Who is a Sales Development Representative (SDR) and why does your business need one?
In the traditional sales world, the focus is on negotiating and closing deals. Meanwhile, sales development representatives (SDRs) are largely left in the dark. Whereas the importance of their activities for business cannot be overstated.
Sales Development Representative (SDR)
The concept of sales development through the involvement of SDRs in the process is becoming increasingly popular and even vital for today’s sales companies.
Over the years, the sales development department has been called various things: business development team, sales partners, lead development department, etc. While each of these roles has a slightly different functional definition, they all worked hand-in-hand with the individuals in the company responsible for closing deals.
In today’s practice, sales development teams are a specialized group that focuses entirely on the beginning of the sales cycle: scheduling qualified meetings and demonstrations of the company’s products.
These teams should be focused on optimizing their own processes. They are not involved in active sales processes, nor do they close deals. Your SDRs should be looking for prospects and only prospects. All the time.
When this happens, it’s the equivalent of 1 + 1 = 3, and you get maximum qualified meetings with prospects.
Now let’s take a look at the main tasks of a sales development representative:
– Qualify potential clients from marketing companies for deal opportunities;
– Contact potential and prospective clients through cold calls and emails;
– Present the company to potential and prospective clients;
– Identify needs and offer appropriate products/services;
– Create long-term, trusting relationships with clients;
– Proactively seek out new business opportunities in the marketplace;
– Create meeting or calling arrangements between clients and sales managers.
Social Media
Communication through Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook is vital in B2B. A sales development representative uses social media as a vehicle for knowledge transfer and shows himself to be an expert in the area in which your company operates. For example, if you sell software for small chain restaurants, a good SDR will actively communicate on social networks with potential customers. By doing so, he will greatly expand the range of those to whom you can sell the product. Each of his actions in networks must meet the goal of attracting customers – that is, be as expert and useful as possible.
SDR actively uses warm and cold emails in his work. He must have the copywriting skills to create newsletters. Creating a catchy headline and concentrated email content is important here. Keeping an address book is an additional opportunity to get contacts of decision makers and keep them for future transactions.
Phone
The majority of a sales development representative’s work takes place over the phone. By communicating, the professional brings the customer to the transaction. Therefore, he must possess well-honed telephone sales skills.
The sales development specialist does a lot of research, which is important to the company. And the information and contacts collected are an important resource for further sales.
Do I need to explain the difference between a Sales Manager and a SDR?
The Sales Development Representative is the key player in the company that provides sales managers with potential customers who are “warmed up” to negotiate the terms of a lucrative contract.
