BlogInside SalesWhy You Need A Virtual Sales Development Representative

Why You Need A Virtual Sales Development Representative

We'll discuss what a Sales Development Representative is, how to find the right candidate for your company, what to look out for in a good candidate, and why you need them to grow and scale your business.

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A Sales Development Representative is usually a trained salesperson who focuses on outbound cold calls and emails to potential customers. These reps are the ones who work to uncover qualified leads that either have a project or issue that needs solving or are likely prospects for future business. The word “sales” can be taken literally here—this rep’s main responsibility is finding ways to sell their product or service.

 

History of “Sales Development”

The Sales Development Representative is not, strictly speaking, a new position, but they see an increase in demand these days as companies grow their sales teams. Some companies may even split up the responsibilities into different departments like research (dedicated to analyzing past behavior and patterns) and field (who will actually make contact).

A Sales Development Representative’s job involves keeping track of cold leads while maintaining a good relationship with existing clients to be seen as potential or current customers. They are members of the organization’s sales team focused on prospecting (outbound), moving leads through your pipeline, and qualifying the leads that come in or they connect with.

Sales Development Job Duties

A Sales Development Representative is a salesperson who generates new leads for the company—finding, screening, and qualifying potential customers that a company can do business with. They also provide important feedback about potential prospects by evaluating which ones should be pursued for further development or not based on their capabilities and other qualifications.

Sales Development Representatives work closely with Marketing and Sales teams to ensure that their lead-generation efforts complement each other’s goals and expectations. They are usually assigned territories within countries or major regions, specific industries, or types of service, to contact prospective customers using phone, email, social media platforms, etc.

Commonly referred to as SDRs, they have opportunities to help actual sales managers, executives, and representatives to close deals. They set the stage and prepare qualified leads to hand off for a close, making it better, easier, and more efficient for any sales team—they take away the difficult and time-consuming tasks of lead generation, nurturing, qualification, and follow-up. This allows your sales team to focus on one thing: closing the sale.

What can a MyOutDesk Virtual Assistant do as your Sales Development Rep (SDR)?

  • Nurture prospects and manage the sales funnel
  • Set appointments for your sales reps
  • Practice, memorize, and internalize scripts
  • Track and measure sales benchmarks

All while saving you 70% off the traditional costs of a traditional employee.

Sales Development Reps: What you need to know (and how to hire)

Are you an employer interested in hiring a Sales Development Rep? Here are some tips on doing that successfully.

  1. If your company doesn’t have its own pipeline of potential new clients, you may benefit from hiring a Sales Development Rep.
    This is the kind of candidate that will work independently and make their own ideal contacts or decide which groups to focus on for expansion. They will also be able to easily switch projects, as they’re not beholden to a specific group or kind of customer.
  2. A good Sales Development Rep will have excellent communication skills and easily adapt and collaborate with teammates across an organization.
    This is a great way to boost collaboration and add value to your business.
  3. Successful companies will have a Sales Development Rep that knows how to work well with other employees, especially Sales Managers.
  4. The best kind of SDRs will be able to work effectively across an organization and identify specific areas where the business can grow.
    They should also be knowledgeable about customer needs, the product or service they’re selling, and the company’s services.
    They should have some experience in sales (preferably sales management), but not all of it is necessary for this kind of position.

Where do they fit in?

A Sales Development Representative bridges the space between your marketing team and your sales team. Leads are attracted by marketing, and the SDRs take responsibility from there, pushing them through the pipeline, qualifying and nurturing them until they’re ready to purchase or avail of your service. When a lead gets to this stage, the SDR passes them over to your sales team, making sure that each lead is in the right stage and positioned at the right time to close.

This offers a great feedback loop to both teams they connect with — your marketing can benefit from necessary information that the SDR gathers, letting them know how efficient their strategy is with lead quality and warmth; and your sales team benefits from efficiency and time management: only handling leads that are qualified and ready to close the sale. When the sales team encounters failed sales, the SDRs can communicate with both teams to adjust and recalibrate goals, leading to the best optimization strategy for success.

How much value does a Sales Development Representative bring to the company?

In an article published by Gartner in 2021, they quantify the ratio between SDRs and Sales in a very easy-to-understand equation: the true value of a sales development team is to enable sales reps to focus on what they do best: close business.

With minimal effort and less distraction from having to generate, nurture and qualify their own leads, plus the SDRs’ proper handling of the pipeline, they will consistently fill the Sales team with opportunities, giving them the capacity to optimize the closing process and increase conversions throughout the pipeline.

A good sample computation can be: each SDR delivers on average 15 qualified leads per month, with an expected drop-out rate of 20 percent, which means 12 will move forward and have the opportunity dealt with by the Sales rep. Assuming that 6 of these close at an average deal value of $100,000, then one SDR will produce $600,000 in the Sales rep’s pipeline in one month. Let us not forget that one SDR can handle more than 15 leads a day, which means more than 300 leads can be qualified, followed up, and nurtured per month, giving more opportunities for your Sales rep to improve their closing ratios.

While ratios for SDR to Sales reps vary from company to company, it is proven that a high level of growth is sustainable if a company ultimately invests in the Sales Development function.

Virtual Assistants as a Sales Development Rep:

Many employers are serious about only hiring virtual assistants as their SDRs. The benefits for employers include a remote and flexible workforce that matches needs and offers multiple working options. In addition, Virtual Assistants have many different skills so that employers can find the perfect fit for themselves, all while having less overhead and costing significantly less than an in-house employee.

If you’re a business owner searching for a candidate who can work remotely, then a MyOutDesk Virtual Assistant may be a good fit for your needs.

“Outsourcing makes the hustle better — because you’re not burdened with many/growing expenses that you’ll need to figure out how to cover and hit profit”

Focus on your growth & scale your operations


Save Up To 70% On Hiring Costs With a Virtual Assistant.

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Dan Trujillo

Dan, based in Sacramento, California, has over 5 years of experience copywriting for the virtual assistant industry. He produces content for social media, blogs, case studies, and publications with MyOutDesk.

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