The SDR role exists because closing is a different skill than qualifying, and the fastest way to grow revenue is to protect the time of the people who close. SDRs are that protection.
An SDR (sales development representative) is a sales role that qualifies inbound leads and books meetings for account executives. SDRs work the top of the funnel, handling hand-raisers from marketing, running short discovery conversations, confirming fit, and setting a next meeting. They do not own the full close. On modern revenue teams, SDRs cover inbound and BDRs cover outbound prospecting.
The six things to know about the SDR role before hiring one, measuring one, or taking the job yourself.
An SDR owns the first conversation after a lead raises a hand (a form fill, a demo request, a chat on the site, an event scan). The job is to confirm the lead is a real fit, uncover a reason to talk now, and book a qualified meeting onto the account executive's calendar. The close is somebody else's job.
Most modern revenue teams split the top of funnel. SDRs work the inbound queue: hand-raisers, trial sign-ups, demo requests, content downloads. BDRs (business development representatives) work outbound: cold calls, cold email, LinkedIn, and account-based plays into target lists. Same seniority, same comp shape, different source of leads.
A good SDR runs a short discovery call: who, what, why now, and what good looks like. They use a lightweight framework (BANT, MEDDIC-lite) to confirm the lead is worth an AE's time, write clean notes into the CRM, and book the next meeting with the right people invited. Nurture goes back to marketing for leads that are not ready.
The four numbers every SDR is measured on: speed-to-lead (how fast the first touch happens after a hand-raise), meetings booked, show rate (did the prospect actually attend), and SQL conversion (did the meeting turn into a sales-accepted opportunity). Revenue-sourced is a lagging bonus number, not the primary scorecard.
SDR compensation is a base salary plus a variable component, with the variable usually tied to qualified meetings held and sometimes to sourced pipeline or closed revenue. The variable share is smaller than an AE's because the role is leading-indicator work, not closing. Ranges vary by region, segment, and tenure.
The classic path is SDR to AE to senior AE, with promotions earned on consistent quota attainment and strong CRM hygiene. The other common exits are revenue operations (for the SDR who loves systems), demand generation marketing (for the SDR who loves campaigns), and enablement (for the SDR who coaches their peers).
The marketing version of the SDR job description sounds strategic. The actual day is more concrete: a prioritized queue of leads, a script, a dialer, a calendar, and a scoreboard. The good SDRs do the small things on repeat with discipline. The great SDRs read the signals in the queue and work the right lead first.
A ranked view of new and open inbound leads, sorted by score, source, and age. The queue is the SDR's workbench. A good one updates in real time, surfaces the highest-fit lead first, and makes it one click to call, email, or book. A bad one buries the hot lead under three stale ones from last quarter.
The research is consistent: contact rates drop sharply after the first few minutes. The SDR's first job of the day is working the overnight queue so no fresh hand-raiser sits waiting. Auto-routing, instant alerts, and a mobile app that lets the SDR dial from anywhere are what turn this metric from a wish into a habit.
Five to ten minutes on the phone or in chat: who are you, what are you trying to solve, when do you want to solve it, and who else is involved. The point is not interrogation. The point is finding the one real reason the prospect filled out the form, so the AE can walk in prepared instead of starting from zero.
BANT (budget, authority, need, timing) and MEDDIC (metrics, economic buyer, decision criteria, decision process, identify pain, champion) are the two frameworks SDRs reference most. Most teams run a lighter version: fit (right company, right role), pain (real problem), and timing (why now). That is enough to protect an AE's calendar.
The deliverable is a calendar invite on the AE's schedule with the prospect, any other required attendees, a clear agenda, and the discovery notes attached. A scheduler link that respects the AE's availability and routes by territory or segment removes the back-and-forth email thread that kills booked rates.
Most inbound leads will not qualify today. The SDR's job is to label those correctly, write the reason, and hand them back to marketing for nurture, so they come back warmer in a month or a quarter. The teams that treat nurture as a loss are the teams that pay to acquire the same lead twice.
Every SDR scoreboard is some combination of the four metrics below. Teams add their own flavor (sourced pipeline, demos held, dials per day), but if these four are moving in the right direction, the SDR team is working. If they are not, no amount of volume will fix the problem.
Measured in minutes from form fill to first attempt. The targets vary by segment, but faster is almost always better, and the delta between a five-minute response and a one-hour response is dramatic in connect rates. Automated routing and real-time alerts are the levers, not more headcount.
Qualified meetings booked per SDR per week or month. Not meetings scheduled (easy), meetings held (harder), and ideally meetings held that the AE accepts as a real opportunity. The number is a leading indicator because booked meetings today become closed revenue a quarter or two from now.
The percentage of booked meetings the prospect actually joins. A low show rate signals a weak qualification conversation, a bad confirmation flow, or a mismatched offer. Reminders, calendar holds that stick, and a clear value prop for the meeting all push this number up.
The percentage of held meetings the AE accepts as a sales-qualified opportunity. This is the honest judge of SDR work: if the AE accepts most of what the SDR hands over, the top of the funnel is clean. If the AE rejects most of it, either the qualification bar is too low or the lead source is wrong.
The value of pipeline that traces back to meetings the SDR booked, usually tracked at the opportunity level. Not a primary scorecard metric for the SDR (they do not close), but useful for the manager to compare meeting quality across the team and across inbound sources.
The input metrics. A healthy SDR org tracks activity to protect pipeline on slow weeks, but does not reward activity for its own sake. Volume matters only if it produces meetings. Managers who optimize activity instead of outcomes are the ones burning out their teams.
The SDR's productivity is largely a function of the tool stack. A tight stack feels like one surface. A broken stack feels like six logins, five copy-paste moves per lead, and a dropped meeting every Friday. The core six below are what every modern SDR org runs. The right CRM is what holds them together.
The CRM is the SDR's home base: the lead queue, the contact record, the activity timeline, the opportunity hand-off. A CRM that logs emails, calls, and meetings automatically removes the biggest friction in the role, which is typing what already happened. A CRM that does not log automatically slows the SDR down to a crawl.
Rules that route a new inbound lead to the right SDR based on territory, segment, round-robin, or capacity, in seconds. The routing engine is what makes speed-to-lead possible. Without it, hot leads sit in a shared queue hoping someone claims them, and the fastest clicker wins instead of the right owner.
A sales dialer attached to the CRM that places the call, logs the duration, records the conversation, and transcribes the result against the contact. The SDR dials, talks, and moves to the next lead. The CRM gets the full record without the SDR typing anything about the call.
A scheduling tool that exposes the AE's real availability to the prospect, respects territory and segment routing, and drops the booked meeting onto both calendars with a confirmation flow. One link replaces the five-email thread that used to cost a meeting out of every ten.
A chat widget on the marketing site that routes real-time questions to an on-duty SDR. The best chat conversations convert to meetings in the same session, which is the shortest speed-to-lead possible. The CRM record is created from the chat, so nothing starts from a blank form.
Strkr AI scores each new inbound lead on fit (does the company look like the ICP) and intent (did they visit pricing, book a demo slot, open a sequence) and pushes the ranked queue to the SDR. The SDR works the top of the list first instead of guessing which of a hundred form fills is the real one.
Strkr handles the inbound queue, auto-routes leads to the right SDR in seconds, scores them with Strkr AI, and books meetings onto the AE's calendar. The whole revenue motion ships in one tool, so SDRs stop context-switching between five logins to do one job.
SDR stands for sales development representative. The role is sometimes also called an inside sales rep, a lead qualifier, or an inbound sales rep, but SDR is the standard title in modern software and professional services sales teams. The matching outbound role is a BDR, which stands for business development representative.
The modern convention is that SDRs work inbound leads (hand-raisers from marketing, trial sign-ups, demo requests, content downloads) and BDRs work outbound leads (cold calls, cold emails, LinkedIn outreach, account-based prospecting). Same seniority, same comp shape, same handoff to an AE. The only real difference is the source of the lead and the skill set that the source rewards.
An SDR qualifies the lead and books the meeting. An AE (account executive) runs the meeting, works the opportunity through the pipeline, and closes the deal. SDRs are measured on meetings booked and SQL conversion. AEs are measured on closed revenue and quota attainment. The handoff from SDR to AE is one of the most important mechanics on a revenue team to get right.
Most SDR roles are entry-level and do not require specific credentials. Hiring managers look for communication skills, resilience, coachability, basic business fluency, and the discipline to work a queue without supervision. A degree helps for enterprise segments but is not required. Prior customer-facing experience (retail, hospitality, support, recruiting) often translates well.
BANT (budget, authority, need, timing) and MEDDIC (metrics, economic buyer, decision criteria, decision process, identify pain, champion) are the two most referenced frameworks. In practice, most SDR teams run a lightweight version focused on fit (right company, right role), pain (real problem to solve), and timing (why now). The point is to protect the AE's calendar, not to interrogate the prospect.
SDRs are typically paid a base salary plus a variable component. The variable is usually tied to qualified meetings held and sometimes to sourced pipeline or a share of closed revenue. The variable share is smaller than an AE's because the role is leading-indicator work. Specific ranges depend on region, segment, and tenure, and inbound-focused SDRs often sit slightly below outbound BDRs on total target comp.
The classic path is SDR to AE to senior AE, earned on consistent quota attainment, strong CRM hygiene, and demonstrated discovery skills. Other common paths are into revenue operations (for the SDR who loves systems and dashboards), demand generation marketing (for the SDR who loves campaigns and funnel work), customer success, and sales enablement. Few people stay in the SDR seat for more than two years.
The target varies widely by segment, average deal size, and sales motion. SMB and mid-market inbound SDRs often target a higher weekly meeting count, while enterprise SDRs target fewer, higher-quality meetings per month. The honest answer is that the right number is whatever produces enough SQL-converting meetings to feed the AE team's quota at the current win rate and sales cycle.
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