A Sales Development Representative (SDR) is a specialized sales role focused on the top of the funnel: identifying prospects, running outbound sequences across email, LinkedIn, and phone, and booking qualified meetings for Account Executives. SDRs do not close deals. Typical SDR quota in B2B SaaS is 8-15 qualified meetings per month, with ramp time of 3-6 months before hitting full productivity. Average SDR tenure in role is 14-18 months before promotion or churn.
What does an SDR actually do all day?
A typical SDR day is built around three blocks. Block one (1-2 hours) is prospecting: pulling contacts from data tools, researching trigger events, building targeted lists. Block two (3-4 hours) is outbound execution: sending personalized emails, running LinkedIn touches, making cold calls. Block three (1-2 hours) is handling replies, qualifying interest, and booking discovery calls onto the AE's calendar. The strongest SDRs spend 60% of their time on the phones and inside the inbox, not in CRM admin or pipeline review meetings.
The job rewards consistency more than creativity. A reliable SDR who runs 80 quality activities a day will outperform a "creative" SDR doing 30 highly-customized touches, because volume plus segmentation compounds. Sequence automation shifts the SDR's day from manual execution to high-leverage personalization and reply handling.
What separates a strong SDR from a weak one?
Three things. First, list quality: strong SDRs disqualify aggressively and only spend time on prospects who match the ICP. Weak SDRs spray every contact in the database. Second, persistence: strong SDRs touch each prospect 6-8 times across channels; weak SDRs send one email and move on. Third, follow-through: strong SDRs treat every reply, including "not interested," as data and an opportunity to learn what's actually triggering attention. Weak SDRs ignore the no's. ReachIQ's Done-for-You team hires for the first two and trains the third.
Related questions
What's the difference between an SDR and a BDR?
Functionally similar, but most teams use SDR for outbound (cold prospecting) and BDR for inbound (qualifying marketing-generated leads). Smaller teams use the terms interchangeably. The deciding factor is which direction the conversation starts: SDR initiates, BDR responds.
What does an SDR get paid?
US base salary typically ranges $50K-$70K with OTE of $75K-$110K, weighted heavily on qualified-meeting and pipeline-sourced quota attainment. Top performers in tech hubs can hit $130K+ OTE. Compensation has flattened over the last two years as AI-augmented motions raise per-rep productivity.
How long does it take to ramp a new SDR?
3-6 months to full productivity is typical, with the steepest learning curve in the first 60 days. Industries with technical buyers (cybersecurity, fintech) ramp slower; commodity SaaS sales ramp faster. The ramp variable that matters most is enablement quality, not rep experience.