What Does a Tech Sales Development Rep (SDR) Do?

Vaibhav Agrawal
SaaSBee
Published in
2 min readNov 10, 2021

A career in sales has many paths, but each one starts at the same exact place: the SDR role.

An SDR, or Sales Development Representative, is an entry-level sales position. SDRs work with upper-level salespeople — usually, an account executive — to book meetings with best-fit leads for them so that they can close them into customers.

SDRs lay the groundwork for the entire sales process. The leads they source, qualify, and book meetings with turn into the customers that generate their company’s revenue.

What Does an SDR Do?

An SDR’s job is to create a large pipeline, or high quantity, of qualified leads for their account executive (AE).

Usually, this means trying to schedule meetings for the AE with the right people who are interested in your company’s product. If their AE closes one of the leads and turns them into a paying customer, they earn a commission on that sale.

SDRs take on four main responsibilities in order to book as many of these meetings as possible:

Tasks for SDRs —

  1. Qualify inbound leads
  2. Prospect outbound leads
  3. Gauge each lead’s chance of closing
  4. Set up meetings with qualified leads for their AEs to close

What Skills Does an SDR Need?

SDRs spend most of their day researching companies and talking to leads, which means the job requires a mastery of soft skills, not hard ones. With this in mind, you do not need a college degree to become an SDR. But you do need the following:

  1. Emotional Intelligence
  2. Grit
  3. Resiliency
  4. Optimism
  5. Diligence
  6. Verbal communication
  7. Curiosity
  8. Confidence
  9. Coachability

How much do SDRs make?

In India based on data gathered from 25 SaaS Startups, their base salary is between 5–12 LPA, and their variable compensation is between 2–6 LPA.

Take the First Step to Become an SDR

Apply to SaaSBee.tech sales training boot camp. Here you will graduate with practical experience:

  • 100+ emails — Write 100+ cold emails to US & APAC CXOs
  • 1200 minutes — Cold calling 600+ CXOs
  • 200+ voicemails — Record 200+ voicemails
  • 50+ personalization — creatively personalize cold emails
  • 50+ video pitches — Pitch products of top SaaS companies

Read more about tech-sales training boot camp — https://saasbee.tech/

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Vaibhav Agrawal
SaaSBee
Editor for

Talks about #job, #career, #colleges, #education, and #entrepreneurship #tech-sales