SDR’s - the most expensive mistake in sales history?

I’ve said before that sales management has taken a really good idea – and generally fucked it up.

If your SDR program is a mistake or not largely depends on why it was created in the first place.

Were you motivated to improve your buyers experience or save money?

Money saving programs are easy to spot.

SDR’s are viewed as lowly paid appointment setters.

They were on-boarded with indecent haste, receive little training, zero coaching and their metrics are managed by a tyrant whose battle cry is “MORE” because everything’s about quantity with scant regard for quality.

And to top it off your AE’s regard your SDR’s as little more than sales vermin.

And no-one ever aspired to be a sewer rat.

But sewer’s are created inside your pipelines as they get clogged up with shitty appointments.

But ‘best in class’ has a different mindset.

They are paid as much as AE’s, if not more.

They are Smarketers. They educate an entire target market and react to each prospect according to their buying stage.

It’s not about quantity, it’s about delivering a quality prospect whom they have engaged with and educated over a time period that suited the prospect NOT themselves.

So as an SDR, are you viewed as vermin or Smarketer?