You will hear these acronyms constantly as you build out your sales team.
SDR stands for Sales Development Representative. BDR stands for Business Development Representative.
At a high level, these roles are the engine of your top-of-funnel sales activity. They are not typically responsible for closing deals or signing contracts. Instead, their sole focus is finding potential customers and determining if they are a good fit for your product.
They are the openers.
The Core Responsibilities
#The primary goal of an SDR or BDR is to book qualified meetings. They spend their days identifying prospects and trying to start a conversation.
This usually involves a high volume of activity:
- Cold calling lists of potential clients
- Sending personalized emails or LinkedIn messages
- Responding to inbound inquiries from your website
- Qualifying leads to ensure they have the budget and authority to buy
Once they determine a prospect is interested and qualified, they schedule a meeting. At that point, the relationship is usually handed off to a more senior salesperson.
SDR vs BDR: Is There a Difference?
#In many startups, these titles are used interchangeably. You might see a job listing for an SDR at one company that looks identical to a BDR listing at another.
However, some organizations draw a specific distinction based on the direction of the lead.
SDRs often handle inbound leads. These are people who filled out a form on your website or downloaded a whitepaper. The SDR follows up to see if they are serious.
BDRs often handle outbound prospecting. They hunt for new business by researching companies that fit your ideal customer profile and reaching out cold.
Do not get too hung up on the title nuance in the early days. The function is what matters. You need someone dedicated to generating pipeline so your closers are not wasting time prospecting.
Comparison to Account Executives
#The most common point of confusion is the difference between an SDR/BDR and an Account Executive (AE).
Think of it as a relay race.
The SDR runs the first leg. They find the prospect, spark interest, and verify that the prospect has a problem your product can solve. They clear the hurdles of initial rejection and apathy.
The AE takes the baton. They conduct the demo, negotiate pricing, navigate the procurement process, and get the contract signed.
Separating these roles allows for specialization. Prospecting requires resilience and high activity volume. Closing requires negotiation skills and relationship building. It is rare to find one person who is exceptional at both simultaneously.
When to Hire One
#Founders often make the mistake of hiring an SDR too early. They assume they can outsource sales immediately.
This rarely works.
You should generally look to hire your first SDR or BDR only after you, the founder, have closed enough deals to understand the process. You need to know what the objections are and who the ideal customer is before you can train someone else to find them.
If you hire them before you have a repeatable process, they will likely fail. You are looking for a process accelerator, not a magic solution to a lack of product-market fit.
Consider this move when your calendar is so full of closing meetings that you no longer have time to prospect for new ones.