tasks, and focusing on prospects who have responded to emails.