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The 4 Core Pillars of Sales Development

People

The foundation of every high-performing sales development function is talent. From hiring and onboarding to ongoing coaching and career development, success begins with having the right people in the right seats. A great SDR team is not just a volume engine. It is a group of curious, coachable, emotionally intelligent professionals who grow into the future leaders of a revenue organization.

Process

World-class sales development organizations operate with clarity. Defined ICPs, outreach cadences, qualification frameworks, and feedback loops remove guesswork and give teams confidence. A strong process shortens ramp time, drives consistency, and enables scalable growth when aligned closely with marketing, sales, and RevOps.

Performance

Sales development thrives on measurement. From top-of-funnel activities like emails, calls, and connects to middle-funnel conversion rates such as meetings, opportunities, and pipeline created, every step must be tracked and optimized. Dashboards, month-over-month trends, and OKRs help identify what is working, what is not, and where to adjust quickly.

Platform

Modern SDR teams are only as effective as the tools they use. A well-integrated tech stack, from CRM and sales engagement platforms to data enrichment and analytics, allows reps to work smarter. Automation drives personalization at scale, while transparent reporting gives visibility from the individual rep all the way up to executive leadership.


What a Good Week Looks Like for an SDR

A good week for an SDR means they have either created new pipeline or advanced existing pipeline in a meaningful way. That could mean booking qualified meetings, moving early-stage leads toward opportunities, or increasing engagement with strategic accounts.

Activity matters, but impact matters more.

A strong week includes:

  • Quality conversations that uncover insights or progress accounts.

  • Positive outcomes like referrals, follow-ups, or re-engagements.

  • Pipeline creation aligned with the company’s ICP and sales objectives.

  • Clean, actionable handoffs to AEs that convert into real revenue.
     

If an SDR is building pipeline, creating momentum, or shaping deals, they are winning the week.

SDR/BDR Processes & Procedures

30-60-90 Framework for SDR Success:
Onboarding & Ramp Plans 

  • Designed repeatable onboarding programs that ramp SDRs quickly and consistently, tailored by region, experience level, and vertical (healthcare, financial services, insurance).

  • Each phase is outcome-driven: 30-day foundational training, 60-day role readiness, 90-day performance accountability.

  • Developed custom 5 step certification process using a milestone-based assessment to promote early wins, build confidence, and get the SDR off to a rocket ship start

Execution Rhythm & Qualification Flow:
Daily Workflows & Funnel Mngmt 

  • Built SDR playbooks to manage daily prospecting volume, territory prioritization, and CRM hygiene.

  • Defined and enforced funnel criteria across MQLs, SALs, SQLs, and Meeting Completions; working closely with Marketing, Sales, and RevOps to ensure alignment.

  • Created dashboard views and real-time reporting to track outreach effectiveness and surface conversion bottlenecks.

Incentives That Drive Pipeline: 
Compensation & Performance Structure

  • Designed SDR compensation plans tied to Meeting Completions, SQLs, and Pipeline Generated, with thresholds that evolve by segment and ramp stage.

  • Integrated custom bonus tiers to reward consistent top-of-funnel contribution, not just volume.

  • Partnered with CRO, CMO, and finance to ensure comp plans aligned with company revenue targets and growth-stage capital expectations.

Cadences by Vertical

Healthcare

*We focus on payers, providers, biopharma, pharmacy, and PBMs.


Outreach strategies are built around regulatory deadlines, member engagement initiatives, and operational strain at Medicaid-managed plans. We poke at the pain and lead with empathy and impact. Whether helping reduce call center load, improve MCAS measures, or drive digital redetermination at scale. Campaigns are sequenced around health equity, CAHPS, and Stars-related priorities, all tailored to CIOs, CMOs, and VPs of Population Health.

Insurance

*We focus on P&C carriers and Life, Accident & Health insurers.

Cadences emphasize speed-to-value and automation at scale for carriers juggling legacy systems and rising member expectations. Our messaging targets digital transformation, claims operations, and stop-loss strategy; delivering proof points, case studies and customer stories that speak to reducing operational costs, improving the companies' digital strategy, underwriting workflows, and call center center automation with agentic AI. Think: fewer broken member experiences, more retained members, and a better brand experience. This is the "Amazon" way!

Financial Services

*We focus on retirement services, regional banks, and commercial banks.

Outreach focuses on reducing service costs and boosting operational agility. Especially for 401(k) providers, annuity platforms, and financial institutions navigating compliance-heavy environments. Our cadences address high-touch account servicing, beneficiary communications, and advisor enablement. We encourage the adoption of the automation definition, "DO MORE WITH LESS," translating AI-powered solutions into measurable efficiency gains and better customer experience.

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Tools Expertise & Tech Stack

  • Cold Calling Philosophy: True leadership isn’t telling your reps to do more, it’s showing them how. I believe in leading from the front: picking up the phone, making the calls, learning from mistakes in real-time, and modeling excellence through action. Cold calling is a skill honed daily, and I’ve built teams where that discipline starts at the top.
     

  • CRM / Automation: Salesforce, RollWorks, 6Sense, Mailchimp, Constant Contact
     

  • Sales Enablement / Prospecting: Outreach, HubSpot, ZoomInfo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, GTM Buddy, Salesloft
     

  • Communication & Collaboration: Slack, DocuSign, Dropbox, Evernote, Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Teams, Board Meeting / Investor Pitch Decks
     

  • Productivity & Office Tools: Microsoft Suite (Excel / Word / PPT), Outlook, Google G-Suite (Gmail / Docs / Sheets / Slides)
     

  • AI / Startups: ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Perplexity, Conversational AI, LLMs, Agentic AI, Product positioning, ICP refinement, GTM strategy
     

  • Power Dialers: Orum, Nooks – leveraged to scale outbound productivity, boost live connects, and keep reps in flow. Enabled teams to sustain high-volume outreach without sacrificing personalization or pacing.

Lead Management:

MQL

SQL Handoff

Meeting SLAs

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SDR/BDR Hunting, Daily Duties & Motivational Framework



Prospect HUNTING

  • The best SDR’s are great at finding people to reach out to. The deeper you can prospect into an account, the more success you will have! Remember the 100-1 Booking metric, that should help motivate you to want to find everyone within our ICP you can to reach out to. 

 

  • The best ways to prospect are through the following channels:

    • LinkedIn - Includes Sales Navigator(This is where your buyers are… Build lists in navigator, take advantage of inmail messages, add prospects to specific lists to enhance data accuracy)

    • ZoomInfo - Find ways to maximize this, go deep into your accounts to hand select folks, play with settings of accuracy, mobile numbers etc. Learn all about how this platform works

    • Outreach - Are there old prospects stuck in a sequence somewhere - Main tool for outbound prospecting

    • Salesforce - MQL List/Campaign Lists - Enhanced lists will provide a great starting point

    • Build Lists - You can always build lists in google sheets, you can build lists in outreach, you can build lists anywhere. (Create a “parking lot” if you need to in Outreach)

    • Closed lost opps: View in SFDC in your customized account dashboard by territory/rep

    • Nooks/Orum: Take advantage of calling in specific timeframes or hours, spend more of your time dialing

 

  • Continue to add prospects on a consistent basis to your outreach plan(daily/weekly/monthly), but the most important thing is to………HAVE A PLAN, prior to coming into work.

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Daily SDR Duties & KPI's Reported 

 

  1. Daily Summary to include (Will send calendar invite for 5 PM CST)

    1. Total Calls: 

    2. Connections: 

    3. Warm Connections: 

    4. Custom emails sent: 

    5. Sequences/Accounts Worked Today:

  2. Weekly summary to include in Lattice or in email 

    1. Number of Intro's(SAL's), SQL's and Ops generated (List name/company/title)

    2. Campaigns In Progress (Include active sequences)

    3. Healthcare GTM Pod Updates

    4. How are you tracking towards your goals

    5. Strategy for next week

  3. SFDC for any booked meetings

  4. Booking a meeting

    1. Confirm email address with prospect and send calendar invite with a zoom link right away

    2. Check SFDC for account owner, slack directly the parties involved a synopsis of your call or email that was responded to. 

    3. If there is no owner in SFDC, post to ROUND ROBIN slack channel, tag myself and Ember Campbell, and ask who the meeting should be assigned to. She will then assign meeting to a Sales Director..(may need to work with prospect if the time does not work for sales director schedule)

    4. Add all parties to the calendar invite

    5. Document information in SFDC

Optimizing Time Activities & Motivational Routine

 

  • Marking phone numbers, green and red

  • Continue putting in notes for prospects(Did you connect with a gatekeeper, did you get a name or information, put that in Outreach)

    • BUILD ON EVERY INTERACTION

    • Disarm & Charm quickly - Have a script, the best closers in the world always know what they are going to say next. The same objection can be handled the same way with every prospect

  • Drive activity daily - hit the phones daily, think of your own interactions with prospects as filling your own pipeline. You are a pipeline going from “that is an ICP company, that is an ideal prospect, now book the meeting to close. 

  • Seek out the resources you need, treat your work like you are running a business. 

  • The SDR role opens the most opportunities for your future and the most doors for your future

  • The MONEY is great, focus on what you can control which is the amount of meetings you book

  • Review your phone calls, learn and understand how you can improve your talk track or next time not get stumped on a certain objection. Always work to improve

  • Game plan every single week, know what you are going to do on each day to build pipeline

  • Have fun, make connections, grow your network, meet new people, market yourself, and lastly….. you’ll never regret leaving it all on the field, you will regret not trying hard enough

  • Hold yourself accountable to your personal performance, your teams goals and the company goals. Remember that all of your inputs and outputs are a reflection of the company and the goals we are trying to accomplish are there to keep our company growth trajectory alive and kicking.
     

Your destiny is in your hands, understand the cascade effect and work backwards from your monthly goal. Am I hitting my SQL goal, then if not, I need more meetings completed, before that I need more meetings booked, and before that I need enough conversations, before that do I have enough contacts to reach out and before that how is my customized messaging aligned. Am I POKING AT THE PAIN, targeting my ICP, etc etc. 

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