How to Build a Sales Development Rep Strategy That Will Fill Your B2B Pipeline

Through the dozens of the enterprise technology companies I’ve had the pleasure of working with, the pipeline (the quantity and quality of qualified sales opportunities) is the primary driver of go-to-market success.

While the pipeline is often thought of as the realm of marketing, sales development representatives (SDRs) can be responsible for over 60% of the pipeline in SaaS B2B.

SDRs are top-of-funnel salespeople, making cold calls, writing outreach emails, or sending outbound mail. They are important even at an early stage or in “sales allergic” industries like DevOps or ITOps. In short, SDRs are an essential part of a company’s pipeline and, therefore, of its overall success. Despite this, there is little information on how to build an effective organization beyond rote-selling manuals focused on topics like call volume or tech stacks. These topics don’t address the tougher questions, like where to find SDRs or how to get the most out of them. Here are four common obstacles that founders and leaders face when building their SDR teams, and the solutions for success.

It is better to build in-house

One of the most common questions from early-stage founders is whether to outsource overseas sales or build an in-house SDR team. It’s appealing to outsource SDR hiring because building an in-house team involves a lot of time, resources, and effort — and churn if it doesn’t pay off. Vendors offer the promise of a long-term commitment-free stable of “ready-to-compose” SDRs and expensive software stacks.

However, it is almost always better to create an internal SDR organization, especially in a start-up company. First, outsourced vendors rarely succeed in communicating the nuances and key benefits of your solution, especially for highly technical products. Additionally, much of early marketing and demand generation is about learning and experimentation, answering questions like “What messages resonate with our target customers?” or “Are we even targeting the right customers?” If you outsource, you might get some leads, but you definitely won’t get that learning.

In many cases, outsourced vendors will spam large prospect lists to guard against lower conversion rates. This can be detrimental to your brand. You only get one chance to make a first impression and burning leads can have a serious downside effect. You can also end up with customers outside of your ideal customer profile, which puts a strain on the product, customer service, and strategy teams.

To control common risks of building in-house, leverage outsourced providers like MemoryBlue for SDR training or tools like SalesLoft to build a cheaper tech stack. Finally, be sure to hire a sales manager who is prepared to manage both an SDR and account executive (AE) team.

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