How To Hire Sales Development Representative

When you run your own team, you can’t just focus on strategy and getting things done. Hiring is a major part of your responsibilities, although it can sometimes feel like an afterthought. You’ve personally hired hundreds of team members and found that choosing the right one makes all the difference.

Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) or Business Development Representatives (BDRs) are inside sales representatives who focus solely on sales prospecting.

Hiring a Sales Development Rep is one of the first steps on your journey to building an effective sales team.

One of the key roles, when you scale out a Software as a Service (SaaS) company for success, are Sales Development Representatives (SDR), otherwise known as a Lead Generation Representative or Business Development Representative (BDR).

The Business Development Representatives are the front line of the sales team. They prospect and identify leads and usually are the first to make contact with a potential client basically they are basically at the forefront of your sales efforts.

They play the critical role of qualifying the leads generated by marketing activities and then handing them off to the Account Executives who run the sales cycle to a close.

Role of an SDR

The role of a Sales Development Representative (SDR) differs depending on each company’s definition. But primarily, the role of an SDR is twofold - inbound and outbound sales prospecting.

Inbound Sales Prospecting

Nurture leads who have shown interest in your solution and have already engaged with your company through its marketing channels.

Outbound Sales Prospecting

Reach out to potential customers who have never engaged with your company’s product or solution, i.e., cold prospecting.

The role of an SDR is similar to that of a consultant where they actively listen and provide an appropriate solution to prospects.

SDRs understand the prospect’s business model; analyze if your product is a good fit, and educate leads on how your solution can help solve and improve their business.

Sales Development Representative Job Description

Put some thought into crafting an engaging and detailed sales development representative job description. After all, this is your first contact with prospective SDRs, and it will let them know exactly what you are looking for.

An important thing to keep in mind is the fact that people applying for SDR positions usually have little to no experience in this job. That is why you will need to look for personality traits and related background experience instead of the actual experience at similar positions.

Conduct Test Task

Once you’re done with the interview, the next crucial step to hiring sales development reps is to give them a practical task. Obviously, this should be something that demonstrates how they will manage their day-to-day assignments.

Make sure that your instructions are crystal clear. 

Since emails and voicemail are the main types of communication that SDRs use, there are two different tasks you can use to narrow down your choice:

· Prospecting email

For this task, your SDR candidates should identify a company or person they think would be a good target for your product or service.

· Voicemail message

Let’s say that the person they wrote to responded positively and left their phone number. When called, however, it is their voicemail that answers the call. 

This is the perfect opportunity to see how good your candidates are at crafting a voicemail pitch.

Make notes of each candidate’s performance to keep a clear picture even long after they are all done. That way, you will be able to remember more precisely what they did well and what they could improve, as well as compare them to each other.