Sales Development Representative

Outbound prospecting, inbound qualification, and meeting booking are the daily metrics. You're working through sequences — emails, calls, LinkedIn — trying to reach the right contact at the right account with a message that earns a reply. Most prospects don't respond, which is normal and expected. The discipline is in running the process consistently even when the response rate makes it feel pointless.

The qualification side is as important as the outbound side. Inbound leads that come from marketing aren't always good fits. SDRs who pass low-quality pipeline to Account Executives lose credibility fast. Understanding what makes a prospect actually qualified — company size, budget signal, decision-maker contact, pain point alignment — and being willing to walk away from a bad lead rather than force it into the pipeline is a skill that takes time to develop.

Activity metrics and pipeline metrics both get tracked. Dials per day, emails sent, response rates, and meetings booked are visible to management, which creates a pressure environment. Learning to manage that visibility — hitting the activity targets while not confusing activity with results — is part of what determines who advances from SDR to AE and who stalls.