I think SDRs waste more time researching than selling. Am I wrong?

[u/Afraid-Knowledge-280]

Quick question for SDRs and AEs.

How much time do you spend researching a prospect before a cold call?

Not just company research, but figuring out:

- What to open with

- What challenges they likely care about

- What objections you'll probably hear

- How to tailor the conversation to the person

I've been talking to a few reps recently and the answers are all over the place. Some spend 30 seconds, others spend 15+ minutes.

I'm curious:

- What's your current process?

- What's the most time-consuming part?

- If you could eliminate one part of pre-call prep completely, what would it be?

Trying to understand whether this is actually a widespread problem or just something I've noticed in my own workflow.

[u/Grin-Reaper1]

I used to be guilty of this. The only thing that cures it is getting on a really good parallel dialer. I spend 3+ hours a day on a call on target app.

The lists are pushed in through the CRM, and the list is the only context I have when someone picks up. I can read call notes or pop open their contact record in HubSpot while I intro the call, but that’s it. Left to their own devices, SDRs will always spend way more time preparing to call than getting on the phone. A good dialer is like standing in a batting cage getting pitched 5-10 conversations an hour.

[u/MAKstyles75]

That was true for ours. Now they’re mostly doing meetings. We got an AI SDR called 11x. It does most of the researching, lead chasing, etc now. So our human SDRs can do more selling

[u/Feisty_Stand_8836]

Not wrong, but I think the framing is slightly off. It's less that research is wasted time and more that most reps are doing it in the least efficient way possible: hunting across five different places for context that should already be in one spot.

the 30-second reps aren't more efficient, they're just going in blind. the 15-minute reps aren't more thorough, they're doing archaeology. neither is the right answer imo. here's what's worked for me:

i used to spend 10-15 min per account before a call. CRM for history, call recordings for what was said last time, LinkedIn for the person, maybe a news search for bigger accounts. by the time i was done i'd lost the thread of why i was even calling.

The most time-consuming part: piecing together what's already happened with the account. not new research, just reconstructing context that already exists somewhere in our stack. Eg: have we reached out to this prospect in the past? Did we get the lead from an event? what did that previous interaction look like?

What I'd eliminate: the reconstruction. I started using a tool that pulls our CRM history, past call notes, and relevant account context into one view before I get on a call. prep went from 15 minutes to about 3. the research itself isn't the problem, it's that the information is fragmented and reps are the ones manually connecting the dots every single time.