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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Business Development Representative Internship

💰 $15 - $25 / hour

SalesBusiness DevelopmentInternshipSaaSRevenue

🎯 Role Definition

The Business Development Representative (BDR) Intern is an early-career sales role focused on top-of-funnel growth. The intern will research target accounts, conduct outbound outreach (cold calls, emails, LinkedIn), qualify inbound leads, manage and update CRM records, and partner with sales and marketing to convert prospects into qualified opportunities. This role is highly metrics-driven, coachable, and suited for candidates who want real-world experience in sales operations, pipeline generation, and customer discovery within a fast-paced SaaS or B2B environment.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Sales, Marketing, or Business Internships (campus sales rep, marketing intern)
  • Customer Success or Support Internships where cross-sell/up-sell was exposure
  • Campus organizations or entrepreneurship programs with outbound exposure

Advancement To:

  • Full-time Business Development Representative / Sales Development Representative (SDR)
  • Account Executive (AE) — closing role after pipeline mastery
  • Revenue Operations Analyst or Sales Operations Specialist
  • Sales Manager / Team Lead with consistent quota attainment

Lateral Moves:

  • Customer Success Representative
  • Marketing Specialist (demand generation)
  • Product Specialist or Solutions Consultant

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Conduct high-volume outbound prospecting across phone, email, and social channels to identify and engage decision-makers at target accounts; achieve weekly call, email, and LinkedIn activity KPIs to build a consistent sales pipeline.
  • Qualification of inbound and outbound leads using company-defined frameworks (BANT, MEDDIC-lite, CHAMP), documenting buyer intent, budget, timeline, and decision criteria in the CRM to ensure sales-ready handoffs.
  • Research and build targeted lists using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, company websites, industry reports, and prospecting tools; create tailored value propositions for each segment with a focus on pain points and ROI.
  • Maintain accurate and up-to-date contact and opportunity information in the CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot or equivalent), including activity logs, call notes, email threads, and next steps to support forecast accuracy and sales continuity.
  • Execute multi-touch outreach cadences using automation platforms (Outreach, SalesLoft, HubSpot sequences), A/B test subject lines and messaging, and analyze open/reply rates to iterate and improve conversion performance.
  • Collaborate with marketing to align on campaign messaging, share prospect feedback, and recommend content or collateral (case studies, one-pagers) that accelerates buyer interest and shortens sales cycles.
  • Book qualified discovery/demo meetings for Account Executives by using consultative questioning to uncover immediate challenges and aligning solutions to the prospect’s objectives.
  • Participate in regular coaching sessions, role-plays, and call reviews with sales leadership to rapidly develop objection-handling, negotiation basics, and product positioning skills.
  • Track personal and team metrics (calls, emails, meetings set, SQLs) and contribute to weekly pipeline reviews; proactively identify trends and recommend adjustments to outreach strategy.
  • Use CRM reporting and dashboards to monitor lead aging, conversion rates, and campaign effectiveness; flag data quality issues and participate in regular data cleanup efforts.
  • Support A/B testing of messaging and outreach sequences by creating hypothesis-driven experiments and reporting results to sales ops and leadership.
  • Assist with account-based prospecting efforts by coordinating targeted outreach to named accounts, personalizing messaging for multiple stakeholders, and tracking engagement across channels.
  • Shadow discovery calls and product demos led by Account Executives to learn qualification techniques, product positioning, and typical buyer objections; synthesize learnings into playbook updates.
  • Help create and maintain a repository of objection responses, battle cards, and competitor insights to improve team-wide response consistency and speed.
  • Qualify renewals or upsell leads handed off from Customer Success, ensuring opportunities are routed to the correct Sales or AE resource and that handoff notes capture relevant context.
  • Participate in weekly standups and cross-functional meetings (marketing, product, customer success) to surface market feedback and competitive intelligence that informs product and GTM strategy.
  • Perform market segmentation and ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) refinement by analyzing outreach performance and identifying verticals, company sizes, and roles with the highest engagement.
  • Support event outreach and follow-up (webinars, trade shows, campus events) by contacting attendees, logging interactions, and scheduling follow-up demos for interested prospects.
  • Manage and prioritize a book of prospects with a focus on timely follow-ups, nurturing cadences, and lifecycle stage progression to avoid lead leakage.
  • Create clear, professional, and persuasive outreach templates and cadences; maintain a balance of personalization and scale to increase reply and meeting rates.
  • Assist Sales Operations with CRM migrations, field mapping, and documentation updates to ensure seamless adoption of new sales tools and processes.
  • Conduct competitive research and document feature/price comparisons, win/loss analysis, and typical buyer objections to inform product messaging and sales tactics.
  • Monitor and report on outbound campaign performance and KPI attainment to stakeholders, recommending optimizations based on data-driven insights and conversion funnel analysis.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc prospecting projects and special campaigns (e.g., industry blitzes, partner co-marketing outreach).
  • Assist with sales collateral creation and version control (one-pagers, case studies, email templates) in collaboration with marketing.
  • Contribute to weekly forecasting by validating prospect status and updating deal stages in the CRM.
  • Help maintain clean data hygiene — deduplication, enrichment, and validation of contacts and accounts.
  • Participate in cross-functional projects to translate market feedback into product or process improvements.
  • Contribute to internship program retrospectives and training material to improve future cohorts’ ramp time.
  • Provide administrative support for the sales team, including scheduling, meeting prep, and follow-up documentation.
  • Identify process bottlenecks in the sales funnel and propose practical solutions to streamline workflows.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • CRM proficiency: hands-on experience using Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, or similar CRMs for logging activities, managing outreach sequences, and tracking pipeline.
  • Sales engagement tools: experience or familiarity with Outreach, SalesLoft, Yesware, or HubSpot sequences to run multi-touch cadences and automate follow-up.
  • Prospecting platforms: effective use of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo, Apollo.io, or Clearbit for high-quality list building and contact enrichment.
  • Cold calling and voicemail best practices: ability to deliver concise value-based scripts and leave compelling voicemails that increase callback rates.
  • Cold email writing and A/B testing: craft subject lines and email bodies optimized for open and reply rates; analyze metrics and iterate.
  • Basic analytics and reporting: comfortable using Excel or Google Sheets for data sorting, pivoting, and KPI tracking; familiarity with CRM dashboards.
  • Outreach personalization at scale: using templates, snippets, and dynamic fields to personalize outreach without sacrificing volume.
  • Familiarity with SaaS sales motion and funnel stages (MQL → SQL → Opportunity) and basic metrics (lead conversion rates, CAC, LTV).
  • Calendar and meeting scheduling tools: experience using Calendly, Chili Piper, or integrated CRM scheduling to reduce friction in booking demos.
  • Data hygiene and enrichment workflows: knowledge of best practices for maintaining accurate contact records and preventing duplication.

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional written and verbal communication, with the ability to adapt tone and message for executives, managers, and technical stakeholders.
  • Coachability — eagerness to learn from feedback, iterate quickly, and apply best practices to outreach and qualification.
  • Strong time management and prioritization — manage a high-volume activity target while keeping outreach personalized and follow-ups timely.
  • Resilience and persistence — professional handling of rejection and persistence in multi-touch outreach until a definitive outcome is achieved.
  • Active listening and consultative questioning to uncover pain points, decision-making processes, and buying signals.
  • Critical thinking and problem-solving — ability to diagnose where leads are stalling and suggest pragmatic next steps.
  • Team collaboration — coordinate with marketing, product, and sales teams to align messaging and handoffs.
  • Organizational skills and attention to detail — precise note-taking and accurate CRM updates to enable smooth account transitions.
  • Creativity in messaging — craft novel ways to capture attention in crowded inboxes and busy calendars.
  • Empathy and customer-centric mindset — understand prospect pain points and position solutions respectfully and effectively.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • High school diploma or equivalent; active enrollment in a college/university program or recent graduate preferred.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Communications, Economics, or a related field (in progress or completed).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Business Administration
  • Marketing
  • Communications
  • Economics
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Computer Science or Information Systems (for data-savvy candidates)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 0–2 years (entry-level). Internship or 1+ experience in sales, customer success, marketing, retail sales, or campus organizations preferred.

Preferred:

  • Prior experience in outbound prospecting, cold calling, or inside sales (even part-time or campus roles).
  • Exposure to CRM systems (Salesforce or HubSpot) and basic reporting.
  • Experience with LinkedIn outreach, Sales Navigator, or prospecting tools.
  • Demonstrated ability to meet or exceed activity-based KPIs (calls, emails, meetings booked).

Keywords: Business Development Representative Internship, BDR intern, sales development, lead generation, outbound prospecting, cold calling, CRM, Salesforce, HubSpot, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, SaaS sales internship, pipeline generation, sales cadence, outreach automation, demo booking, qualification, sales operations.

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