What is Sales Development?

You’ve probably heard of ‘Sales’ as a career choice. And you may be familiar with ‘The Tech Industry’. And if you are a highly competitive and ambitious person who is driven by the idea of making lots of money, being really successful and living life without limitations then maybe a career in the Tech Industry within sales is for you – if so, firstly you’ll need to know what Sales development and business development are. Let’s take a look! 

The first thing to note is that there are a lot of different names for what is essentially the same thing. Depending on your industry, your location and even the company, the ‘name’ for what is essentially sales development can vary greatly. A few examples of what I’ve heard are; Business Development Rep or BDR , Sales Development Rep or SDR, Account Development Rep or ADR and recently I even heard OBA which is Outbound Business Associate. 

Regardless of what name is being used, in general sales development or business development is quite literally the process of developing or generating new business opportunities and establishing relationships from scratch. The person who does this is called a sales or business development representative or rep for short. Therefore the role of an SDR or BDR is exactly that, to generate new business opportunities and establish relationships for the organisation that they are working for. Realistically almost all businesses need to do this in some form however in the tech industry specifically it is very common for them to have an entire department dedicated to this. Typically the Sales Development department sits between Marketing, who work hard to generate leads and interest for the company, and Sales, who work hard to convert those leads into customers. Sales development bridges this gap by reaching out to the leads, firstly qualifying them and then connecting them with the sales team for further discovery. If you are on the path to a sales career or thinking about getting on this path you are likely to be part of the Sales Development Department. It is very often the first step in a sales career. And it lays a great foundation for you to become a successful salesperson.

With Sales Development there are a few different roles and again this can vary from company to company depending on industry, size, maturity and the approach they choose however generally SDRs or BDRs will either be focused on Inbound, Outbound or combination of both. Inbound SDRs deal with incoming requests, these are generally marketing sourced leads such as people who have attended events, noticed ads on LinkedIn, downloaded content from a website or explicitly requested contact through the website for more information or a demonstration. These kinds of leads are generally considered to be ‘warm’ meaning that they are likely to be open to some interaction with the company as they did something to indicate that they are interested in engaging with the company. 

On the other hand we have Outbound SDRs. These reps are focused on generating new business for the company using cold outreach. That means that although the people or companies they are reaching out to, the prospects, did not initiate the contact, the SDR or BDR believes that their company or product could add value to that prospect. This means that the SDR has identified something about the prospect that makes them think they may be interested in learning more about the company and offering. For example if the company the SDR works for typically sells its product to a person with a certain title or in a certain industry, they may seek out those people through LinkedIn and send them a message. Outbound outreach is generally considered to be cold for this reason, as the prospect did not give any explicit signs of interest and is therefore not expecting contact. 

To bring this to life let’s consider a quick example: Salesforce, are a company who provide a tool for Customer Relationship Management to other companies. This means that Salesforce wants to sell their tool to companies who have customers and need an easy way to manage those relationships. In this example the BDR or SDR at Salesforce would research companies in their region who might be interested in what Salesforce have to offer and would then proactively reach out to them to try to generate a new business opportunity and establish a relationship. If it all works out and the deal closes, Salesforce have a new customer who will hopefully remain with them for many years to come and will therefore provide a lot of money to Salesforce by paying for their tool. This all began through Business Development. 

Typically Tech companies offer their Sales Development Programme to new graduates or to people who are in the first few years of their careers with limited experience and an interest in sales. Very often, companies design a 1-2 year programme for the Sales Development Representatives. This means that if you are joining a company you know you are not only accepting a job but joining a programme which is designed to help you to develop skills which will be foundational to your entire career, usually as part of a group of people at a similar stage in their career to you. In some companies, you can start working on Inbound and move to Outbound. In others it can be Outbound first and then Inbound. There are also some companies that allow you to do both simultaneously and finally some companies only have one or the other. In any case, the skills that you develop during your time as a SDR provide a vital base for you as you move into your sales career. If you are considering SDR as your next step I would highly recommend it and if you have just begun that journey – congratulations – you have an exciting journey ahead of you. 

If you have any questions or you have anything to share about your own experience in this area, we’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Until next time!