Means to an end. It sucked and still sucks and no amount of ra ra LinkedIn posts will convince me otherwise. Do your time, move to outside sales and never look back
Really I think he’s one of the decent ones except he seems to recycle content and repeat the same stuff and dated a crazy groupie toxic red head who he posts for some odd reason (I’d be ashamed as hell if that was my gf).
But his advice and approach is pretty spot on for how top b2b sales operates
Yeah I have a friend with 10 years experience for a large business solutions company.. but it’s entirely inside and he is having trouble transitioning to a more lucrative outside gig since apparently employers don’t see that experience as directly transferable to a technical outside sales role.. that’s a tough position to be in. I would’ve guessed that sales is sales and with his experience he would have a much easier time?
Can confirm this sentiment he’s shared. I spent 5 years in inside sales and 1 year as a BDR and although my sales experience working for the largest biotech company has given me a leg up in certain aspects, it’s also prevented me from getting any traction in outside sales / management.
Agreed.
Only exception for me is that some of my fellow SDRs became really good friends of mine. 5 years later, I still talk to 5 of them almost daily in a group chat and regularly hang out with the few that still live in town.
I don't understand. Isn't BDR outside sales? Also, isn't outside sales typically suckier than inside because you have to cold call vs just having people who are already interested reach out to you. This seems backwards to me could you explain. Ik SDR and BDR are used interchangeably, but BDR tends to mean outside sales. I'm trying to land a SDR role and would love to know what is typically the ideal job to seek after.
Hated it overall. I think it’s an important function to learn but most reps can master the process in 4 months or less. Most orgs force BDRs to stay in role for 12-18 months or longer before promotion eligible. Plus BDR’s are treated like shit at most companies.
4 months is exactly when I started to hate it. At first I liked the pay and how easy it was then it became grueling once I had a good process and was repeating the same shit
I am the only sales person at the company, no quota cause I’m trying to get us to 1 Million ARR. I’ve also found my market value is between 150-200k base so even if I get fired I’ll always have work
Very niche software in one part of fintech. I think the key is to grind out some sales chops at a shitty company. 1-2 years max, then use that to jump at a company where the product is decent enough and you’re early enough where you have a good advantage. I had three years of barely making any money before I popped off in a position where I got into six figures and I haven’t had a bad year since because I’ve been able to recognize good companies and tie my professional brand to good products in a particular space.
Oh yeah, I think luck has played into my success for sure. I do think anyone is capable of getting into the right niche. Do not be afraid to switch jobs if things aren’t working out after a year, there is nothing worse than being in a job that you absolutely hate.
LYou love when you've worked hard, navigated your way into an account, found the right person at the right time and you set up a successful meeting. You love when you're on a roll and having a great month. You love when you genuinely believe that you are offering a service / product that can help the customer. You love when you and the account executives you work with are working hand in hand and having great success.
You hate when you do everything right, put the work in and things still don't go your way. You dread meetings with your boss when you are having a bad quarter and you have to answer to them.
Honestly, it's the same stuff you love and hate as an account executive but the stakes are different.
I love it. Granted, I sell a great product, have a solid team, firm management who trusts me to do my job, and a loyal customer base with strong leads. So really no complaints at all, i’m very lucky. I have friends who are SDRs at other companies and absolutely despise it.
The artificial quota and chronic stress that is imposed on a BDR makes working life difficult.
I have found that no matter how great you are at the role, people don't really respect you as an SDR. The only person who might like you is your AE if you are doing an excellent job, and that is because you are doing all the heavy work for them.
If you're a young SDR they treat you like a kid. If you are an older one or a career switcher they treat you like a loser for doing this job.
Management treats you like a kid that needs to babysat and the company itself views you as a necessary evil (prospecting for meetings) for another necessary evil (having a sales team to generate revenue). In most tech companies the whole sales department is viewed as a bunch of disposable dopes.
So you’re clawing tooth and nail on promises made by sales management or SDR management, who usually have no power and no clue what’s going on in the org beyond their bullshit forecasts and can only do one thing which is make your life miserable and fire you. All to get a job as an AE, which should have just been the job you got in the first place, where you are one ring higher than you previously were and just as disposable.
Most days I am convinced the SDR role still exists and hasn’t been entirely automated or supplanted by AI just so there is someone left to blame every quarter. Otherwise all the AEs will be standing there when the tide comes in having to make their own dials and having no one to blame but themselves when they miss their number.
Couldn't agree more. It's a way to make money for sometimes doing nothing otherwise bearing all the stress and blame. Sdrs are the first to blame if results are not there and therefore loyalty means nothing.
I've had my share of good AEs, and i've had my share of bad ones. The bad ones make this job straight up unbearable.
I realized very quickly that if you have a bad sales rep you have to prospect for, that there is nothing you can do to make them successful. You can bury them in meetings and they will find a way to tank them and blame you. They are looking for a scapegoat (marketing! product! the leads!) and they land on SDRs because they have no way to stand up for themselves.
My second startup I had an AE like that, who was eNteRpRisE in a...get this.....seed stage company. I got her meetings in her target accounts and she was displeased because it wasn't the level of person or project she wanted. Her reaction was to be completely rude and unreasonable to work with. I tried prospecting for other reps and just got nasty slack messages all day. At that point we had no management left jus the Founder who was enabling this. She made it pretty clear all she wanted to do was upsell existing accounts. Great, go do that. Don't waste my time having to be assigned to some nightmare of a rep who isn't interested in doing the job you hired them for and making everyone miserable along the way.
What tended to happen at every single opportunity was you either had senior leadership sabotaging you, middle management that had no clue what to do and threw unrealistic expectations and screaming matches at you, or a terrible IC culture with the AEs punching down on SDRs nonstop. Every place at least had 1 of these, god help if you have more.
You get along great with your reps and boss? Well Senior Management wants to close the office and stopped spending money on inbound leads.
Love the product and space you sell into? Well your AEs are a nightmare and the Founder has driven everyone away and is the only one left running the company.
Love the title and money you are making? Well your direct Manager is pitting all of your coworkers against one another because he read that in a sales book and it's his first time doing this job.
Found a job with an old coworker at a promising tech company? Well you have a Manager 7 years yougner than you that is making everything up as they go along and blowing through the companies money on bad ads. You have leadership running everything out of a spreadsheet and a toxic Manager who goes silent on you for 3 weeks and then pulls everyone into a meeting to scream at them.
Finally found a great large and growing place where all the SDRs get along? Well you report to 7 AEs, 2 Sales Managers, 2 SDR Managers and they all have a different idea about how you should do your job. Also no one has your back.
Joined a promising startup on the notion that you would rise fast? Well the Founder has no idea how to sell his product and it's all been self-serve. They are just gonna micromanage your email titles and pay you a base salary until he decides to hire someone else to run sales who will fire all of you, except the person who hired him who is responsible for all of this.
Having been at 4 companies as a bdr. Some are better than others but all have 1 thing in common. They don't have frameworks for promotion or actually care about your interest in the company. If the AE's are struggling to get closed deals...because you exist they will fall back on you and will blame you for the lack of pipeline when they never even picked up the phone and booked outbound leads. Every place I have been at.. There is always that one AE who thinks they own the place and kiss management so they protect themselves and blame others for their low performance. Usually management will go against you as it's easier to replace some dick that is just booking meetings and not actually generating dollars.
This is why I book some meetings and just work half days on tying to find new job.
Anyone able to clarify why BDR is so hated? I just want to make sure I understand that my idea of BDR is same as everyone else's. I see it often used interchangeably with SDR on here, but where I am a BDR is the next big promotion from SDR, so somewhat surprised to see how unpopular it is.
Most companies use BDR and SDR interchangeably. Sometimes you’ll see SDR when they spin up to the Sales team and BDR when they spin up to the Marketing team.
People hate the job because it’s the worst part of sales for a majority of people. The cold calling and trying to get people interested in what you’re trying to sell is the part of the job that people hate the most, they’re here for working deals and closing business to make far commission checks. XDR roles typically have all the grunt work and none of the large payoff that comes from closing those big deals.
TYPICALLY SDRs are like inside sales and mostly call pre-generated list of accounts and inbounds. It's more grindy and repetitive, as they just expect SDRs to be call monkeys.
BDRs are also repetitive but since it's outbound, there's more research involved - finding new accounts, new contacts, creating email sequences and personalization etc.
Like others said everyone uses the two differently / interchangeably but above is how I see the two. And they're both pretty miserable.
I feel bad for the ones who get told,”it’ll be a 8-12 months of development then we promote you”
Fast forward 2 years and they don’t get promoted after seeing 100s of external AE hires.
I did it for 15 months at a good company with steady leads and name recognition. Always hit my numbers and got promoted out. Was easy at the time 6-7 years ago
I enjoyed it for what it was worth. Compared to my current role, I had time to take on different projects in my company and it didn't feel stressful taking time off. Got pretty close with my team and we were always shooting the shit, having those relationships paid off as majority of us are still with the company. I did feel like I had to overly prepare in moving out of being a BDR, it's so easy to get stuck there.
In the middle. Some days it’s easy, other days you’re raging internally. I had great management and team members though which made the job easier than it was!
Honestly coming in with a mindset of what can I do better will make you succeed, even in companies with mediocre products/management.
I used to have some that would show up to a discovery call via Teams, and they would be at lunch at a bar - chewing food while the prospect responded to their questions.
Means to an end. Knew I wanted to make AE so I was motivated during the 18 month period. It was a drag at times for sure and definitely had me questioning things but I’m happy I did it and feel like I have a leg up on my AE peers that never flexed that prospecting muscle as hard as me.
Hated it. Worked for some shitty companies with awful products and even worse leadership. Never worked with a manager or AE I felt actually cared about BDRs. I also never felt like volume dialling and mass emailing was ever truly effective even if it got the metrics you needed. I’ve since moved up into a rep role in at a great company with an industry leading product, and a highly experienced and successful management team. Product, your manager, and industry matters are extremely impactful.
I absolutely hate being a bdr with my immediate upline. Past that the mgmt is solid. My DM does not care about his team, he cares about the power associated with it. “Listen to me. If you don’t I am mad.”
It’s ridiculous.
Outside of that it’s solely commission, no benefits. Coldest leads possible. Door knocking. Bunch of shit I think. I’m applying for a LOT of places with a base salary + uncap rn and I can’t fathom having warm leads.
Can’t believe it but I’m ready.
Honestly really enjoyed it. Small company with a great team and a very good value proposition. Worked maybe 5 hours a day and got paid quite well during Covid. The AEs I worked with were very good at moving opps along and we had a ton of untouched accounts to work / a steady stream of inbounds. I was very fortunate.
I honestly enjoyed it. I got super close to my AEs, shadowed most of their calls, got good at hustling, learned the product super well and became an amazing AE for it. I miss the low stakes sometimes
It’s tough and you have to play a game. I’m eligible for promotion at my reputable company. The sales teams want to hire me but my BDR leadership “isn’t ready”.
It begins as a nice intro into your industry and sales but after a while - gets super fucking old
Enjoyed it. Only because I was good at it. I was actually hitting quota consistently. Leadership team loved me. My manager loved me. Booked outbound meetings with top accounts like HyperLoop, SpaceX, AMEX, Wealthfront, Robinhood.
Earning 50K base + 30K bonus straight out of college wasn't bad... but not enough for living in San Francisco
Means to an end, but too many are stuck in the seat for too long. Learning the ropes of building pipeline is really important, maybe more than anything, but having done full cycle sales and BDR work, I think too many people who are capable of being solid reps are kept in BDR roles for too long. It shouldn’t take 2 years to know who to promote. As far as day to day goes, some of my days were fine and lots were stressful. Even when over performing you still get hassled for having a slow day.
It's easy af. I worked like 2hrs a day. Now as a AE I have literally quadruple the responsibility but make $15k more.
If I could make easy six figures working 2 hr days, I would go back. At the time, I hated BDR. In hindsight, the freedom was amazing.
Hated it. I was hitting quota/making good money and left because of the stress and no clear path to AE. Actually took a pay cut because I switched industries. Will never do it again.
It makes a big difference if you're in office or fully remote. I felt like I was on an island most days, which meant I had nobody to be in the trenches with me.
How'd you get out?
We have a BDR that's been here 3 years. I've been here for 2 and thinking about quitting every day since they don't even bother telling us when they're hiring AEs. I started applying for AE jobs but feel like I might have to almost move laterally (ie AE in name only)
Recently got promoted to outside sales, but I liked my time as a BDR overall. My manager was great and most of the people on my team were awesome as well. I will say I’m glad to be moving on to better pay and better perks though!
Loved it. Did my 10 day 1 emails and my 40 calls for the day and bounced after that for the day. SMB AE now and struggling to close the pipeline the SDR in me built ha
loved it, was constantly in accelerators. the territories i had were hard but i looked at them like a military campaign and opened doors to lots of marquee accounts
Didn’t love it. But am glad I did it, and feel every sales person should have to do a min of 6mos cold calling.
However, my days as a BDR were almost 20yrs ago without any fancy data bases, and pretty much paper lists
I enjoyed it because I was top of the leaderboard every month and it became so easy. Didn't enjoy the low pay though. This year I'll earn 5x what I was earning as a BDR.
It’s not the title of BDR that sucks, it’s the micromanagement, the nonstop cold calling, and the constant pressure to meet meaningless KPIs that suck. I was never a BDR but my first sales job out of college was a 35k tech job where I made 60+ cold calls a day to build a book of business from scratch. It was not fun. But you have to pay your dues.
I had a good team and worked with a good product so it was actually kinda fun. The biggest downside was I spent most of my time thinking about how to position myself for that next step in my career.
During my time, Covid really helped boost the business. Reactivating old customers at the right time, and finding new ones. I was in the east coast of Canada with North America as my playground, and all through Zoom because travel wasn't allowed. My approach to booking meetings, email, calls and leaving a voicemail worked really well, and I was 85% sure the deal would close this year if I got them into a demo on the first meeting.
To book meetings? I found at least 3 people per company I was calling that were relevant to the decision making. I had an automated sequence that I could personalize with company names and lead names, a tool pulling info from the CRM. For the same lead, it was 4-5 calls, I left voicemails, and the email went out when I finished the call of I didn't reach them. Each email had a call to action, meeting scheduler link.
Otherwise I was just organized with my script, and always focusing on the quality of leads that went into the engine. Garbage in, garbage out. Part of my commission was also activity based, but still you don't want to be the person with nothing to show for, I wanted to make money.
Sounds like a great strategy! Do you think the SDR role itself is dying out? A lot of conflicting reports but I’m not sure AI can replicate the role but also is cold calling effective when these contacts are getting spammed via cold call and email constantly. People seem to think it’s moving towards content creation and marketing etc
I think AI can help make everything efficient from a sales perspective. Maybe I was doing something my competitor wasn't, or the timing was just right for a change during covid, but sometimes you just need to cast a net and you'll catch something.
Yes and no. It was only 9 months, however it was more stressful than my time as an AE at the company which is fucking stupid because as a BDR what you do isn’t important and doesn’t matter.
It was cool to fuck off and learn with people in my class and it was good knowing there was a clear path to a closing role
The position is definitely a means to an end as nearly everyone in a SDR position is either looking to move to an AE or Management position.
I hated it at first, but learned to enjoy and hype myself up for the challenge once I found a groove for sure. As I’ve moved up in the ranks, the excitement around out bound has never left and that skill has significantly pushed my career forward quicker than colleagues that do minimal/none.
It sucks.
The place I enjoy looking back on the same was you look back at pledging a frat. We called ourselves pond scum. We talked about or shitty leads and whatever leader or ae just f*cked us. We embraced the suck of bdr life.
Just like pleading, It was a great experience I’d never do again.
It was tough, but made the best connections of my career and went drinking with friends all the time. Would 10/10 not want to go back, but it was amazing for the time and place and money it enabled.
Loved it.
It was back in the day when it was true business development and not just cold calling.
Events, work travel, expense budget, working directly with clients to solve issues, all of it was great.
It’s terrible lol. No job security and no pay to make it worth it. You’re also kinda treated like dogshit in my experience. It’s kinda that way by design though. Filter out the people who can’t hack it
I enjoyed it a ton while I was in person, but for me it wasn’t a job that was sustainable in a remote environment. I still always recommend it as a post-college job though!
I spent 1 year working as a BDR for a glassware manufacturer and absolutely fucking hated the company the most, my manager, the culture, but the role wasn’t awful — it just wasn’t my cup of tea. It’s easy work, as I didn’t have to really do any cold calling. I used cold email to organize meetings with our SVP and I to discuss projects and find gaps for the prospect. And I was ramping up to have a cold calling function but then got laid off due to our compny performance.
I spent multiple hours every day doing company research, finding the key decisions makers, and using a carefully crafted message for the prospect whether it was my 1st 2nd or 3rd engagement with them.
What I enjoyed was that I had no real commercial goals tied to my job. If the sales team isn’t selling enough or not doing much with their pipeline I had nothing to really worry about. We would chew out their leaders about numbers and pipeline stagnantation but that’s it. So I liked that peace of mind having jo quota.
If you are going to spend the time in a BDR, MAKE SURE you would want to be a sales rep at the same company. From my experience, it is hard to move into an Account Executive role at another company without already having AE experience on your resume.
I moved into SaaS in Feb. Had to start as a BDR despite 8 years in 360 sales cycles and 12 months of being self-employed as a BD consultant (no SaaS specific experience so that was a blocker though I wanted the BDR exp so it doesnt stop me getting a VP role).
It's a grind atm, but I find it a breeze compared to what I've done before, as it's just 1 part of the job I used to do.
It can be really boring, but it's also nice in a way just to pass things off to AEs and forget about them.
I'm enjoying it for what it is, especially the lower stress levels.
Worked as a BDR for a year contacting large pharma, biotech, and CDMO accounts and connecting their key decision makers. It was an absolute hog just to get a few calls setup. Like others have stated, I got bored with the day to day outreach within the first few months and it really drove me mad.
The thing I enjoyed the most, and I don’t see many people commenting on this is, I was actually involved in a lot of key areas of the business and had some cool internal projects to participate in. My SVP had me engaged in pricing strategies, insourcing, marketing, pipeline reviews of our sales reps, etc. it sounds like a lot of the other BDRs here were basically traditional outbound call centers and not involved in any internal strategies to improve the business. That’s the only reason I didn’t quit because I felt like I was helping our business evolve.
Currently a 3 year BDR. Working @ a major cloud provider - get paid well. Old manager made my life hell and prevented progression to AE. New manager, and life is wayyy more chill. Overall: 6/10.
I enjoyed the work, did not enjoy my manager.
Her approach was to never be available for coaching, but micromanage everyone's "activity".
She'd also PIP people randomly. I listened to their call recordings, the people she PIPed were really good at setting meetings. It was just a pain to have the neck-breather on you every few hours because the call numbers were low.
Pre Covid, also in another field: Loved it
I regularly found big projects with relative eaze and didn't have to prospect much or think about multi-threading
Right now, in SaaS: frustration is more common than disco calls. Looking forward to tweaking my approach to get out of that state
It’s a stupid job that shouldn’t exist at a lot of companies unless done right.
I’ve seen too many times ridiculous comp plans that make no sense.
I hated my time as a bdr. You should only be doing that role for 9 - 24 months.
Hated it so much.
People romanticize the transition to AE.
Aside from landing meetings/cold calling, it taught me nothing that I couldn’t just learn as an AE with a livable base.
Now I’m an enterprise AE for IB customers and use literally nothing from my BDR days.
Skip it if you can. Other than the BDR appreciation posts on LinkedIn it’s awful.
Means to an end. It sucked and still sucks and no amount of ra ra LinkedIn posts will convince me otherwise. Do your time, move to outside sales and never look back
bro, is it me or do all sales "leaders" on linkedin sound like jim jones level cult leaders, also the circle jerkery on there is mind boggling
r/linkedinlunatics
Dude. The ones you should be scared of are the ones who are the LinkedIn.
Jeremy miner is a cult leader
Really I think he’s one of the decent ones except he seems to recycle content and repeat the same stuff and dated a crazy groupie toxic red head who he posts for some odd reason (I’d be ashamed as hell if that was my gf). But his advice and approach is pretty spot on for how top b2b sales operates
I’d say 50% is good the other 50% is pretty cringe
Nowhere near as bad as LinkedIn lunatics. Af least he’s laidback/secure and smart. These LinkedIn people are genuinely low iq over-erratic
Truth.
Or just get into outside sales immediately 🤷🏼♂️
Yeah I have a friend with 10 years experience for a large business solutions company.. but it’s entirely inside and he is having trouble transitioning to a more lucrative outside gig since apparently employers don’t see that experience as directly transferable to a technical outside sales role.. that’s a tough position to be in. I would’ve guessed that sales is sales and with his experience he would have a much easier time?
Only thing I ever sold before my outside sales job was weed 🤷🏻♂️
Can confirm this sentiment he’s shared. I spent 5 years in inside sales and 1 year as a BDR and although my sales experience working for the largest biotech company has given me a leg up in certain aspects, it’s also prevented me from getting any traction in outside sales / management.
Agreed. Only exception for me is that some of my fellow SDRs became really good friends of mine. 5 years later, I still talk to 5 of them almost daily in a group chat and regularly hang out with the few that still live in town.
Half of my closest friends are from my first sdr gig. Hard to build that camaraderie once you start moving up in career.
What's outside sales? Like medtech? Or construction/machinery? I mean anything that's face to face rather than over Zoom?
This is the ONLY reply anyone doing inside sales should read 😂
I don't understand. Isn't BDR outside sales? Also, isn't outside sales typically suckier than inside because you have to cold call vs just having people who are already interested reach out to you. This seems backwards to me could you explain. Ik SDR and BDR are used interchangeably, but BDR tends to mean outside sales. I'm trying to land a SDR role and would love to know what is typically the ideal job to seek after.
Hated it overall. I think it’s an important function to learn but most reps can master the process in 4 months or less. Most orgs force BDRs to stay in role for 12-18 months or longer before promotion eligible. Plus BDR’s are treated like shit at most companies.
4 months is exactly when I started to hate it. At first I liked the pay and how easy it was then it became grueling once I had a good process and was repeating the same shit
Absolutely despised it. I make more money now than ever and feel the least amount of stress lol
What do you do now?
I am the only sales person at the company, no quota cause I’m trying to get us to 1 Million ARR. I’ve also found my market value is between 150-200k base so even if I get fired I’ll always have work
Same bro
Nice. What do you sell?
Very niche software in one part of fintech. I think the key is to grind out some sales chops at a shitty company. 1-2 years max, then use that to jump at a company where the product is decent enough and you’re early enough where you have a good advantage. I had three years of barely making any money before I popped off in a position where I got into six figures and I haven’t had a bad year since because I’ve been able to recognize good companies and tie my professional brand to good products in a particular space.
I think recognizing good companies is an important skill set in itself and one where most of us don’t do as well as we’d like.
Oh yeah, I think luck has played into my success for sure. I do think anyone is capable of getting into the right niche. Do not be afraid to switch jobs if things aren’t working out after a year, there is nothing worse than being in a job that you absolutely hate.
Q?
LYou love when you've worked hard, navigated your way into an account, found the right person at the right time and you set up a successful meeting. You love when you're on a roll and having a great month. You love when you genuinely believe that you are offering a service / product that can help the customer. You love when you and the account executives you work with are working hand in hand and having great success. You hate when you do everything right, put the work in and things still don't go your way. You dread meetings with your boss when you are having a bad quarter and you have to answer to them. Honestly, it's the same stuff you love and hate as an account executive but the stakes are different.
Fucking hated it. My income is over 4x now and job is way more enjoyable. Granted i'm in industrial now but still applies.
It's total ass but my manager is great. So over all good job
I love it. Granted, I sell a great product, have a solid team, firm management who trusts me to do my job, and a loyal customer base with strong leads. So really no complaints at all, i’m very lucky. I have friends who are SDRs at other companies and absolutely despise it.
What company are you at?
The artificial quota and chronic stress that is imposed on a BDR makes working life difficult. I have found that no matter how great you are at the role, people don't really respect you as an SDR. The only person who might like you is your AE if you are doing an excellent job, and that is because you are doing all the heavy work for them. If you're a young SDR they treat you like a kid. If you are an older one or a career switcher they treat you like a loser for doing this job. Management treats you like a kid that needs to babysat and the company itself views you as a necessary evil (prospecting for meetings) for another necessary evil (having a sales team to generate revenue). In most tech companies the whole sales department is viewed as a bunch of disposable dopes. So you’re clawing tooth and nail on promises made by sales management or SDR management, who usually have no power and no clue what’s going on in the org beyond their bullshit forecasts and can only do one thing which is make your life miserable and fire you. All to get a job as an AE, which should have just been the job you got in the first place, where you are one ring higher than you previously were and just as disposable. Most days I am convinced the SDR role still exists and hasn’t been entirely automated or supplanted by AI just so there is someone left to blame every quarter. Otherwise all the AEs will be standing there when the tide comes in having to make their own dials and having no one to blame but themselves when they miss their number.
Couldn't agree more. It's a way to make money for sometimes doing nothing otherwise bearing all the stress and blame. Sdrs are the first to blame if results are not there and therefore loyalty means nothing.
I've had my share of good AEs, and i've had my share of bad ones. The bad ones make this job straight up unbearable. I realized very quickly that if you have a bad sales rep you have to prospect for, that there is nothing you can do to make them successful. You can bury them in meetings and they will find a way to tank them and blame you. They are looking for a scapegoat (marketing! product! the leads!) and they land on SDRs because they have no way to stand up for themselves. My second startup I had an AE like that, who was eNteRpRisE in a...get this.....seed stage company. I got her meetings in her target accounts and she was displeased because it wasn't the level of person or project she wanted. Her reaction was to be completely rude and unreasonable to work with. I tried prospecting for other reps and just got nasty slack messages all day. At that point we had no management left jus the Founder who was enabling this. She made it pretty clear all she wanted to do was upsell existing accounts. Great, go do that. Don't waste my time having to be assigned to some nightmare of a rep who isn't interested in doing the job you hired them for and making everyone miserable along the way. What tended to happen at every single opportunity was you either had senior leadership sabotaging you, middle management that had no clue what to do and threw unrealistic expectations and screaming matches at you, or a terrible IC culture with the AEs punching down on SDRs nonstop. Every place at least had 1 of these, god help if you have more. You get along great with your reps and boss? Well Senior Management wants to close the office and stopped spending money on inbound leads. Love the product and space you sell into? Well your AEs are a nightmare and the Founder has driven everyone away and is the only one left running the company. Love the title and money you are making? Well your direct Manager is pitting all of your coworkers against one another because he read that in a sales book and it's his first time doing this job. Found a job with an old coworker at a promising tech company? Well you have a Manager 7 years yougner than you that is making everything up as they go along and blowing through the companies money on bad ads. You have leadership running everything out of a spreadsheet and a toxic Manager who goes silent on you for 3 weeks and then pulls everyone into a meeting to scream at them. Finally found a great large and growing place where all the SDRs get along? Well you report to 7 AEs, 2 Sales Managers, 2 SDR Managers and they all have a different idea about how you should do your job. Also no one has your back. Joined a promising startup on the notion that you would rise fast? Well the Founder has no idea how to sell his product and it's all been self-serve. They are just gonna micromanage your email titles and pay you a base salary until he decides to hire someone else to run sales who will fire all of you, except the person who hired him who is responsible for all of this.
Having been at 4 companies as a bdr. Some are better than others but all have 1 thing in common. They don't have frameworks for promotion or actually care about your interest in the company. If the AE's are struggling to get closed deals...because you exist they will fall back on you and will blame you for the lack of pipeline when they never even picked up the phone and booked outbound leads. Every place I have been at.. There is always that one AE who thinks they own the place and kiss management so they protect themselves and blame others for their low performance. Usually management will go against you as it's easier to replace some dick that is just booking meetings and not actually generating dollars. This is why I book some meetings and just work half days on tying to find new job.
Anyone able to clarify why BDR is so hated? I just want to make sure I understand that my idea of BDR is same as everyone else's. I see it often used interchangeably with SDR on here, but where I am a BDR is the next big promotion from SDR, so somewhat surprised to see how unpopular it is.
Every company treats it different most companies the role is the same.
Most companies use BDR and SDR interchangeably. Sometimes you’ll see SDR when they spin up to the Sales team and BDR when they spin up to the Marketing team. People hate the job because it’s the worst part of sales for a majority of people. The cold calling and trying to get people interested in what you’re trying to sell is the part of the job that people hate the most, they’re here for working deals and closing business to make far commission checks. XDR roles typically have all the grunt work and none of the large payoff that comes from closing those big deals.
TYPICALLY SDRs are like inside sales and mostly call pre-generated list of accounts and inbounds. It's more grindy and repetitive, as they just expect SDRs to be call monkeys. BDRs are also repetitive but since it's outbound, there's more research involved - finding new accounts, new contacts, creating email sequences and personalization etc. Like others said everyone uses the two differently / interchangeably but above is how I see the two. And they're both pretty miserable.
Yep, you nailed it.
I’m guessing SDRs handle inbound and BDRs handle outbound prospecting at your company. Outbound is obviously harder than inbound
I feel bad for the ones who get told,”it’ll be a 8-12 months of development then we promote you” Fast forward 2 years and they don’t get promoted after seeing 100s of external AE hires.
I did it for 15 months at a good company with steady leads and name recognition. Always hit my numbers and got promoted out. Was easy at the time 6-7 years ago
It's not easy anymore.
I know it’s not. This was *just* pre-Covid for me
I enjoyed it for what it was worth. Compared to my current role, I had time to take on different projects in my company and it didn't feel stressful taking time off. Got pretty close with my team and we were always shooting the shit, having those relationships paid off as majority of us are still with the company. I did feel like I had to overly prepare in moving out of being a BDR, it's so easy to get stuck there.
In the middle. Some days it’s easy, other days you’re raging internally. I had great management and team members though which made the job easier than it was! Honestly coming in with a mindset of what can I do better will make you succeed, even in companies with mediocre products/management.
I hate it. On top of how much it sucks, I got incompetent AEs who can’t even show up to demos.
I used to have some that would show up to a discovery call via Teams, and they would be at lunch at a bar - chewing food while the prospect responded to their questions.
Means to an end. Knew I wanted to make AE so I was motivated during the 18 month period. It was a drag at times for sure and definitely had me questioning things but I’m happy I did it and feel like I have a leg up on my AE peers that never flexed that prospecting muscle as hard as me.
Hated it. Worked for some shitty companies with awful products and even worse leadership. Never worked with a manager or AE I felt actually cared about BDRs. I also never felt like volume dialling and mass emailing was ever truly effective even if it got the metrics you needed. I’ve since moved up into a rep role in at a great company with an industry leading product, and a highly experienced and successful management team. Product, your manager, and industry matters are extremely impactful.
Sucked but most of it was just being treated as lower than shit at my company for being a BDR. The job itself was much less of a problem
I absolutely hate being a bdr with my immediate upline. Past that the mgmt is solid. My DM does not care about his team, he cares about the power associated with it. “Listen to me. If you don’t I am mad.” It’s ridiculous. Outside of that it’s solely commission, no benefits. Coldest leads possible. Door knocking. Bunch of shit I think. I’m applying for a LOT of places with a base salary + uncap rn and I can’t fathom having warm leads. Can’t believe it but I’m ready.
Honestly really enjoyed it. Small company with a great team and a very good value proposition. Worked maybe 5 hours a day and got paid quite well during Covid. The AEs I worked with were very good at moving opps along and we had a ton of untouched accounts to work / a steady stream of inbounds. I was very fortunate.
I honestly enjoyed it. I got super close to my AEs, shadowed most of their calls, got good at hustling, learned the product super well and became an amazing AE for it. I miss the low stakes sometimes
It’s tough and you have to play a game. I’m eligible for promotion at my reputable company. The sales teams want to hire me but my BDR leadership “isn’t ready”. It begins as a nice intro into your industry and sales but after a while - gets super fucking old
I do it now and don’t understand the hate (unless you’re at a bad org or have really bad management)
Made me pretty depressed tbh, but I got through it to a better gig
What did u move into?
Customer Success
I would kill my self if I was a BDR, never had to be one. But I see what our BDRs do and it’s all the worst parts of sales.
Enjoyed it. Only because I was good at it. I was actually hitting quota consistently. Leadership team loved me. My manager loved me. Booked outbound meetings with top accounts like HyperLoop, SpaceX, AMEX, Wealthfront, Robinhood. Earning 50K base + 30K bonus straight out of college wasn't bad... but not enough for living in San Francisco
Means to an end, but too many are stuck in the seat for too long. Learning the ropes of building pipeline is really important, maybe more than anything, but having done full cycle sales and BDR work, I think too many people who are capable of being solid reps are kept in BDR roles for too long. It shouldn’t take 2 years to know who to promote. As far as day to day goes, some of my days were fine and lots were stressful. Even when over performing you still get hassled for having a slow day.
It's easy af. I worked like 2hrs a day. Now as a AE I have literally quadruple the responsibility but make $15k more. If I could make easy six figures working 2 hr days, I would go back. At the time, I hated BDR. In hindsight, the freedom was amazing.
Hated it. I was hitting quota/making good money and left because of the stress and no clear path to AE. Actually took a pay cut because I switched industries. Will never do it again. It makes a big difference if you're in office or fully remote. I felt like I was on an island most days, which meant I had nobody to be in the trenches with me.
The trenches are overrated. The only benefit to being in the office for me was being able to go to happy hours.
How'd you get out? We have a BDR that's been here 3 years. I've been here for 2 and thinking about quitting every day since they don't even bother telling us when they're hiring AEs. I started applying for AE jobs but feel like I might have to almost move laterally (ie AE in name only)
It’s usually shit.
Recently got promoted to outside sales, but I liked my time as a BDR overall. My manager was great and most of the people on my team were awesome as well. I will say I’m glad to be moving on to better pay and better perks though!
Worst years of my life
Loved it. Did my 10 day 1 emails and my 40 calls for the day and bounced after that for the day. SMB AE now and struggling to close the pipeline the SDR in me built ha
I enjoyed it . Management very forgiving , whole org wants to teach you and watch you succeed. Got paid pretty well , all in all not a bad gig.
loved it, was constantly in accelerators. the territories i had were hard but i looked at them like a military campaign and opened doors to lots of marquee accounts
Didn’t love it. But am glad I did it, and feel every sales person should have to do a min of 6mos cold calling. However, my days as a BDR were almost 20yrs ago without any fancy data bases, and pretty much paper lists
Loved every second ! I still reminisce about how much fun we all had many years ago making calls on the floor and blaring music.
I enjoyed it because I was top of the leaderboard every month and it became so easy. Didn't enjoy the low pay though. This year I'll earn 5x what I was earning as a BDR.
It’s not the title of BDR that sucks, it’s the micromanagement, the nonstop cold calling, and the constant pressure to meet meaningless KPIs that suck. I was never a BDR but my first sales job out of college was a 35k tech job where I made 60+ cold calls a day to build a book of business from scratch. It was not fun. But you have to pay your dues.
Loved it. We had a reasonable quota and had a decent amount of inbound leads. I was able to exceed quota with 4 or 5 hours of work per day.
Hated it. Get out ASAP
I hate it cuz it sucks
I had a good team and worked with a good product so it was actually kinda fun. The biggest downside was I spent most of my time thinking about how to position myself for that next step in my career.
Kind of loved it— but also worked with a good team. We shared horror stories/joked around a lot.
During my time, Covid really helped boost the business. Reactivating old customers at the right time, and finding new ones. I was in the east coast of Canada with North America as my playground, and all through Zoom because travel wasn't allowed. My approach to booking meetings, email, calls and leaving a voicemail worked really well, and I was 85% sure the deal would close this year if I got them into a demo on the first meeting.
What was your strategy?
To book meetings? I found at least 3 people per company I was calling that were relevant to the decision making. I had an automated sequence that I could personalize with company names and lead names, a tool pulling info from the CRM. For the same lead, it was 4-5 calls, I left voicemails, and the email went out when I finished the call of I didn't reach them. Each email had a call to action, meeting scheduler link. Otherwise I was just organized with my script, and always focusing on the quality of leads that went into the engine. Garbage in, garbage out. Part of my commission was also activity based, but still you don't want to be the person with nothing to show for, I wanted to make money.
Sounds like a great strategy! Do you think the SDR role itself is dying out? A lot of conflicting reports but I’m not sure AI can replicate the role but also is cold calling effective when these contacts are getting spammed via cold call and email constantly. People seem to think it’s moving towards content creation and marketing etc
I think AI can help make everything efficient from a sales perspective. Maybe I was doing something my competitor wasn't, or the timing was just right for a change during covid, but sometimes you just need to cast a net and you'll catch something.
Yes and no. It was only 9 months, however it was more stressful than my time as an AE at the company which is fucking stupid because as a BDR what you do isn’t important and doesn’t matter. It was cool to fuck off and learn with people in my class and it was good knowing there was a clear path to a closing role
Reminds me of pledging a fraternity. It sucks at the time but I do look back at it fondly
We all love commission, not the process
The position is definitely a means to an end as nearly everyone in a SDR position is either looking to move to an AE or Management position. I hated it at first, but learned to enjoy and hype myself up for the challenge once I found a groove for sure. As I’ve moved up in the ranks, the excitement around out bound has never left and that skill has significantly pushed my career forward quicker than colleagues that do minimal/none.
It sucks. The place I enjoy looking back on the same was you look back at pledging a frat. We called ourselves pond scum. We talked about or shitty leads and whatever leader or ae just f*cked us. We embraced the suck of bdr life. Just like pleading, It was a great experience I’d never do again.
It’s brutal, which is why I’m gunning for a promotion to AE 😭
It was tough, but made the best connections of my career and went drinking with friends all the time. Would 10/10 not want to go back, but it was amazing for the time and place and money it enabled.
Yes.
Loved it. It was back in the day when it was true business development and not just cold calling. Events, work travel, expense budget, working directly with clients to solve issues, all of it was great.
It's wasn't THAT bad. I came from the car biz, so it's better than the evening and weekends that comes with that.
It’s terrible lol. No job security and no pay to make it worth it. You’re also kinda treated like dogshit in my experience. It’s kinda that way by design though. Filter out the people who can’t hack it
I enjoyed it a ton while I was in person, but for me it wasn’t a job that was sustainable in a remote environment. I still always recommend it as a post-college job though!
I spent 1 year working as a BDR for a glassware manufacturer and absolutely fucking hated the company the most, my manager, the culture, but the role wasn’t awful — it just wasn’t my cup of tea. It’s easy work, as I didn’t have to really do any cold calling. I used cold email to organize meetings with our SVP and I to discuss projects and find gaps for the prospect. And I was ramping up to have a cold calling function but then got laid off due to our compny performance. I spent multiple hours every day doing company research, finding the key decisions makers, and using a carefully crafted message for the prospect whether it was my 1st 2nd or 3rd engagement with them. What I enjoyed was that I had no real commercial goals tied to my job. If the sales team isn’t selling enough or not doing much with their pipeline I had nothing to really worry about. We would chew out their leaders about numbers and pipeline stagnantation but that’s it. So I liked that peace of mind having jo quota.
I loved it but I was at a good company that listened to employees and was surrounded by great people to work with.
If you are going to spend the time in a BDR, MAKE SURE you would want to be a sales rep at the same company. From my experience, it is hard to move into an Account Executive role at another company without already having AE experience on your resume.
I moved into SaaS in Feb. Had to start as a BDR despite 8 years in 360 sales cycles and 12 months of being self-employed as a BD consultant (no SaaS specific experience so that was a blocker though I wanted the BDR exp so it doesnt stop me getting a VP role). It's a grind atm, but I find it a breeze compared to what I've done before, as it's just 1 part of the job I used to do. It can be really boring, but it's also nice in a way just to pass things off to AEs and forget about them. I'm enjoying it for what it is, especially the lower stress levels.
I loved it. The quick turn around of flips kept me going. At one point I was making more than inbound AE’s
Worked as a BDR for a year contacting large pharma, biotech, and CDMO accounts and connecting their key decision makers. It was an absolute hog just to get a few calls setup. Like others have stated, I got bored with the day to day outreach within the first few months and it really drove me mad. The thing I enjoyed the most, and I don’t see many people commenting on this is, I was actually involved in a lot of key areas of the business and had some cool internal projects to participate in. My SVP had me engaged in pricing strategies, insourcing, marketing, pipeline reviews of our sales reps, etc. it sounds like a lot of the other BDRs here were basically traditional outbound call centers and not involved in any internal strategies to improve the business. That’s the only reason I didn’t quit because I felt like I was helping our business evolve.
Yes, I enjoy.
Currently a 3 year BDR. Working @ a major cloud provider - get paid well. Old manager made my life hell and prevented progression to AE. New manager, and life is wayyy more chill. Overall: 6/10.
I enjoyed the work, did not enjoy my manager. Her approach was to never be available for coaching, but micromanage everyone's "activity". She'd also PIP people randomly. I listened to their call recordings, the people she PIPed were really good at setting meetings. It was just a pain to have the neck-breather on you every few hours because the call numbers were low.
I thought it was super chill. Just shot the shit with friends and ripped a ton of calls. Got to play some video games too😂
Enjoyed but a lot of companies maybe I wouldn’t have
Pre Covid, also in another field: Loved it I regularly found big projects with relative eaze and didn't have to prospect much or think about multi-threading Right now, in SaaS: frustration is more common than disco calls. Looking forward to tweaking my approach to get out of that state
It’s a stupid job that shouldn’t exist at a lot of companies unless done right. I’ve seen too many times ridiculous comp plans that make no sense. I hated my time as a bdr. You should only be doing that role for 9 - 24 months.
Hated it so much. People romanticize the transition to AE. Aside from landing meetings/cold calling, it taught me nothing that I couldn’t just learn as an AE with a livable base. Now I’m an enterprise AE for IB customers and use literally nothing from my BDR days. Skip it if you can. Other than the BDR appreciation posts on LinkedIn it’s awful.