Meet: Sales Development Representative
After a company has a great product, they still need to get it into the hands of customers. Sales teams are a key part of that effort – especially at B2B companies.
The structure of a sales team typically depends on the total cost of the product, and whether a company is B2B vs B2C (want a reminder on that? Take a look in our FAQs). Simply put, the bigger the price tag of the product for a customer, the more that a company can spend on building out a sales team to make that happen.
Sales organizations can be complex and have a wide variety of roles, so we’re focusing here on the role that is typically the entry point to a career in a sales organization: the sales development representative.
This role is a mix of figuring out the right customer to target, qualifying leads to know if they are a potential customer, and ultimately working with a salesperson or Account Executive to convert them to a paying customer.
A job in sales can be a great entry point to a career in technology because there is usually a clear career development pathway. As you become more sophisticated and deeply understand the product and customer, you can take on increasingly complex and high-value sales targets, and compensation can grow significantly.
It is important to call out here that compared to other roles, jobs in a sales team have more variable compensation tied to the amount of sales or revenue they generate. This is riskier than an operations or customer support job from a compensation perspective, but also comes with higher upside if you do well.
Who hires a lot in this function:
→ B2B software companies
What's it like?
You'll love it if
→ You have an outgoing personality and enjoy connecting with new people
→ You enjoy working closely with the end customers of a product
You'll hate it if
→ The thought of phone calls with strangers freaks you out
→ You are uncomfortable promoting a product
Sample role
Sales Development Representative
Responsibilities
→ Achieving monthly individual direct sales target
→ Successful completion of any outbound campaigns via email and LinkedIn that are launched from time to time.
→ Qualify all sales leads based upon lead qualification criteria definitions.
→ Ensure customer follow-up all the time.
→ Make outbound customer calls to promote and sell a product or service.
→ Managing online events, webinars, etc.
The nitty gritty
Tools
In this role you’re likely to use a number of sales-focused tools like Salesforce, HubSpot and Outreach to track and organize your contacts.
Your time
On a typical day you will likely spend 80% of your time on sales interactions and 20% analyzing and reporting your learnings.
The job ladder
Entry level
Sales Development Representative
Sales Associate
Business Development Associate
Requires
Identifying likely sales prospects; cold calling prospective leads; presenting sales materials
Intermediate
Account executive
Sales Manager
Requires
Selling higher value customers or contracts; delivering product demonstrations to buyers; overseeing and directing sales teams
High level
Head of Sales
Chief Revenue Officer
Requires
People management; strategy and planning for the sales team; building sales strategy; identifying the tools and people needed to grow
Spotlight
Allison Bryson
Allison Bryson works in sales at DocuSign. But that wasn't where it started. She began her career with stints in grassroots voter organization and tradeshow marketing. When she transitioned into tech her goal was to find a career ladder that was people-focused and could lead to quick growth. Today, she is a market development representative at DocuSign where she identifies and pursues potential customers to grow the business. She helps shape the strategy for customer acquisition–which is a key objective for the company.
Allison's career path
→ Started off with stints at a political non-profit that supports progressive youth-centric policy
→ Did a stint in tradeshow marketing
→ Got into tech sales with a real estate focus at HomeAdvisors
→ Helped develop the Sales Development (SDR) function at real estate startup Loftium
→ Scaled up her sales skill at DocuSign
How did you break into technology?
“In my first roles I had lots of varied responsibilities. That included a mix of facilities work, but also tasks that required me to build spreadsheets and complete analysis.
When I decided I wanted to make the leap to a technology job, the key for me was emphasizing on the skills that are common from my early experience. The biggest thing was problem solving. Even though I didn’t have direct experience in tech, I was able to describe myself as a good problem solver in high stakes situation.”
More resources
We recommend reading "How to succeed in sales development as a complete newbie"
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