What is an SDR?

An SDR's job is to turn a market into conversations:

• Prospecting — building lists of companies and people that fit the ICP
• Outreach — cold email, calls, and social touches to start conversations
• Follow-up — the persistent, multi-step nudging most deals need
• Qualification — sorting genuine interest from polite no's before handing off

They don't usually close deals — they create and qualify the opportunities that closers (AEs) turn into revenue.

The titles overlap, but the common split is:

• SDR — typically handles inbound leads and qualification
• BDR — typically focuses on outbound prospecting into cold accounts
• AE (Account Executive) — takes qualified opportunities and closes them

In smaller companies one person often wears all these hats — which is exactly where it gets hard to do any of them consistently.

Beyond salary, an effective SDR needs tools, a clean market map, healthy sending infrastructure, good messaging, and management — plus two to three months to ramp before they produce pipeline. For an SMB filling a single seat, that's a significant, slow, and risky investment.

This is why a growing number of SMBs outsource the function rather than hire the role: they get sourcing, outreach, follow-up, and qualification as a service, without the salary, ramp, or single-point-of-failure risk.