In an organization’s revenue generation process, a number of roles are involved, such as marketing research, advertising, public relations (PR), marketing, social media, events, partnerships, sales, etc.
In a business-to-business (B2B) organization, the revenue team is a bit more streamlined. Especially in technology sales and SaaS companies, the revenue engine is made up of marketing, sales, and customer success.
As a bridge between these departments, within what’s typically called the inside sales team, two distinct roles appear: the sales development representative (SDR) and the business development representative (BDR).
The SDR vs. BDR debate has been going on for time immemorial. Some organizations take a specific interest in differentiating the two; Others use these two roles interchangeably as they both work toward the same goal.
Before you decide how you’re going to structure your teams, here’s a primer on SDRs and BDRs.
Leads to Deals: Key SDR vs. BDR Role Differences
Summarize this article for me pleaseDefining SDR and BDR Roles
Within the sales organization, both SDRs and BDRs play distinct and critical roles. Here’s what that looks like.
Sales development representative
An SDR focuses on qualifying inbound leads and passing it on to account executives. Their role is to:
- Review inbound leads
- Evaluate them as sales-qualified leads (SQL) or prospective customers
- Connect with the prospect to understand their needs
- Document all information about the prospect and pass it on to account executives
Business development representative
A BDR is responsible for prospecting outbound leads. Their role is to:
- Conduct cold outreaches
- Identify business opportunities
- Support service development
- Set up meetings with the sales teams
The roles and responsibilities of an SDR are very different from those of a BDR. Let’s look at the various aspects in which they differ.
Summarize this article for me pleaseKey Differences Between SDRs and BDRs
💡 Did you know? Over 50% of customers engage with brands in 3-5 channels during their sales journey. A typical buying group involves 6-10 stakeholders. And 75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience.
Between SDRs and BDRs, there are some basic commonalities. They are both early career roles with immense opportunities to grow into sales leadership. Typically, both are part of the sales team. Both collaborate with marketing and customer success on a regular basis.
More importantly, as an SDR or a BDR, your goal is to generate revenue for the organization. The similarities end there. Here are the differences.
Focus areas
SDRs focus on inbound leads and BDRs, on outbound campaigns. As a result, SDRs seek to create and nurture leads to be converted to sales, while BDRs build relationships that help increase the share of wallet for the business.
For example, when the marketing team generates a lead in the form of an asset download, the sales development rep reaches out to them offering help and initiating a conversation.
On the other hand, a business development rep does research among existing customers and new markets to identify opportunities for growth.
Sales cycle involvement
SDRs have a tactical mandate to capture attention, identify requirements, and pass them on to account executives (AEs). They don’t close deals. This means that they are focused on the top of the sales funnel.
BDRs have a strategic mandate to track trends, do market research, and identify potential opportunities. They engage the prospect from beginning to end—they have full-cycle involvement.
Metrics and goals
An SDR’s goals would be to move more prospects down the pipeline. This includes:
- Outreach in the form of emails sent or calls made
- Conversion rates from inbound lead to qualified lead
- Rate of accurate qualification
- Rate of meetings booked
A BDR’s goals are spread out throughout the sales cycle. This includes:
- Leads generated
- Lead conversion rate
- Average order size
- Revenue generated
Let’s wrap that up.
| Feature | SDR | BDR |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Qualifying inbound marketing leads | Outbound lead prospecting |
| Scope | Top of the funnel | Full funnel |
| Purpose | Set the foundation of the business relationship and pass it to the AE | Build the relationship and nurture toward revenue |
| Role | Tactical, geared toward moving leads down the funnel | Strategic, geared toward building relationships |
| Lead quantity | Go through fewer leads but spend more time on engagement | Go through fewer leads but spend more time in engagement |
| Role fitment | Best in organizations offering low-price products with few decision-making stakeholders | Best in organizations where the ticket size is high, decisions are complex, and stakeholders are many |
Depending on your organization’s product, needs, and goals, you might need SDRs, BDRs, or both. Let’s look into that.
Summarize this article for me pleaseSDRs and BDRs: Creating the Right Inside Sales Team
Sales development reps are the right choice if:
- You have a mature marketing engine that is generating good brand awareness and interest
- You have a large number of inbound leads coming in, and you need someone to qualify them to the bottom of the funnel
- You have a clear and concrete definition of the ideal customer persona (ICP)
- Your product’s ticket size is relatively small, and the decisions can be made quickly
Business development reps are the right choice if:
- You are an early-stage business, still building the marketing engine
- You need sales teams to build deep relationships that can be leveraged for long-term revenue opportunities
- You are exploring ICPs and could use more research and development
- Your product’s ticket size is large and involves multiple stakeholders
In addition, a healthy combination of BDRs and SDRs is best in various scenarios.
For instance, if you’re a SaaS product that sells to individuals, small businesses, and enterprises, you can offer self-serve to individuals, assign SDRs to SMBs, and BDRs for enterprise accounts.
If you’re somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of brand awareness, marketing maturity, ICP understanding, etc., you might do well to have a team that includes SDRs and BDRs. In any case, you need to have them working well together.
Summarize this article for me pleaseCollaboration Between SDRs and BDRs
Most inside sales teams today prefer to hire both SDRs and BDRs to support their revenue-generation efforts. However, given the nature of their work and their common goals, there can be some overlap in their efforts.
For example, let’s say you’re selling a payments automation tool. An SDR might come across a lead from the marketing manager of an organization. Here, though the ICP is not a match, the organization they work for might be a good fit for your product.
In such cases, the SDR can pass the opportunity on to a BDR to explore. Such effortless hand-offs demand effective collaboration. Here’s how you can set that up with an all-in-one sales project management tool like ClickUp.
Set up a common CRM
In modern sales, information is wealth. So, before anything else, add a customer relationship management (CRM) platform to your sales tech stack.
Consolidate all information across the sales pipeline with ClickUp CRM. Set up client relationships, create a database, manage sales tasks, collaborate on deals, and analyze data for decision-making—all with ClickUp.
Once set up, enable access to your CRM to your SDRs and BDRs. Assign tasks to individuals, create customized dashboards, and empower the inside sales teams to have the complete context for making decisions.
Get started instantly with ClickUp’s Sales CRM Template. Use it to manage customer information, communications, follow-ups. With this beginner-friendly template, you can also track leads, visualize sales opportunities, and get real-time visibility into everything that matters.
Build visibility
It isn’t enough to have all the information in one place; you also need the right kind of visibility. Use the dozen customizable views and a powerful ClickUp Sales Pipeline Template to gain actionable visibility on all your projects.
To see all your leads by the stage in the sales cycle, try the Kanban board view. To see your follow-up schedule, use the calendar view. To track the time it takes to close a deal, try the Gantt chart view.
To filter and sort your leads based on any of the parameters you capture, use the ever-trustworthy list view. The ClickUp Sales Tracker Template will give you the jumpstart you need.
Use this highly customizable template to view all your leads in the order of your preference. Include sales productivity information to track metrics and goal achievement.
For example, you can track the number of hours spent on each deal and evaluate the ROI on them, or you can see how many deals each BDR is managing at one time and reallocate workload.
Manage your sales operations effectively.
⚡️ Template Archive: Check out these customizable sales pipeline templates for your business.
Automate processes
When we speak of collaboration, we often think about two or more individuals in a meeting discussing possibilities. While that is an important part, a lot of the gaps in collaboration can be filled by sales automation tools.
Use ClickUp Automations to streamline various workflows that help SDRs and BDRs work better together. Some examples include:
- When an SDR marks an unqualified lead as a potential opportunity for a BDR, automatically assign it to the right BDR
- When someone from an opportunity being pursued by a BDR becomes an inbound lead, send an alert to the BDR
- When a lead demands a feature that is in the roadmap, automatically tag it as such
- If a deal is dormant for too long, alert the corresponding SDR/BDR
Collaborate in real time
As much as you try, the sales process is neither linear nor simple. A lead might sign up for your newsletter but decline all conversations from your SDR. Then, their manager might show interest during a BDR’s outreach, bringing them back into the conversation.
Someone who isn’t interested now can become interested a few weeks later. There are all kinds of possibilities. The only way to navigate all this and achieve sales goals is through effective collaboration. Within ClickUp, there are dozens of sales productivity tools to enable this.
Task management
Use the nested comments in ClickUp Tasks to strategize the outreach program. Based on all the information available, debate options, A/B test approaches, and build sales plan templates for your needs.
Conversations
Use ClickUp Chat to bring all conversations about a deal to one place. Add tasks to conversations. Or convert messages into tasks. Add posts about any important announcements or updates. Organize conversations into spaces. And launch ClickUp Brain to catch you up, ideate, brainstorm, and 10x your productivity!
Bonus Read: How to use AI in sales.
Knowledge management
Curate all your call scripts with the ClickUp Sales Calls Template. Use this intermediate-level template to:
- Store all your call scripts in one place
- Create checklists for inbound lead qualification
- Have easy access to objection handling resources
- Stay focused on the conversation during the call
With that, you have the clarity and the systems needed to build a strong inside sales team. But how do you hire the right people? Here’s how.
Summarize this article for me pleaseCareer Paths and Skills
As you’ve seen above, the SDR and BDR roles are similar but distinct. So, the skills and career paths are often different too.
Work experience
An SDR reviews inbound leads, qualifies based on clear parameters, makes initial connections, and gathers basic requirements. With a strong process and checklists, a fresh graduate or an early career professional can manage this efficiently.
On the other hand, BDRs perform exploratory research. They need to have nifty ways to identify prospects, reach out contextually, and create interest. This needs someone with more experience in the industry and market.
Training and support
Sales development representatives need focused training, while BDRs have the wherewithal to handle some level of freedom.
For instance, both roles involve some level of research. The SDR researches the specifics of an inbound lead, its organization, and possible needs. So, SDRs need a clear step-by-step process.
On the other hand, business development representatives study new markets and explore possibilities. A flexible framework or guidelines would be just enough.
Initiative
An SDR works on inbound leads, so they only need the motivation to clear their inbox and do a thorough job. A BDR needs to identify opportunities where none appear. They need networking skills, a proactive mindset, more initiative, and self-motivation to keep shooting in the dark.
However, traits like customer empathy, willingness to learn, creativity, problem-solving, comfort with sales enablement tools, etc. are necessary for both roles. If you’re looking to break into this industry, here’s a primer on how to get into tech sales.
As far as career paths go, SDRs and BDRs have immense possibilities.
For starters, both SDRs and BDRs can move toward sales leadership. Either of them can build skills and capabilities in each other’s roles, first moving up to sales manager, head of inside sales, regional sales head, and head of sales.
SDRs can get closer to the inbound marketing team, giving them insights into what the customers are looking for, what assets generate the most qualified leads, what kind of content clicks, etc. With some upskilling, they can navigate toward revenue operations roles.
BDRs can move to core research, building strengths in identifying markets, prospective industries, partnerships, and collaborations. They can take on big-ticket sales as individual contributors or become research support to go-to-market teams.
💡Pro Tip: If you’re considering this path, either as an SDR or BDR, here’s a look at a day in the life of a sales manager.
Summarize this article for me pleaseStrengthen Your SDR and BDR Teams With ClickUp
Modern sales processes are complex, and selling is hard! In addition to hiring the best people in the market, you also need to set them up for success with the right CRM, collaboration tools, reusable templates, and powerful automations.
ClickUp for sales teams offers you all this and more. ClickUp’s highly customizable project management platform empowers you to consolidate all your sales data into one place, giving your SDRs and BDRs both visibility and context.
Its powerful automation features facilitate collaboration and timely reminders so you never have a lead fall through the cracks. When in doubt, power up ClickUp Brain and ask any question. Get instant answers to kick your roadblock out of the way.
Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
