top of page

Why SDR Teams Die

Why SDR Teams Die.png

Summary

In the last few years, more companies than ever have decided to eliminate their SDR teams. While it’s always tragic whenever it happens, there's an underlying reason for everything in business.

Knowing the “why” of this failure is a deep fascination of mine, since I know how powerful a well run SDR team can be. When it’s done right, the SDR model can be a big contributor to your pipeline efforts and take large amounts of pressure off your AEs and marketing. But when done wrong, it’s a cash (and reputation) burning machine.

From speaking with revenue leaders across the software industry, there are 3 common points of failure that I’ve identified:
 

  1. Bad Unit Economics

  2. Lack Of True Customer Understanding

  3. Hiring The Wrong People


In this article, we’ll go in-depth into each failure point, discuss why it matters, and lay out a detailed plan on how to turn the tide.

Disclaimer.

We’ve talked about this before and this goes without saying, but you have to have the foundations of a healthy GTM motion before SDR can truly work for you.

I have never seen the SDR model work before these three markers were checked off:

MARKER Product Market Fit

Your product is well-aligned with the needs of your target customer, validated through paying users, market demand, and a stable / increasing ACV. You solve real problems for your customers and have a clear place in the market.

MARKER Message Market Fit


Your message resonates, and prospects are willing to engage and enter your sales funnel.

MARKER Successfully Sold Beyond Founder-Led Sales


You’ve scaled your sales process beyond founder-led sales, with at least two AE consistently hitting quota. This shows that your sales process is replicable and not solely dependent on the founder's unique skills or relationships.

Point Of Failure #1: Bad Unit Economics

MEANING Your ACV, sourced revenue per SDR, and total SDR program cost were out of sync.

​

WHY IT MATTERS You can’t run an unprofitable SDR team. Sales development orgs have hemorrhaged money over the last 2 years, leading to record layoffs.

This can only be fixed in one of two ways.​

Decrease SDR OTE & SDR Program Cost

The quickest and easiest way to tilt the unit economic scale in your favor is lower the OTE (On-Target-Earnings) of your SDR team.

If you’re paying well above market and there’s a clear imbalance between pay and results, this can work.. minimally.

Here are the downsides of this approach:
 

The other, and more favored method is to increase SDR sourced revenue. Here's how.

OUTCOME: INCREASE OUTBOUND BOOKINGS

Increase Connect Rate

  • Time Zone Ranking

    • Rank the time zones you call for each hour of the business day. See an example here.

  • Phone Deliverability / Spam Testing

    • Call your personal phone from the number you use for cold calling to ensure that your phone number isn’t showing up as “spam likely”.

  • Phone Validation Services

    • There are great platforms on the market today, like Phone Ready Leads, that validate phone data and identify the numbers with the highest likelihood to answer.

Increate Call Connect To Conversation Rate

We define a "conversation" as a call with a duration 3 minutes or more.

Increase Conversation To Meeting Rate

  • Nail The First 30 Seconds

    • Deliver a short, concise & impactful message in the first 30 seconds that gets your prospect’s attention and resonates with their pain points.

  • Ask The Right Questions

    • Ask open ended, thought provoking questions that gets your prospect thinking and opening up about their challenges (which extends the conversation).

  • Social Proof

    • Share stories about how you’ve helped other companies achieve similar results (even better if it's a company the prospect knows and trusts).

  • Presence & Authority

    • Speak with presence and a sense of authority. Use language, tonality, and wording that projects power and confidence.

  • Human Touch

    • Most importantly, don’t forget to be human. If you sound robotic or like a scammer, you’ll get hung up on and won’t have the opportunity to do any of the actions listed above.

  • Nailing The 30 Second Pitch

    • After the intro, share a 30 second, compelling message of what you do, why it matters, and the results you can deliver. End with an open-ended question to understand how your prospect could benefit from a similar solution.

  • Recommend, Don’t Ask

    • Recommend a meeting with your account executive as the next step, based on the pain you’ve gathered on the call.

Improve Email Deliverability

Increase Email Open Rate

Increase Email Reply Rate

  • Proper Inbox Setup

    • Half the battle of cold email today is reaching the prospect’s inbox, so technical setup of your mailboxes and having a strategy is critical.

  • Improve Your Subject Line

    • Write a short, non-salesly, “internal looking” subject line that gets the prospect to open your email.

  • Improving The First Line In Your Email

    • Along with the subject line, the prospect will also be able to see the “preview text”, or the first line within the email before opening it, make sure it’s relevant and attention grabbing.

  • Address Pain

    • Highlight a real challenge likely faced by your persona, based on your research and knowledge of the customer profile.

  • Personalization & Relevance

    • Personalize your message with relevant details about the company and persona. Here are a few examples:

      • Headcount Growth

      • Persona Role & Responsibilities

      • New Product

      • New Executive

      • Internal Promotion

      • Industry Shifts + Trends

  • Easy CTA

    • End your emails with an easy to reply to, interest based call-to-action.

Increase Email Reply to Meeting

  • Timing

    • You can do everything right listed above and not book a meeting.. and the reason for it is often timing. Most of your prospects aren’t currently in the market looking for you.

    • Even if you have a great product and messaging, the prospect might not want to meet if it’s not a priority right now.

OUTCOME: INCREASE COMPLETED MEETINGS

Increase Meeting Show Rate

  • 48 Hour Rule

    • Whenever possible, set up the meeting within 48 hours of the cold call.

  • Uncover Real Pain

    • Your prospect will only show up to the appointment if they believe the problem you’re solving is worth their time. This can only be done by uncovering real, action provoking pain.

  • Recap Email w/ Video

    • Send an email recap of the call, along with a short video on what to expect during the meeting.

  • Text Reminders

    • Send a text reminder 24 hours, and one hour before the start of the meeting.

OUTCOME: INCREASE REVENUE

Increase Close Rate

  • Include The Right People

    • If you have at least one, or even better, all of the decision makers in the meeting, it increases the likelihood of the deal closing.

    • Note: This isn’t always possible, especially for enterprise level opportunities.

  • Know the DM Process

    • Have a deep understanding of how decisions are made within the company, the steps involved, and the role your contact plays in the process.

  • Verify Timing & Timeline

    • Ask questions that uncover what’s happening inside of the prospect’s organization. The purpose is to find out if your solution aligns with the outcomes they want to drive today.

Increase ACV (Average Contract Value)

  • Target Higher

    • Target companies with a higher employee size and/or annual revenue amount.

  • Qualify Upsell and Expansion Opportunities

    • Ask questions during the cold call that uncover additional product opportunities and more potential seats (for ex. An adjacent department or sister company).

Point Of Failure #2: Lack Of Customer Understanding

MEANING You weren’t in tune with the true needs / pains of your target customer. You can sometimes get away with this on inbound leads, but not with outbound due to the thin margin of error.

WHY IT MATTERS If you’re not in tune with what the customer wants, your message won’t resonate and you’ll start to see a significant drop in all of your conversion rates.

Below, we’ve listed everything your SDRs need to know about your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)

Firmographic Profile.

Firmographics are the basic details about a company that help you understand if they fit your target market. This includes things like industry, company size, location, and revenue.

Top Challenges They Face.

These are the pain points and problems that your product can solve. By knowing what keeps your prospects up at night, you can position your solution as the answer to their problems. This makes your message more compelling and relevant.

Top Personas Within Your ICP.

Knowing the top personas within your target companies means understanding the key decision-makers and influencers. These could be roles like the CFO, Head of Sales, or IT Director. It's also important to know if they are "above the line" (executive level personas who can make decisions) or "below the line" (managerial or operational level who cannot make decisions). This distinction helps to address their specific pains at different authority levels.

Technographic Profile.

Technographics refer to the technology stack that your target companies are using. This includes the software, hardware, and other tech tools they rely on. Understanding their tech environment can help you highlight how your solution integrates with or enhances their existing systems.

Psychographic Profile.

Psychographics are about understanding the attitudes, interests, and values of your target customers. This is more about their mindset and how they approach business problems. Knowing this helps you craft messages that resonate on a deeper level, aligning your solution with their broader goals and values.

Point Of Failure #3: Wrong People

What it means: You didn’t have the right leader and/or individual contributors in place to win. Many times it’s not the person, but how well they fit your company and the stage of your SDR program.

To illustrate how to solve this and why it’s important, here’s an excerpt from our guide: “How To Source & Hire Elite SDRs”

Choosing The Right Persona.

A common mistake made by companies building the SDR function is hiring the wrong persona, or failing to identify the SDR persona that will fit their unique situation.

Many popular voices in the SDR consulting world recommend hiring young, inexperienced candidates with little job experience and business acumen. While this may work for some, it typically leads to high turnover for companies without a mature, repeatable SDR motion.

We’ve found that there are three types of SDRs on the market, and who you’ll need to hire today is highly dependent on the stage of your SDR program.

SDR PERSONA 1 "The Trailblazer"

The Trailblazer is experienced, has an entrepreneurial spirit and a high tolerance for risk..hire them at the onset of building your SDR team. In addition to their core job, have your Trailblazers work alongside sales leadership to build the SDR role foundations + baseline playbook.

SDR PERSONA 2 "The Enhancer"


The Enhancer is process oriented and enjoys taking the unorganized and making it “scale-ready”. Once you have a solid SDR foundation, hire Enhancers to make it repeatable through trial & error, testing and documentation.

SDR PERSONA 3 "The Executor"


The Executor’s job is to follow a proven, repeatable SDR process. Only hire them once you’re REALLY established. As long as they’re coachable and provided with great initial onboarding, they won’t need prior experience to be successful at your company.

SDR Persona Matrix.​

SDR Hiring Personas (Jay Glenn Agency) (1).png

Intrinsic Qualities.

 

No matter the stage of your SDR program, the intrinsic qualities don’t really change. Here are the top ones we look for based on observing hundreds of successful (and non successful) SDR hires:

 

  • Hungry with a strong “Why”

  • Has a hunter’s mentality

  • Coachable

  • Independent

  • Analytical

  • Resilient

  • Empathetic

  • Curious

  • Adaptable

  • Organized

 

For companies with newer SDR programs looking to hire “Trailblazers”, you may want to overemphasize on the following intrinsic qualities:

 

  • Entrepreneurial

  • Creative

  • Ability to handle high pressure

CONCLUSION

Thanks For Reading.

While this article is geared towards existing SDR teams and those who’ve yet to start one, use it as a point of reference if you’ve already cut your SDR team. By figuring out where you fell short, and you’re well on your way to a viable SDR program.
​

If you're looking for guidance as you scale your SDR team, feel free to check out our resource center or solutions page to learn how we approach client engagements.

bottom of page