Roundup: The Importance of SDRs

Brock Benefiel
The Call for Sales Development Reps
Unlock your investor relationships. Try Visible for free for 14 days.
Start your free trial

The Call for Sales Development Reps

Sales development reps (SDR) are an extraordinary tool to help you efficiently scale your startup sales staff. Reallocating some of the early work to SDRs can help experienced account executives focus on closing deals. But despite the value of specialization, a recent survey by Bridge Group revealed that just over half (51%) the companies asked segment inbound qualification and outbound prospecting into separate roles. What are they missing? The Bridge Group listed out four key advantages to specializations:

  1. A more focused, accountable sales force
  2. A well-aligned process to match prospect behavior
  3. Clearly defined career paths in your organization
  4. Role-specific innovations

Of course, not every company will have enough employees to segment its sales staff. In the article, David Skok provided two provided criteria to know when you’re ready to hire a SDR:

  1. There is enough lead flow to make qualifying potential customer a full-time job for SDRs
  2. There is enough budget to hire two SDRs–hiring only one SDR might give you inaccurate view of how effective the role can be for your company

Related Reading: Breaking Down the Nuances of Annual Contract Value (ACV)

When adding SDRs, your return on investment may take an initial dip as the added staff may not be remarkably efficient out of the gate. But even if metrics slide, Conner Burt, Chief Operating Officer at Lesson.ly, said the long-term prospects for SDRs can often be bright for your business. “Your building a bench that you can use to promote SDRs to quota bearing sales people. That’s an intangible benefit.”

Since 2010, there’s been a steady rise in the number of SDRs hired, which has resulted in a drop in the level of experience for the position. The average experience now is 1.3 years. The number of companies that hire SDRs with less than one year of sales experience has quadrupled since 2010.

So ready to hire? While not all organizations are equal, Tomasz Tunguz does recommend having an average contract value (ACV) over $3,000 to justify building out your sales pipeline. Once you’re ready and looking for SDRs, Hubspot has a list of 19 questions for you to ask candidates. Here are some examples of the kind of questions they recommend:

  1. Pretend I’m a potential customer: how would you describe our product?
  2. Why do you want to sell this product?
  3. What would you ask potential leads to determine if they’re qualified?
  4. How would you research a potential customer? What resources would you use?
  5. What do you think will be the most common objections you’ll hear from potential clients?

Lastly, while we’re on the subject of scaling your sales staff, be sure to check out this post from SalesHacker on the topic for further reading.

You may also enjoy:
Product Updates
Shaping the Future: Unveiling Our Brand Refresh
Visible started as a way for founders to update their investors but has since transformed into a purpose-built platform for both founders and investors. Since 2014, we’ve powered over 3M interactions between founders and investors. Our brand refresh represents our commitment to equip founders and the investors who back them. Founders can now manage their investor relationships and capital raises from start to finish. Investors can centralize data, uncover insights, and report to their LPs and stakeholders—all from one place. We are excited to unveil our refreshed brand, marking the beginning of the next decade in our dedication and commitment to founders and investors. Equipping Founders and Investors for Growth Raising capital is fundamentally about building relationships. Founders and investors spend months forging connections that, once solidified by a term sheet, can evolve into partnerships lasting 8 to 10 years and beyond. We set out to highlight the people behind the investments, not just the companies or firms they represent. As we continue to grow, you'll notice more familiar faces from different startups and venture funds featured on our site (👋 Hi Lacey!). Shaping Our Future Across our website and marketing assets, you’ll see 3D shapes floating in the background. While they add aesthetic appeal, they also carry a deeper meaning. For example: We believe raising capital from VCs or LPs closely resembles a fundraising funnel, a concept brought to life through the funnel shape that appears across various pages and assets. Sphere, torus, and pill shapes symbolize the connections between VCs, founders, and stakeholders, reflecting the interwoven nature of these relationships. These forms also symbolize forward momentum and the continuous progression within the venture ecosystem. As our product has evolved to offer greater flexibility in moving data into and out of Visible, you'll notice pipes integrated into the design, visually representing the seamless flow of data through our platform. Logo and Wordmark To maintain and perpetuate our brand equity, we opted to anchor our brand to our current logo and wordmark. The Visible logomark is made from three overlapping, equilateral triangles. Each triangle is slightly transparent, allowing the mark to interact with other design elements. These triangles represent human relationships and the connection between founders and investors, which is core to our mission and vision for our company. Color Palette Our signature black primary color remains, but we've refined our palette for a fresh look. We've transitioned from a complex, rich color scheme to a more cohesive and defined palette, creating a unified and bold approach to color across our brand. Introducing the new Visible color palette: Product Guided by our core values of trust and transparency, we designed our product to embody these principles. Our product visuals across the site are predominantly high-fidelity for the first time, highlighting its capabilities visually rather than relying solely on words. The updated typography and refined color palette are seamlessly integrated into our product screens, further enhancing the overall brand experience. Voice & Tone A brand is more than just its visual identity; it requires a voice and tone that harmonizes with its design. We aimed for our voice to be authentic, credible, and consistent, supporting both investors and founders alike. This commitment led us to define key principles for our voice and tone: Be a guide Less is more Recognize that different users face different challenges As you explore our marketing site, we hope Visible reflects these values and resonates with you. Transparency = Trust As we noted earlier, raising capital is fundamentally about relationships. Trust and transparency form the foundation of any strong connection. Throughout our website, you'll notice subtle transparency elements that embody this core principle. This new iteration of our brand is built to scale, but that doesn’t mean we won’t continue to evolve and elevate the experience for the betterment of our prospects and customers. Here's to shaping the next 10 years! Up and to the right,  The Visible Team
Product Updates
Product Update: Turn Emails Into Insights With Visible AI Inbox
Customer Stories
Case Study: Airtree Venture's Transformation with Visible
Fundraising
9 Tips for Effective Investor Networking