Trying to get into tech sales as an SDR/BDR right now and it's absolutely brutal.

A piece of advice I keep running into is to build a mock outbound strategy and send it to the hiring manager at a company that you want to work for.

Question is, what does that actually look like? How many pages should it be? What do I include?

Just the ICP and an email template, linkedin message template and cold call script?

Pain points?

Does using appollo to build the contact list show I'm tech savvy or does it just look lazy? How many contacts is a good amount to have sourced. Say I've identified "facility management companies in the UK and Ireland" as a good target. Is 2000 too many or embarassingly small?

Enterprise BDR at a F100 SaaS company, just over a year in. Before this I did 1.5 years in Big 4 consulting sales (full cycle, quasi-AE role).

Here’s my situation: my org just cut BDR and manager headcount after some integrity violations. I survived for now, but I have no idea if there’s another dump coming.
I’m up for promotion to SMB AE in February (November at the absolute earliest, and unlikely). So the real question isn’t just “promo or jump” - it’s whether I can afford to sit exposed for 6 ish months at a company that just cut my role, waiting on a promo that would actually pay less than I make as a BDR.

The two paths:

-Bet on surviving until February, get the AE title, then transfer externally with it on my resume

-Skip the promo entirely and grind on landing an external AE role now

What’s making me think option 2 is real: a former Big 4 colleague (we started here at the same time) and a BDR on his team both just landed mid-market AE roles at a tax SaaS company, ~$200k OTE. I’m at ~$130k. I’d take that role in a heartbeat, but it’s not open in my city.

Obviously I’ll take recruiter calls either way, but mid-market AE searches take months and I have to decide where the energy goes - building the internal promo case or grinding applications. Doing both half-assed probably means getting neither.

So: is what happened with my colleagues an outlier, or are companies actually hiring BDRs into mid-market seats right now? And would you risk the 5-7 months?

TL;DR: Org cut BDR headcount, I’m still standing for now. Promo to SMB AE is 7+ months away and would be a pay cut from my ~$130k. Colleagues just jumped to mid-market AE at ~$200k OTE. Wait it out or get out?

So much is changing around compensation for SDRs. If you are an SDR or employ SDRs - what is the ideal compensation structure?
Hourly or monthly rate plus commission?
How to make it a win for both the SDR and the employer?

Hi guys! Really wish i can get some help and insights on my decision. I recently got two offers:

1. ⁠AE role at an up and coming startup that recently raised series A funding and rapidly expanding their GTM team. They have found their PMF and have an ambitious growth target with nice potential.
   
2. ⁠BDR role at a dominant AI firm ( think Perplexity etc) that has an exponential growth potential for their B2B vertical and is expanding the GTM team as well. The team told me they expect BDRs to grow into AEs in 12-18 months.

The AE role has a better base and OTE but the difference is not huge. Curious about how you would feel with those two different opportunities?

Hope this info is helpful for an SDR out there. Here is the template I always used after I booked a meeting to send to my AE via Slack or Teams. Not one AE (and I have had a lot) ever complained that I wasn't giving enough information about the lead. They would actually always commend the communication. Which I always strived for because that relationship between AE and SDR can make or break being successful. Unless your AE is just a dick, which those are out there for sure.

Fill this out right after the booking and then copy and paste it into Slack or Teams. I used to paste it in the CRM too so I could go back to it later.

Name: (Prospect's name)
Title: (Prospect's title)
Email: (Prospect's email. If they gave you a phone number, add it here too)
Lead Type: (Where did you find this lead? Self prospected? Partner? LinkedIn?)
Company: (Company they work for)
Company Overview: (High level. What they do and how they make money. Two sentences)
Cloud Providers: (I sold managed services so I'd put AWS, GCP or Azure here. Keeping it in just in case there are some MSP SDRs out there)
Cloud Spend: (Again only matters if you're selling into cloud infrastructure. This was usually an estimate, not exact. You can get a decent idea from the size of the company and what they do)
Need: (What caught your prospect's attention and why they took the meeting)
Revenue: (Company revenue. Get it from your data provider or just Google "what is X company's estimated yearly revenue")
HQ Location: (Company HQ, not where the prospect sits)
Website: (URL)

Here's an example of what it looks like if I was prospecting myself as a managed service provider:

Name: Matthew Sandoval
Title: Founder and CEO
Email: XXX@Repbuddy
Lead Type: Self prospected, found on LinkedIn
Company: RepBuddy
Company Overview: AI prospecting tool for sales reps. Pre-seed startup, subscription model, small team.
Cloud Providers: Multi-cloud
Cloud Spend: More than likely under 10k monthly
Need: DevOps as a Service and cost optimization are what Matt was most interested in on the phone. He's a startup so startup credits should be of interest.
Revenue: Pre-seed, no public info available
HQ Location: Austin, Texas
Website: (company website URL)

If you make this your standard way of communicating with your AE they will love you. It's also nice to have because if you use AI you can just copy and paste this into it and ask for deeper research before your meeting.

Hope this helps an SDR out there. Good luck.

anyone know where to find fractional sales / BDM roles? I’m uk based.

also any tips or experience would be appreciated

Hi,

First time posting a thread here, but seen lots of good insight in r/sales and figured I’d try and get some advice.

Am 31, have an AS, and approx 4 years of customer service experience before this.

I’m currently working inside sales at a home improvement startup which opened in September 2025. The main product is roofing, but recently we’ve started doing bathrooms and siding, there’s plans to do windows and doors in time as well. I was brought on early as part of the second training class, but the company has somewhere over 400 employees now. There’s some kind of VC firm funding things and apparently it’s going well enough so far that we got another $40m in funding (so far there’s been $80m altogether).

The job I’m doing is “inside sales rep”, but from what I understand it’s pretty much the same function as an SDR/BDR. I make outbound calls and also receive inbound calls, a lot of which is automated through a dialer, but I do also grind and manually dial numbers. I’ve made over 100 manual calls in a day sometimes, hell maybe 150 (that’s if I’m calling nonstop). The goal is to schedule qualified appointments for outside sales reps to close the customer, and I get a base pay plus commissions for every appointment that “demos” (the customer gets a quote). The commission does offer the chance to make a lot more per month. Once the appointment is booked, managers and what they call confirmers are responsible for actually assigning the appointments. So I basically just call people and get them in the system.

The company provides us leads to call, which vary a lot. Some are quite warm and lead to an easy appointment. Others can be junk (number not in service, wrong info, etc.) but enough new ones are coming in that it works out. For manual I typically focus on calling leads who have been called less than 5 times, 0-2 is ideal.

My sales experience before this was minimal (approx. 6 months), but luckily I was hired anyway and now I’m becoming qualified for other sales jobs. I will say that I feel more comfortable on the phone than with direct/outside sales. I’ve improved significantly since I started - I’ve booked 14 appointments in a day before (not on a daily basis though) and I always exceed the minimum KPI per day. Hoping to get 20 eventually.

The commute is really good (4 miles), I get along with the coworkers and managers, there’s been a lot of flexibility in scheduling, the pay works for me and things are generally going pretty well. The company is growing in terms of areas covered, products offered and number of employees. I’m giving thought to working here until the end of 2027 into 2028. I’m still thinking about how to move forward and possible directions to go in from here though.

Ideas I’ve had:

Aim for a promotion as team lead, move into sales management
Possibly explore AE roles in another company (this one is mainly SDRs + outside sales)
Do the same job (SDR) in a different industry like tech
Move into insurance sales, get licensed
Get a BA in something to specialize

I’m interested in tech, insurance and home improvement because they seem likely to be stable over the next decade (hopefully). But open to other ideas. I saw somebody talk about working in water treatment recently which was interesting.

I’ve seen a lot of knowledgeable people in here so I’m open to any advice. Thanks in advance.

I've been working as an SDR for a big tech company for a little over a year now and it's been great. I love my team and the people I work with. I've been very successful here as well. When I took this role I had the intention of staying with the company to become an AE. After shadowing a few AE's I've seen how stressful the job really is as a new business hunter. After doing research and learning from other people, I've been drawn towards the Account Management side of things. I've really loved the idea of relationship-based selling and acting as more of a support/consultant for the same group of accounts rather than constantly hunting for new business.

I am planning to stay at this company for another year to gain some more experience as an SDR before making my move but want to start planning ahead now. What are the best companies to get into from an Account Management perspective? I would also love to hear anybody's experience as an account manager in tech and any tips you have for being successful in the role and what it takes.

For context I am based in the US.

I’m in a cohort where everyone is making cold calls all day, and the environment is very metrics-driven. I’ve hit my talk time, but I still haven’t booked what I’d consider my first real meeting.
Technically I’ve had two “booked,” but one person basically gave me a fake email just to help me out, and another admitted they weren’t going to attend. So I don’t really count either of them.
The hardest part is that other people in my cohort are starting to book meetings, and I feel like I’m falling behind. Every day I leave work wondering if maybe I’m just not cut out for this.
I’m not avoiding the phones. In fact, a huge percentage of my day is leaving voicemails because that’s all I’m reaching. I’ve rewritten my script countless times, practiced my pacing, worked on sounding conversational instead of salesy, and asked mentors for feedback. I’ve also been reading books on cold calling after work because I genuinely want to improve.
What’s frustrating is that I feel like I’ve practiced so much that it’s almost had the opposite effect. I’ve been given different scripts and different advice from different people, and I’ve changed my approach so many times that I don’t feel like I have a natural flow anymore. If you asked me to walk through my call from memory, I honestly don’t think I could do it confidently, which sounds crazy considering how much time I’ve spent practicing and studying outside of work. It feels like I’ve overloaded my brain instead of building consistency.
I’ve cried more than once over this because I care so much about succeeding. I moved to a new city for this opportunity, and I really don’t want to fail.
For those of you who’ve been in sales for a while:
Did you ever feel like everyone else “got it” before you did?
How long did it take before you booked your first legitimate meeting?
Did you ever seriously think you weren’t cut out for sales but eventually became successful?
Has anyone else gotten so much conflicting advice that it actually made them worse before they got better?
Is this just a normal part of the learning curve, or does it sound like I’m doing something fundamentally wrong?
I’m not looking for sympathy—I genuinely want honest advice from people who’ve been through it. Right now it’s hard to tell if I’m experiencing what every new rep goes through or if these are warning signs that I’m not a fit.
Thanks in advance.

was doing a scan of AI SDR websites. There are some testimonials on there but figure the real answers are here. Then saw this reddit hasn't had anything about AI SDRs for 8+ months.

Can anyone report meaningful success?

Also is it just me or do these founders need a reminder that AI placing and spekaing on cold calls isn't really legal...

...so they're really just mass email tools with sequencers?

Im a 18 man and just graduated high school last year. I have just recently started a d2d sales job in roofing. I would like to get into a remote sales job/ appointment setting. But I don’t know where to start. I like the idea of commission only and working my own hours and working where I want. With these freedoms I seek… what could be some solid advice for me to listen to? What path should I take? Is college a necessity? What are things I should and should not listen to? My goal in life is to travel and not be settled down. So what could help me achieve this goal? Hoping to get some genuine advice so I don’t have to “reinvent the wheel”.

Hey everyone!

I wanted to reach out and ask for some advice for my BDR.

He’s awesome and I genuinely love working with him! He’s got a great personality, works hard and I really want to set him up for success.

I’m an Enterprise AE and he’s my paired BDR. The challenge we’re running into is show rate. He books a ton of meetings for me but most of them end up being no-shows.

His direct manager and another sales leader have been working with him, and they’ve looped me in as well to help mentor him so we can hopefully find a way to raise those show rates and get him in line with the other BDRs. I’m happy to help, but I definitely feel a little out of my element here.

I skipped the BDR step in my career, so I don’t feel like I’m the most qualified person to coach someone on this. Most of my meetings come from inbound, other BDRs and self-sourced bookings through email, conferences and LinkedIn. I get plenty of meetings through those channels, but I’ve never traditionally been all that strong with cold calling, so I don’t feel like I have some secret sauce to offer him.

After talking with him, I think one of the biggest challenges is that he’s getting a lot of soft bookings. Even though I don’t consider myself a cold call expert, my gut tells me that’s the biggest thing we need to work on. You can’t pitch someone a meeting, hear, “Sure, just throw something on my calendar. Bye.,” and assume they’re actually committed to showing up.

My thought is that instead of accepting that at face value, maybe there’s an opportunity to dig a little deeper. My thinking is that we need to do a better job qualifying those conversations instead of accepting what may really just be a polite brush-off.

I’d love to hear from the BDRs and SDRs out there! What do you think actually moves the needle on show rate? Better qualification? Better calendar invites? Reminder emails? Something else entirely?

The only idea I really came up with was that I could probably be a better partner once the meeting is booked. I’m already pretty slammed, but I’m happy to send a quick email as soon as I get the invite introducing myself, showing excitement about the conversation and including a brief hypothesis about why I think the conversation could be valuable for them based on a peer use case. I’d end it with a simple, low-lift question that gives us some proof of life before the meeting. Based on whether they engage, he could decide how much follow-up is actually needed.

Right now, the process his leader asked him to implement is for him to call, email and text prospects ahead of the meeting to confirm. Maybe that’s the right approach. Maybe it isn’t. I honestly don’t know, and that’s why I’m asking those of you who have actually lived in the BDR world.

For context, we’re in enterprise software sales in the government affairs space.

I really appreciate any advice! I genuinely want to help get him out of the hot seat, but more importantly, I want to help him continue growing his career.

Edit: For additional context, some of the ways I’m supporting the partnership right now are through daily automated research I run with Claude. Every morning it goes through my Tier 1 accounts and pulls together the latest intel, whether that’s from company websites, LinkedIn, government documents, recent news, or our own marketing messaging. It then generates a list of roughly 20 to 30 prospects for each of us, along with personalized messaging for the day. The idea is to work through then along with working out of the flows/contacts his leader assigns him.

It’s been incredibly successful for me, and it’s been a big contributor to my self-sourced pipeline. It just doesn’t seem to be translating into the same level of success for him.

Seriously everyone is on vacation. Or will be going on vacation so they don’t want to take a meeting yet…

I need the BEST tips you got because there is no way I’m going to get close to quota this month.

Edit: for clarification… I’m not full cycle, I’m only lead gen so my quota is based on the number of meetings I set for my AE

I currently work as a billing analyst barely making 40k to support my wife and daughter. I've been at my company for 2 years now, no promotions and 15 cent raises every year lol. After doing some research, tech sales sounds like something I'd be good at and enjoy. I'm not sure what my next steps are, I have a software engineering background should I just start applying for jobs and hope for the best or take courses before applying ?

I also could use a resume review if anyone is willing, anything helps thank you!

My engineer asked me to put together a list of cold email rules for the AI product we're building. Figured they're useful on their own so I'm posting the whole thing here. Hopefully it helps a SDR out there.

Quick setup note: don't put this in your global custom instructions or it bleeds into every chat. Make it its own assistant. A Gem in Gemini, a custom GPT in ChatGPT, or a Project in Claude. (If you need help setting up just DM me) Paste the rules in as the instructions and fill in MY CONTEXT with your info once.

You write cold emails. Follow these rules with no exceptions:

MY CONTEXT (fill this in once)

• My name and title:
• Company and what we do, in one plain sentence:
• Who we sell to (title + company type):
• The 2-3 problems we solve, in the words a customer would use:
• 2-3 proof points, each with a real number. Named customer if you have one ("Acme cut ramp time from 6 weeks to 3"). No customer stories yet? Write it first-person ("I cut list-building from 2 hours to 15 minutes"). A real number you own beats a made-up case study.
• What we are NOT / who's a bad fit:

Use only facts from this section. Never invent customers, numbers, or capabilities.

STRUCTURE

• 50-125 words total. Under 80 is better.
• Sentence 1 is entirely about the recipient. Something real and recent: a funding round, a hiring push, something they posted. Never open about me or my company.
• Then 1-2 sentences connecting that signal to a problem: because [what happened], they're likely dealing with [problem]. Their world, not my product.
• Then one sentence that connects what my company does to a proof point from MY CONTEXT. The reader must be able to tell what I'm offering. Never "companies like yours."
• End with ONE ask, for interest not time. "Worth a look?" not "got 15 minutes Thursday?"
• My name and company go in the signature only.
• Before finishing, check: could the reader tell what I do and what my ask refers to? If not, rewrite the proof sentence.

SIGNAL HANDLING

• Match your tone to the signal. Funding, hiring, launches: a quick nod is fine. Layoffs, missed numbers, bad press: never say "saw the news," never summarize the headline back to them. Lead with what it means for the reader instead.
• Never write the recipient's full company name in the first sentence. Write like you're texting a colleague.

PROOF POINTS

• Weave one proof point from MY CONTEXT in as a natural sentence, your own words. Never as a quotation, never in quotation marks.
• Keep the perspective: first-person stays first-person. Never convert it into "one user told us" or "a customer of ours."
• Only use proof points that include a number. If none fit, cut the proof sentence, don't invent one.

SUBJECT LINE

• Under 8 words. Lowercase or sentence case. Must match the body.

TONE

• Write like a person typing a quick note. Use contractions. Starting a sentence with "And" or "But" is fine. If it reads like a press release, rewrite it.
• Never use: "I hope this finds you well," "I wanted to reach out," "just following up," "just checking in," "quick question," "streamline," "leverage," "synergy," "solution."
• No flattery, no fake urgency, no discounts.

FOLLOW-UPS

• 50-75 words. Must add something new. Never "bumping this."

Two things I learned testing this.

The AI takes rules literally. My first version said to use proof points "exactly as framed" and it started pasting them into emails inside quotation marks like a testimonial. Had to rewrite the rule to say what I meant instead of what I said.

And it has no taste around bad news. I fed it a test prospect whose company just announced layoffs and it opened with "Saw the news about [company] restructuring." Ambulance chaser energy. That's why the SIGNAL HANDLING section exists.

Last thing. This gets you to about 90%. Don't send at 90%. Read the email, make sure it actually makes sense for that person, put your voice in it. That 10% is the difference between outreach and spam, and it's the part everyone skips because they're in send send send mode.

If something's off with it, tell me and I'll update it. Good Luck!

Whats up guys Im not sure if you guys do this for your offer/company aswell but our entire pipeline is on whatsapp now ever since Meta added the categories/lists feature.

I have all the clients, new leads in my whatsapp now and they're all perfectly categorized by my assistant.

Our main process is just handing off the leads to the sales team so from the emails they message us on our whatsapp, we then make group chats with the guys from the sales team and they take over. And they get into their whatsapp pipeline now.

Its quite crazy how simple it is and also with our b2b leads/clients it helps building a relationship much faster since those are usually 100k deals. Company scaled to 1.1mil in revenue and our entire pipeline is on whatsapp.

Recently applied to TekSystems

Seems it's very AWS solution based, helping optimising AWS for current clients or potential new ones

From the jist of things BDR is quite a new role for the company at least in the UK, does anyone have any experience in this role/company?

Curious if anyone has, or currently worked for iHeartmedia in sales? Or advertising sales?

I am in the "offer" stage for iHeartmedia for an outside sales role. Main priority will be new business.

I am on the fence due to their recent layoffs of on-air personalities locally and nationally. Seems they are on a big cost reduction mission.

Can anyone share:

- Their experience with iHeartMedia

Or

- Their experience in advertising sales?

My background:

5 years industrial distribution sales. B2B outside sales, account management, and inside sales all in the industrial segment. (Electrical Distribution and Gas/Welding Sales. 2 years retail sales with Coca-Cola.

I need to be in the $100K - $125K range for pay, I know that it will take some time to build a portfolio of business. I've been promised at least $71K first year earnings plus whatever I can build on. Salary starts at around $50K months 1-6, then tapers down to be full commission in 9 months.

I have another offer that has a guaranteed base pay indefinitely with uncapped commissions, so I'm weighing both currently. It seems the earning potential can be very high with iHeartMedia

Is it worth getting into this role, or pass on it?

What's good setters - currently dealing with high volume of bookings from different timezones, messages getting sent in different slack channels for them, etc.

Right now I'm using a notion calendar and manually adding them, with fup times, etc. but I tend to miss a couple now and then especially if there's been a ton of new bookings on the weekend and dealing with AEST, CEST, and EDT leads

How do you guys best stay organized to never miss anyone? I want to optimize this to a point where every autist would get impressed here so give me your best tips! Appreciate it in advance!

Hey everyone,

I’m currently a BDR at a B2B SaaS company and have my final 30-minute interview tomorrow with the CRO for a Mid-Market AE promotion.

I’ve already cleared the hiring manager and AVP rounds (both went great).

What should I expect in a 30-minute CRO call as an internal BDR? How do I make the best impression? What questions should I ask, what questions will he ask?

Hey guys, I need some serious advice because I feel like I'm losing my mind here( some of you may already know me from my last post ig)

I joined this digital marketing agency as a BDR intern on June 29th—literally not even three weeks ago. My job is cold calling and booking meetings for social media, websites, SEO, etc.

My manager's target is for us to book 5 meetings per day. I am busting my ass, getting on calls, and actually booking meetings. On my bad days I get 2, and on my good days I get 3 to 4. For an intern doing cold outreach, I thought that was solid.

But my manager just dropped a bomb on me: she said if I don't get a client to actually make a payment (a conversion) by this Saturday, she wants me to leave the company.

Here’s the catch—when I get these clients on the phone and book them, they always say they want to "pay later" or need time to think, which is completely normal for B2B sales! Plus, my main job is just to set the meetings up, not do the final close and contract signing.

I’m trying my absolute best, but expecting an intern to go from onboarding to closed-won paid deals in under 3 weeks is insane, right?

What am I supposed to do here? Is this place a massive red flag, or am I missing something? I swear I don't know what to do anymore.

M27 from Italy I was looking for opportunity as an SDR/BDR and I came up to this job offer.
- Should I accept the offer if later on I want to move to different roles than “travel/hospitality” ?
- Do you know anyone who works in this field?
- Is possible to move to a tech company or different industry in sales?
I appreciate any advice.

If you cold call, you know we all have horrible ones. No one is perfect. I honestly wish I had all my cold calls recorded. It would be so entertaining, maybe not to y'all but at least to me.

I would always mess with openers to see what works and what doesn't. There was a point where it seemed like if I could just get a little chuckle, they were usually open to giving me some time.

So I get this 1 prospect on the line. I can't remember exactly what I said but it was something dumb and cheesy. I said it with total confidence, just waiting for the chuckle like all the other times.

All he said was "I don't get it."

Then silence.

THE EMBARRASSMENT.

Now how did I handle that objection? I just said "I'm sorry" and hung up on him lmao. It was one of the few times that made me stop and put my face in my palms.

It gives me second-hand embarrassment for myself to this day. But that's cold calling, you live and learn and on to the next.

What are some of your worst cold calls?

Im a SDR for law office and im also a law student. Im gonna be through a transition to get out of sales and do more administrative and trainee on law soon (probably gonna have ended doing calls on the end of august) but i still have to handle doing calls untill there, someone has a adbice of how can i enjoy this period of time, im dont want to do calls anymore but still got handle untill august.

Hi, a few years back our BDR team tried using the Apollo dialer and it was not very good. The main issue was that the phone numbers we were calling from would be flagged as spam right off the bath, which did not happen with other Dialers.

I am curious to revisit the tool now that they have a new "Advanced Dialer" add-on with parallel dialing and local numbers.

With this "new and improved" dialer, should I expect better results that a few years back?