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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Outbound Business Development Representative

💰 $50,000 - $90,000 (Base) + On-Target Earnings (OTE)

SalesBusiness DevelopmentB2BSaaSOutbound

🎯 Role Definition

The Outbound Business Development Representative (BDR) is an early-stage revenue driver focused on creating and qualifying pipeline through proactive outbound prospecting. This role combines research, multi-channel outreach (cold calls, personalized email, LinkedIn/social selling), and consultative discovery to identify qualified opportunities. The BDR partners closely with Account Executives, marketing, and customer success to ensure a smooth handoff of validated, sales-ready leads while consistently meeting activity and conversion KPIs.

This role is ideal for goal-oriented professionals looking to accelerate a career in sales, particularly within SaaS, technology, or B2B services.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Sales Development Representative (SDR)
  • Inside Sales Representative
  • Customer Success or Account Coordinator transitioning to outbound sales

Advancement To:

  • Account Executive (AE) — closing role with quota responsibility
  • Senior BDR / Team Lead (managing a team of BDRs)
  • Sales Manager / Director of Business Development

Lateral Moves:

  • Sales Operations or Revenue Operations (data-driven roles)
  • Customer Success or Solutions Engineering (technical or post-sale roles)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Develop and execute targeted outbound prospecting campaigns to build a consistent pipeline of qualified opportunities for Account Executives, using a mix of cold calling, cold email outreach, LinkedIn messaging and social selling tailored to buyer personas and verticals.
  • Research and map prospect accounts by identifying key stakeholders, org charts, business priorities, revenue drivers and potential use cases to create highly personalized outreach that drives response rates.
  • Qualify inbound and outbound leads through structured discovery conversations using frameworks like BANT, MEDDIC-lite, or CHAMP to assess fit, budget, timeline and decision-making authority before advancing to AE.
  • Maintain a high-volume activity level with daily KPIs for dials, emails, LinkedIn touches and meetings set, ensuring consistent pipeline growth and predictable handoffs to the sales team.
  • Create, iterate on and document cadences and messaging sequences in sales engagement platforms (Outreach, SalesLoft) to increase open, reply and booked meeting rates while tracking A/B test results.
  • Book and manage discovery and demo appointments for Account Executives, ensuring accurate meeting preparation, context and next steps in CRM to improve conversion from demo to opportunity.
  • Use CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot) to log interactions, update account records, track lead status, and ensure data hygiene so sales leaders can reliably forecast pipeline velocity and deal progress.
  • Collaborate with Marketing to provide feedback on messaging, ideal customer profiles (ICPs), campaign performance, and to request targeted content or account-based marketing assets that enhance outbound effectiveness.
  • Partner with Sales Leadership to prioritize target accounts and territories, align outbound efforts to high-value segments and support quarterly territory planning to maximize revenue potential.
  • Leverage sales intelligence tools (ZoomInfo, Clearbit, LinkedIn Sales Navigator) to enrich contact data, identify intent signals, and create prioritized outreach lists for targeted campaigns.
  • Conduct discovery calls to uncover pain points, current solutions, budgets, and decision-making timelines, and craft a clear value proposition that aligns product capabilities to prospect needs.
  • Track and analyze outreach metrics (reply rates, conversion rates, meetings-to-opportunity ratios) to continuously optimize messaging, timing and channel mix for improved performance.
  • Collaborate with AEs on opportunity qualification criteria, ensuring seamless and timely handoffs with contextual notes, key decision-makers identified and next-step agreements to accelerate the sales cycle.
  • Execute account-based outbound plays for named accounts, coordinating multi-touch, multi-channel outreach with cross-functional partners when necessary for high-value targets.
  • Manage lead routing and follow-up SLAs to ensure leads are contacted quickly and consistently; escalate hot prospects to AEs or leadership when timing and fit meet agreed thresholds.
  • Deliver compelling prospect value propositions and tailored demo previews to secure stakeholder engagement from technical and executive audiences.
  • Maintain a thorough understanding of product capabilities, competitive positioning and industry trends to address objections, differentiate the product and inform product/marketing teams on market feedback.
  • Attend and represent the company at industry events, webinars and virtual conferences to build relationships, scout new prospects and expand the outbound pipeline.
  • Participate in regular sales training, role plays and coaching sessions to sharpen objection handling, qualifying questions, negotiation skills and messaging effectiveness.
  • Collaborate with Sales Operations to refine reporting, incentive structures and territory design; provide input on forecasting reliability and quota setting based on pipeline data and external market signals.
  • Manage outbound prospect lists and sequences with a disciplined focus on quality over quantity — focusing on high-potential accounts, prioritized personas and repeatable plays that scale.
  • Prepare and present weekly status updates on outreach performance, pipeline movement and deal progression to Sales Leadership, suggesting tactical adjustments to reach quarterly goals.
  • Ensure compliance with data privacy laws and best practices (CAN-SPAM, GDPR) in all outbound communications and list management activities.

Secondary Functions

  • Support cross-functional go-to-market initiatives by providing prospecting insights, ideal customer profile refinements and early-market feedback to product and marketing teams.
  • Assist in ad-hoc market research projects and competitive analyses to identify emerging trends and sales opportunities.
  • Help maintain and improve knowledge base articles and playbooks for common objection responses, vertical messaging and use case templates.
  • Participate in pilot programs for new outreach technologies, sales productivity tools and automation features to increase team efficiency.
  • Provide mentorship to junior BDRs and new hires by sharing best practices, voicemail scripts, and template sequences that have demonstrated high conversion.
  • Coordinate with Customer Success to ensure a clean handover of customers sourced via outbound motion, tracking early adoption indicators and risk signals.
  • Participate in weekly pipeline reviews and grooming sessions to help prioritize follow-up and re-qualification of aging leads.
  • Contribute to quarterly planning by suggesting territory adjustments, target lists and new verticals based on prospecting success and market feedback.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Expert use of CRM platforms such as Salesforce, HubSpot or Microsoft Dynamics for logging activities, pipeline updates and forecasting.
  • Proficiency with Sales Engagement platforms like Outreach, SalesLoft or Groove to design, execute and optimize multi-touch cadences.
  • Experience with prospecting and data enrichment tools (LinkedIn Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo, Clearbit, Apollo) for account research and list building.
  • Strong cold calling and cold emailing skills with demonstrated ability to secure qualified meetings and convert prospects into opportunities.
  • Familiarity with lead qualification frameworks (BANT, MEDDIC-lite, CHAMP) and the ability to apply them consistently in discovery conversations.
  • Ability to use analytics and reporting tools (Salesforce reports, HubSpot dashboards, Excel/Google Sheets) to measure campaign performance and forecast pipeline health.
  • Competence in building and maintaining accurate contact and account data, segmentation and territory lists for targeted outreach.
  • Basic understanding of SaaS business models, subscription pricing, and sales cycle stages common to B2B software sales.
  • Experience using collaboration tools (Slack, Zoom, Google Workspace/Microsoft Office) to coordinate with AEs, marketing and operations.
  • Comfortable with sales automation, sequence personalization at scale, and A/B testing of messages and subject lines.

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional verbal and written communication: concise, persuasive messaging adapted to executive and product users.
  • Strong active listening and consultative questioning skills to uncover prospect pain, priorities and buying signals.
  • High resilience and grit: comfortable with high-volume outreach and rapid rejection while maintaining motivation and drive.
  • Coachability and strong growth mindset; receptive to feedback and able to rapidly incorporate coaching into daily practice.
  • Time management and organizational discipline to manage large prospect lists, follow-up cadences and shifting priorities.
  • Problem-solving orientation: able to troubleshoot prospect objections, find creative entry points and craft tailored value propositions.
  • Emotional intelligence and diplomacy to build rapport with diverse stakeholders across technical and executive levels.
  • Team collaboration and accountability — reliable in cross-functional handoffs, documentation and shared goals.
  • Results-driven focus with strong desire to hit and exceed activity and pipeline targets.
  • Analytical mindset — uses metrics to optimize personal outreach, iterate on messaging, and prioritize highest-impact activities.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Associate degree or equivalent; strong preference for Bachelor’s degree.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Economics, Information Systems, or related field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Business Administration
  • Marketing or Communications
  • Economics or Finance
  • Computer Science or Information Systems (for technical products)
  • Sales/Entrepreneurship programs

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 0–3 years in sales or business development (often 1–2 years for outbound-focused roles)

Preferred:

  • 1–3 years of demonstrated success in outbound prospecting, quota-driven sales development, or inside sales — preferably in B2B SaaS, technology or professional services.
  • Proven track record of booking qualified meetings, meeting activity KPIs and contributing to pipeline growth.
  • Experience working with CRM and sales engagement technology, and familiarity with account-based selling strategies.
  • Prior experience in a high-growth startup or scale-up environment is a plus, as is demonstrated ability to adapt processes as the organization scales.
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