3 Reasons why BDR/SDRs are a Dying Breed (and it's not AI)
Oy! You're sending your most valuable prospect to your least experienced employees
There is going to be a paradigm shift in Sales soon, which is the end of the BDR/SDR and not just because of AI.
AI is definitely making BDR/SDRs more efficient, especially when it comes to email and call summaries. But sooner or later companies will realize their $$ are better spent elsewhere.
Although I’ve managed and have made the SDR function successful, I don’t believe in it.
Hear me out…
Most AEs do not like to hunt and would rather be fed. Most AEs don’t want to do the deep research, they’d rather have a junior BDR/SDR do all of the research for them. The SDR role is good for this, however, some may argue this research activity belongs in Marketing.
“BDR/SDRs are a dying breed.”— Tracy Sestili
3 reasons why…
Why would you send your most valuable prospects to your least experienced sales reps? I know you’ll say it’s to qualify them. And to that response I give you #2.
Are you really bringing in that many QUALITY leads/mqls? Or are you using SDRs to weed through the junk? I guarantee it is the latter and your time would be better spent focusing on quality of leads vs quantity of leads from marketing. Look at where the junk is coming from and focus on fixing that problem, rather than hiring a FT gopher to sort through your mess.
It lengthens the sales process as an extra hurdle. Lower the barrier to entry. If someone fills out a demo request, give them a demo. If they ask for more info, send them more info or send them to a junior AE so the junior AE can get experience.
But what if you have BDR/SDRs - how can you make it work?
5 ways to make it work
BDR/SDRs need structure and training, provide a dashboard that monitors their daily activities (emails, calls, LinkedIn connects, gifting) so they can see their daily goals, their progress, and you can talk about them together
Incentivize them on opportunities with $ dollar amounts attached. If the opp doesn’t have a dollar amount attached, then it’s too early to tell if the BDR/SDR is providing high quality meetings or just trying to hit a volume number. Do not incentivize on meetings booked. That is a useless metric.
Encourage regular feedback loops with the AEs and other BDR/SDRs to validate what’s working and what’s not.
Give public recognition, even if only for small wins. BDR/SDRs get a lot of rejection, sometimes just landing a meeting with a prospect is worthy of some praise.
Daily check-ins and feedback. Listen to their calls, read their email outreach and provide constructive feedback they can learn from.
Until next week….