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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Sales Development Representative

💰 $ - $

SalesBusiness DevelopmentB2BSaaS

🎯 Role Definition

The Sales Development Representative (SDR) is an early-stage revenue generator tasked with identifying, engaging, and qualifying inbound and outbound leads to build a predictable, high-quality sales pipeline for Account Executives. SDRs use targeted research, personalized outreach across phone, email, and social channels, and qualification frameworks to surface buyer intent, schedule discovery meetings, and maintain accurate CRM records. Success is measured by activity metrics (calls, emails, sequences), conversion rates (lead → meeting), and contribution to pipeline and closed revenue.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Sales Development Representative Intern or Co-op
  • Inside Sales Representative or Telesales Associate
  • Customer Success Associate or Marketing Lead Generation Coordinator

Advancement To:

  • Account Executive / Full Cycle Sales Rep
  • Senior Sales Development Representative / SDR Team Lead
  • Sales Manager or Enterprise SDR
  • Sales Operations or Revenue Enablement Specialist

Lateral Moves:

  • Product Specialist / Sales Engineer (with technical training)
  • Marketing (demand generation or growth)
  • Customer Success (onboarding and account growth)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Proactively generate qualified opportunities by executing high-volume, targeted outbound prospecting campaigns using phone, email, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and multichannel cadences to meet weekly and monthly activity and meeting-setting targets.
  • Manage and respond to inbound leads from marketing campaigns, website forms, paid ads and events; quickly triage, qualify, and route leads to the appropriate sales motions while maintaining SLA response times.
  • Research and build personalized outreach strategies for named accounts and vertical segments by leveraging firmographics, technographics, news, and LinkedIn insights to increase engagement and conversion.
  • Conduct discovery calls that uncover decision-making processes, buying timelines, budgets, and pain points; document qualification details using frameworks such as BANT, MEDDIC-lite, or CHAMP to ensure consistent handoffs.
  • Schedule and coordinate product demo and discovery meetings between qualified prospects and Account Executives, providing context, call objectives, and key background to enable higher close rates.
  • Maintain high-fidelity CRM records (Salesforce, HubSpot, or similar) including activity logs, contact information, lead scoring, opportunity stages and next steps to support accurate pipeline reporting and forecasting.
  • Execute and optimize outbound cadences using sales engagement platforms (SalesLoft, Outreach) with A/B tests on subject lines, messaging, timing, and call scripts to improve reply rates and booked meetings.
  • Use social selling techniques—posting, commenting, and direct messaging on LinkedIn—to increase credibility, expand network connections, and warm prospects before outreach.
  • Collaborate with marketing to provide feedback on content, ICP profiling, and campaign performance to improve lead quality and campaign-to-meeting conversion metrics.
  • Hit and exceed weekly KPIs including dials, conversations, emails sent, response rates, SQLs created, and meetings booked while balancing quantity with personalized outreach quality.
  • Qualify and disqualify leads quickly to protect Account Executives’ time; pass only sales-ready opportunities with clear next steps and decision-maker involvement.
  • Follow up on unresponsive prospects using persistent, pattern-interrupt outreach and re-engagement campaigns while tracking outcomes for continuous improvement.
  • Work closely with Account Executives to refine ideal customer profiles (ICPs), territory definitions, and prioritization criteria based on closed-won feedback and competitive signals.
  • Participate in role-playing, call reviews, and coaching sessions to iterate on scripts, objection-handling techniques, and voice-of-customer messaging that increase meeting conversion rates.
  • Monitor and report on outbound campaign performance and pipeline contribution using dashboards and weekly metrics reviews to drive data-informed process improvements.
  • Support sales enablement by developing and maintaining objection-handling playbooks, call templates, and email sequences that are aligned to buyer personas and stages of the funnel.
  • Identify and escalate strategic or enterprise opportunities that require executive outreach or cross-functional involvement, ensuring a smooth transition to enterprise sales teams.
  • Respect and enforce data privacy and compliance policies in all prospecting activities, including opt-outs, CAN-SPAM, GDPR/CCPA considerations and accurate data handling.
  • Use basic analytics (Excel/Sheets, basic SQL or BI tools) to segment lists, prioritize outreach, and quantify campaign lift or time-to-meeting improvements.
  • Drive outbound efforts for product launches, event follow-ups, and account-based marketing initiatives to accelerate pipeline for target accounts and industries.
  • Maintain competitive and market intelligence for pitch refinement: logging competitor mentions, pricing signals, and differentiators observed during calls.
  • Build and maintain long-term nurturing sequences for prospects that are not sales-ready but match ICP, with the intent of converting them into opportunities over time.
  • Contribute to hiring and onboarding processes by documenting successful playbooks and mentoring new SDR hires to scale what works across the team.
  • Coordinate logistics for prospect meetings including calendar invites, meeting agendas, pre-read materials and meeting follow-ups to maintain a high-quality buyer experience.

Secondary Functions

  • Provide feedback to product and marketing teams on feature requests, customer needs, and market trends gathered during outreach conversations.
  • Assist sales operations with data hygiene projects: deduplicating contacts, enriching records, and tagging accounts for ABM campaigns.
  • Help design and test new outbound workflows, sequences, and messaging variants as part of continuous improvement cycles.
  • Participate in cross-functional projects such as event staffing, webinar follow-ups, and targeted account outreach to maximize event ROI.
  • Support internal reporting efforts by compiling weekly scorecards and contributing qualitative call insights that explain quantitative trends.
  • Collaborate with customer success teams to identify upsell or cross-sell leads discovered during initial outreach.
  • Occasionally create or update case studies, one-pagers, and playbooks used during prospecting to ensure collateral is relevant and compelling.
  • Serve as a point of contact for urgent prospect inquiries outside of normal outreach, coordinating rapid responses with product or technical teams as needed.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • CRM proficiency (Salesforce, HubSpot, or similar): accurate data entry, lead routing, and creating reports/dashboards.
  • Sales engagement platforms experience (Outreach, SalesLoft, Groove) for sequencing, A/B testing, and activity analytics.
  • Cold calling and phone-selling competency, including real-time objection handling and call outcome logging.
  • Email prospecting and copywriting skills: crafting concise, personalized subject lines and outreach emails that drive replies.
  • Social selling with LinkedIn Sales Navigator: advanced search, lead lists, InMail and connection strategies.
  • Familiarity with lead qualification frameworks (BANT, MEDDIC-lite, CHAMP) and applying them to discovery conversations.
  • Basic prospect research and enrichment using firmographic and technographic tools (ZoomInfo, Clearbit, BuiltWith).
  • Familiarity with calendar tools and meeting schedulers (Calendly, Chili Piper) and coordinating multi-party demos.
  • Basic data analysis in Excel/Google Sheets; ability to slice activity and conversion metrics to identify improvements.
  • Experience with dialers and VOIP systems (Aircall, RingCentral) and managing high-volume call lists.
  • Comfortable using analytics dashboards (Looker, Tableau, or Gainsight) to view pipeline contribution and activity performance.
  • Understanding of GDPR/CCPA and email deliverability best practices for compliant outreach.

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional verbal and written communication with ability to tailor messaging to buyer personas and seniority levels.
  • Strong active listening and consultative questioning to uncover needs and surface opportunities quickly.
  • High self-motivation, persistence and resilience—able to handle rejection and maintain activity velocity.
  • Coachability and rapid learning—accepts feedback and iterates on scripts and tactics to improve outcomes.
  • Time management and prioritization—balances cold outreach, follow-ups, and CRM hygiene to maximize productivity.
  • Empathy and relationship-building—focused on creating value for prospects rather than just hitting metrics.
  • Critical thinking and problem-solving with the ability to qualify complex buying situations and escalate appropriately.
  • Team collaboration—works closely with marketing, AEs, and operations to improve shared processes and pipeline health.
  • Attention to detail—accurate note-taking and follow-through to avoid lost opportunities and miscommunication.
  • Adaptability—comfortable in fast-paced, evolving playbooks, and can switch between inbound and outbound motions quickly.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • High school diploma or equivalent. Demonstrated sales aptitude and strong communication skills required.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Psychology, or a related field preferred but not required.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Business Administration
  • Marketing
  • Communications
  • Psychology
  • Economics
  • Information Systems (for technical SDR roles)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 0–3 years in sales, inside sales, customer-facing roles, or relevant internships.

Preferred:

  • 1–2 years of experience in B2B lead generation, tele-sales, inside sales, or SaaS outbound/inbound qualification.
  • Proven track record of meeting activity-based KPIs and booked meetings in a quota-driven environment.
  • Exposure to enterprise or mid-market sales cycles for roles focused on higher ACV accounts.
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