How to hire a Sales Development Rep (SDR or BDR)?
There are numerous things to consider before hiring a Sales Development Representative (SDR or BDR).
1. Territory: If you want to get leads with businesses in the west coast, then you might want to hire a SDR that is physically located in cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland etc. This will give them additional time zone advantage.
2. Type of Customer: This goes back to your ideal customer profile. What is the title of the buyer, what size of companies, how many decision makers are part of the buying decision. Based on this, is when you should decide the background of the SDR. e.g. If they are generating leads with Enterprise Companies at the CXO level then you might want to hire a SDR with similar prior experience.
Once you have a general idea of what you are looking for is when you should start. Some ways to find your SDR include:
1. Your network: This is the best place to start looking for a SDR. Your network will recommend potential candidates based on what you are looking for.
2. Job Posts: There are numerous websites where you can post a job such as LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor etc. The biggest risk is only getting a pool of candidates that are actively looking for their next job.
3. Recruiters: There are some great recruiters and mostly very average sales recruiters. You must work with a recruiter that has prior proven experience working on sales roles with companies that are at your size and stage.
4. Activated Scale: We only focus on sales roles and have a large pre-vetted sales talent pool that we connect based on their prior experience selling to the buyers our customers are selling to. You can hire them hourly, part-time or full-time!
Questions to ask in a SDR or BDR interview
There are numerous questions you can ask your potential SDR or BDR candidates.
Here is a sample list of a few questions that highlight if a potential candidate will be worth hiring:
1. How do you deal with rejection?
2. What are some questions you ask your prospect to check if they are qualified?
3. Tell us about a time you faced a challenge. How did you deal with it and what motivated you to keep going?
4. What separates the best SDR's from the rest?
5. Where would you research a prospect before you reach out?
6. Do you enjoy being on the phone?
7. Is it better to be relevant or be personalized in your cold outreach?
How to compensate a SDR or BDR
Most SDR's or BDR's have a base pay with a commission component on a seventy-thirty split.
National averages for base pay can range between $50,000 and $70,000. With a seventy-thirty split, their commissions will range between $15,000 and $20,000.
The base pay can range depending on various factors that include:
1. The types of customers they are focused on winning such as Enterprise, Mid-Market and Small Business.
2. The sales cycle which means how long it takes to win a new customer
3. The hiring location of the SDR
4. The number of years of experience needed from the SDR
This compensation does not include other benefits such as bonuses, equity or benefits.
How to measure the success of your SDR or BDR
You measure the success of your SDR/BDR based on their input and their ouput.
Output: The output of a Sales Development Representative are the number of qualified meetings that have been set up for their Account Executive. Some organizations also measure the number of new customers the AE has won due to the SDR's efforts. But, in order to ensure that the Sales Development Representative is doing the right things that will get them to their goals, you must also measure their Inputs.
Input: The input from a Sales Development Representative is their overall outreach. Outreach is measured by the volume of cold outbound calls, the volume of cold outbound emails as well as the volume of their social outreach.
Some companies hire Sales Development Representatives to only work on their inbound leads. In this case, you are measuring the follow up calls, the volume of calls they are taking and the number of demos that are being booked due to this inbound effort.
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