Are your reps hitting the same walls over and over? You're not alone. During a recent webinar, sales expert Sally Duby and I broke down the five most common roadblocks to building pipeline. We found that simple communication gaps and clunky processes are often the real culprits behind these major sales roadblocks. Fixing them starts with implementing clear, repeatable systems. This guide outlines the essential SDR best practices you need to clear the path for your team and get them contributing to the pipeline faster.
In this article, we’ll explore three best practices for avoiding roadblocks and, in turn, accelerating pipeline growth.
1. Start Here: Aligning on SDR Best Practices
Sales and marketing have a shared responsibility for building pipeline. Marketing is primarily focused on creating awareness, driving website traffic, and converting visitors to leads. The sales team engages inbound leads and builds even more pipeline through outbound prospecting.
Although sales and marketing have distinctively different responsibilities, both teams must consciously work toward an aligned set of pipeline objectives. Developing shared objectives is impossible without first agreeing on strategy, philosophy, roles, and definitions.
Strategy & Philosophy
Everyone wants more pipeline. That’s a given. How to get more of it, however, is usually where opinions begin to diverge.
Take, for example, the discussion of lead “quality versus quantity.” Are ten mediocre leads better than one highly qualified prospect? The answer may depend on a variety of factors, such as your organization’s pipeline health and cash flow situation.
“Talk to your sales leaders and figure out where you are with your pipeline,” said Sally Duby, Chief Sales Officer, The Bridge Group, Inc. “If your pipeline is starving, then perhaps you should focus on quantity rather than quality for the time being.”
Knowing which leads to engage first can also be complicated. Developing clear segmentation rules is key to maximizing efficiency and preventing confusion.
“Early stage companies may not have the resources to be everything to everyone,” Duby said. “Segmentation delivers clarity to target prospects who have the greatest propensity to purchase.”
Roles
Simply having a sales team is no guarantee for pipeline growth. With account executives (AEs) spending most of their time pursuing existing opportunities, the front end of your pipeline can quickly dry up.
“Building pipeline isn’t a part-time job,” Duby said. “Many companies struggle because they fail to recognize the importance of having a full-time team that owns the front end of the pipeline.”
Delegating your outbound prospecting duties to a dedicated team of sales development representatives (SDRs) is one way to keep pipeline flowing.
“Sales development reps take responsibility for the front end of the pipeline,” Duby said. “This frees up your AEs to do what they do best – which is closing deals.”
Definitions
“Sales reps, marketing, and SDRs must also align around your ideal customer profile,” Duby said. “Your ICP should get everyone on the same page about the types of accounts that you’re targeting.”
Service level agreements (SLAs) formalize cross-departmental terminology and minimize the potential for future miscommunication.
“A service level agreement offers an additional layer of accountability and clarity,” Duby said. “The SLA should help everyone understand your ICP and provide specifics about buyers, roles, functions, and other key details.”
What is a Sales Development Representative (SDR)?
A Sales Development Representative, or SDR, is a specialized sales role focused entirely on the top of the sales funnel. Think of them as the architects of your pipeline. Their primary job is to identify, connect with, and qualify potential customers. They handle the crucial first steps of the sales process, which involves a lot of research and outreach to generate new leads. Once an SDR has qualified a lead and confirmed they are a good fit for the product or service, they schedule a meeting and hand them off to an Account Executive (AE) to take the conversation further and close the deal.
Core Responsibilities and Skills
At their core, SDRs are opportunity creators. Their main goal is to find and qualify potential customers, setting up sales meetings to create new sales opportunities for the AEs. This involves a mix of inbound and outbound activities. For inbound, they follow up on leads generated by marketing. For outbound, they proactively research and contact potential customers who fit the ideal customer profile. Key skills for an SDR include incredible resilience, excellent written and verbal communication, and strong organizational habits. They need to be comfortable with rejection, persistent in their follow-up, and tech-savvy enough to manage their activities in a CRM.
A Day in the Life of a High-Performing SDR
No two days are exactly the same for an SDR, but the most successful ones operate with a clear framework. The role involves juggling a high volume of tasks—from researching accounts and personalizing emails to making calls and updating the CRM. Without a plan, it's easy to get pulled in a dozen different directions and end the day feeling like you accomplished nothing. That's why having a clear daily structure and routine is one of the most important ways to make the SDR job easier and more successful. A structured day helps ensure that high-priority activities get the attention they deserve.
The Importance of a Structured Routine
A structured routine is what separates good SDRs from great ones. Success in this role comes from being consistent and disciplined, which a solid daily structure helps you achieve. This often looks like time-blocking, where you dedicate specific parts of your day to specific tasks. For example, you might spend the first hour of your day researching new accounts, the next two hours making calls, and an afternoon block for sending personalized follow-up emails. This approach prevents you from just reacting to whatever comes up and allows you to proactively manage your day, ensuring you’re consistently hitting the activities that lead to booked meetings.
Setting and Tracking Meaningful Goals
A routine gives your day structure, but goals give it purpose. To stay motivated and on track, it’s essential to have specific goals for each day, week, and month. These goals should go beyond just the final number of meetings booked. Top-performing SDRs track both activity metrics (like calls made or emails sent) and effectiveness metrics (like conversations had or positive replies received). This level of tracking helps you see what’s actually working. If you’re sending a hundred emails but not getting replies, you know you need to adjust your messaging, not just send another hundred emails.
Varying Outreach for Better Engagement
Relying on a single channel for outreach is a recipe for being ignored. The best way to reach people depends entirely on your industry and who you're trying to sell to, so you have to adjust your approach based on your target audience. A multi-channel strategy that combines email, phone calls, and social media (like LinkedIn) is far more effective. Personalization is also non-negotiable. A generic message is easy to delete, but a thoughtful, relevant email that shows you’ve done your homework is much harder to ignore. Using AI-powered workflows can help you manage a multi-channel strategy without getting overwhelmed, ensuring you reach the right person on the right channel at the right time.
The Golden Rule: Responding to Inbound Leads Quickly
When it comes to inbound leads, speed is everything. When an SDR gets a new lead from a website form or a content download, it's best to respond very quickly—ideally within minutes. Think about it: at that moment, the prospect is actively engaged and thinking about a solution to their problem. If you wait hours or even a day to respond, they may have already lost interest or, even worse, started a conversation with one of your competitors. A fast response time dramatically increases your chances of connecting with the lead and booking a meeting, making it one of the most impactful habits an SDR can build.
2. Unite Your Sales Team to Overcome Roadblocks
Effective collaboration is a critical component of any pipeline-generating initiative.
“Going out for drinks after work isn’t the type of meeting that produces pipeline,” Duby said. “You must have regular, structured meetings that explore what’s working and measure conversions every step of the way.”
So, how can you structure your team meetings so that they proactively identify and overcome roadblocks to building pipeline? Taking a data-driven, collaborative approach can be an excellent place to start.
For example, let’s assume that your SDRs are primarily focused on setting appointments with leads. Once an appointment is booked, the handoff occurs automatically in your CRM. In this situation, it seems obvious that both parties should be mutually interested in appointment-related metrics, such as:
- Number of appointments set by the SDR team
- Pipeline value for deals originated by the SDR team
- Percent of SDR-initiated appointments that actually occur
- Percent of SDR-initiated appointments that convert into opportunities
- Top reasons why SDR-initiated appointments fail to convert
- Quality of appointments by customer segment
Tracking quantifiable metrics of mutual interest encourages everyone to embrace a holistic view of the pipeline, which makes it easier to identify innovative solutions that optimize for maximum performance.
Onboarding New SDRs for Long-Term Success
Once you have a dedicated SDR team, your next focus is setting them up for success from day one. A structured onboarding process is non-negotiable. It not only gets new hires up to speed faster but also builds the foundation for their long-term growth and resilience. A great onboarding experience shows you’re invested in their career, which is key to retaining top talent. It’s about more than just handing them a playbook; it’s about immersing them in the culture, the process, and the mindset required to thrive in a demanding but rewarding role.
Priorities for the First Week
The first week for a new SDR can feel like a whirlwind. To cut through the noise, focus on one key activity: making calls. While it’s tempting to spend days on product training and theory, getting on the phone builds immediate confidence and practical experience. As one sales professional on Reddit advised, new SDRs should “get on the phones as soon as you can.” This hands-on approach helps them quickly understand prospect objections, learn the rhythm of a sales conversation, and start contributing to the pipeline right away. It turns theoretical knowledge into practical skill much faster than reading scripts alone ever could.
How to Learn and Adapt Quickly
The fastest way to improve is by learning from real-world examples. Encourage new SDRs to listen to four sales calls every single day. The trick is in the mix: two successful calls and two that didn’t go well. By analyzing one of their own and one of a teammate’s in each category, they get a 360-degree view of what works and what doesn’t. This daily habit helps them internalize effective talk tracks, understand how to handle objections gracefully, and identify common pitfalls to avoid. It’s a simple, powerful routine that accelerates the learning curve and fosters a culture of continuous improvement within the team.
Developing a Resilient Mindset
Let’s be direct: rejection is a huge part of being an SDR. Building a resilient mindset is just as important as learning a sales script. From the very beginning, it’s crucial to frame rejection not as failure, but as a normal and necessary part of the process. Every “no” is a data point that gets them closer to a “yes.” Normalizing this experience helps new hires build the mental toughness required to stay motivated. It’s a growth opportunity that teaches them persistence and helps them refine their approach without taking the rejection personally, which is a cornerstone of a long and successful sales career.
Structuring and Managing Your SDR Team
Hiring and onboarding great SDRs is just the beginning. To create a high-performing pipeline engine, you need a solid team structure and a clear management strategy. This involves defining roles, setting achievable goals, and creating a compensation plan that motivates the right behaviors. A well-structured team ensures that your Account Executives always have a steady stream of qualified opportunities to pursue. It also creates a healthy, competitive, and supportive environment where SDRs can grow their skills and see a clear future with your company, reducing churn and strengthening your sales floor.
Team Structure and Ratios
A common question sales leaders ask is, "How many SDRs do I need?" While every business is different, a good benchmark comes from a Crunchbase report, which found that, on average, there is one SDR for every 2.5 sales reps. This ratio helps ensure that your AEs have enough support to keep their calendars full of qualified meetings without being overwhelmed. Think of this as a starting point. You can adjust the ratio based on your sales cycle length, lead volume, and overall pipeline goals. The key is to find a balance that keeps your closers focused on closing.
Setting Clear Goals and Career Paths
SDR turnover can be high, but it doesn’t have to be. One of the most effective ways to retain your best people is to show them a clear path forward. This means offering frequent opportunities for advancement, such as moving from a Junior to an Associate or Senior SDR role. More importantly, create a defined pathway for them to become a full sales rep. When SDRs see a tangible career ladder and know what they need to do to climb it, they are far more motivated to perform and stick around for the long haul, creating a strong internal talent pipeline for your AE team.
Designing a Fair Compensation Plan
Your compensation plan directly influences your team's focus and behavior. To keep SDRs motivated, tie their commission to metrics they can directly control. Instead of compensating them based on closed deals, which is the AE’s responsibility, reward them for setting qualified appointments or generating accepted opportunities. This approach is not only fairer but also keeps them focused on their primary role: filling the top of the funnel. Using AI-powered workflows can help automate the tracking of these activities, ensuring every meeting set is logged accurately and compensation is always transparent and correct.
3. Which Sales Tools Actually Help Build Pipeline?
Scaling your pipeline isn’t just a “people” issue. In today’s tech-driven marketplace, there are plenty of tools that can supplement your existing processes.
“There are over 4,000 account-based tools on the market today,” Duby said. “Tools like Mixmax help sales reps automate tasks, engage more customers, and get more done.”
With so many solutions to choose from, picking the right software can feel like an overwhelming task. As a result, some organizations make the mistake of settling for the status quo. In the long run, however, failure to change can lead to a competitive disadvantage. A better approach leverages technology to overcome bottlenecks and create new competitive advantages.
“Take a closer look to determine areas where your team might be struggling,” Duby said. “Use technology as a means to supplement your team’s efforts and accelerate pipeline creation.”
Ms. Duby also advocates for technology that can enhance the systems that already contribute to your pipeline engine. “Once you’ve validated a process as repeatable and scalable, it’s time to automate pieces of it with technology,” Duby said.
Key Performance Metrics and Quotas to Track
Before you can improve your pipeline, you need a clear picture of what's happening right now. This means tracking the right metrics. For Sales Development Representatives (SDRs), the primary goal is often to fill the calendars of Account Executives (AEs). If an AE’s calendar is looking sparse, the SDRs should focus on setting introductory meetings to get conversations started. However, if their calendars are consistently full, the SDRs can shift their focus to sourcing more deeply “qualified opportunities,” which are leads who are further along in their buying journey. This flexible approach ensures the team is always working on what’s most impactful for the business at that moment.
So, what does a realistic goal look like? Industry benchmarks suggest an average SDR quota is around 21 meetings set or 13 qualified opportunities per month, and about 68% of SDRs successfully meet that quota. Setting clear, data-informed goals like these helps everyone understand what’s expected and provides a standard to measure performance against. It’s not about micromanaging; it’s about creating a transparent system where SDRs know exactly what they need to do to succeed and contribute to the team’s overall pipeline health. This clarity helps motivate the team and keeps everyone aligned on the most important outcomes.
Activity Benchmarks and Realistic Quotas
Hitting those monthly quotas comes down to consistent daily effort. To make goals feel more achievable, it helps to break them down into daily and weekly activity benchmarks. For instance, top-performing SDRs typically make around 46 calls per day, which leads to about 5.8 meaningful conversations. It’s also a good practice to aim for 9 to 12 touchpoints per prospect to ensure you’re staying top of mind without being overwhelming. Creating a structured daily plan helps maintain this discipline and consistency, which are the building blocks of long-term success in sales development.
Regularly measuring your daily and monthly results allows you to get quick feedback and adjust your approach as needed. If you notice you’re making the calls but not having enough conversations, you might need to tweak your call times or opening lines. Technology can also play a significant role here. Studies show that using dialing technology can result in 28% more calls and 30% more quality conversations each day. By focusing on these core activities and leveraging the right tools, you can build a repeatable process for hitting and exceeding your quotas.
The Modern SDR Tech Stack
Building a powerful pipeline today requires more than just grit; it requires the right technology. With over 4,000 account-based tools available, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. The key is to think of technology as a way to supplement your team’s efforts, not replace them. Your tech stack should be designed to remove friction from your sales process and help your team work more efficiently. Start by identifying the bottlenecks in your current workflow. Are SDRs spending too much time on manual data entry? Are they struggling to personalize outreach at scale? These are the areas where technology can make a real difference.
The best time to introduce a new tool is after you’ve already established a process that works. Once you have a repeatable and scalable system, you can use technology to automate parts of it. This strategic approach ensures you’re not just buying software for the sake of it, but are intentionally using it to accelerate pipeline creation. For example, platforms like Mixmax help sales reps automate tedious tasks and engage more prospects, all without leaving their inbox. By carefully selecting tools that solve specific problems, you can build a tech stack that empowers your team to get more done.
Tools for Research and Prospecting
A solid tech stack starts with tools that help you find and understand your ideal customers. This begins with your CRM, like Salesforce or HubSpot, which acts as the central nervous system for all your sales activities. From there, you can add specialized tools for prospecting and research. Platforms like LinkedIn Sales Navigator are essential for identifying the right contacts within your target accounts, while data providers can help you find accurate email addresses and phone numbers. This foundational layer of technology ensures your SDRs are spending their time reaching out to the right people with the right information.
The Impact of Automation and Technology
The true power of a modern tech stack lies in automation. When you automate the right tasks, you free up your SDRs to focus on what they do best: building relationships and having meaningful conversations. Repetitive tasks like logging activities, sending follow-up emails, and scheduling meetings can all be handled by software. This not only saves a massive amount of time but also reduces the risk of human error, ensuring that no lead ever falls through the cracks. Automation allows your team to connect with prospects more efficiently and consistently, laying the groundwork for more productive interactions.
Streamline Outreach with AI-Powered Workflows
Going beyond basic automation, AI-powered workflows can intelligently manage outreach based on a prospect’s behavior. Imagine a system where a prospect who clicks on a pricing link in your email is automatically added to a high-priority follow-up sequence, and a task is created in your CRM for the SDR to call them that same day. This is the kind of smart automation that helps teams prioritize their efforts on the most engaged leads. By setting up these custom workflows, you can ensure that every interaction is timely and relevant, dramatically increasing your chances of starting a valuable conversation.
Your Next Steps for Building a Better Pipeline
Need more best practices for building pipeline? Stay tuned for our next article that reveals even more pipeline-building tips.
Oh, and by the way – if you’re looking for an all-in-one communications tool for building pipeline, give Mixmax a try. Create automated sales sequences, track emails in real time, and engage at exactly the right moment.
Try Mixmax free for 14 days.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is it so important for sales and marketing to agree on definitions like an 'ideal customer profile'? Think of it as giving both teams the same map. When sales and marketing have a shared, crystal-clear definition of who your ideal customer is, everyone's efforts pull in the same direction. Marketing creates content and campaigns that attract the right people, and the sales development team knows exactly which leads to prioritize, which saves a massive amount of time and prevents friction between the teams.
What's the most important habit for a new SDR to build in their first few weeks? While it's tempting to have them study product manuals for a week, the best thing a new SDR can do is get on the phone as quickly as possible. Real conversations, even the unsuccessful ones, are the fastest way to learn. This hands-on experience helps them understand common objections and find their voice, turning theoretical training into practical skill much faster than any playbook ever could.
My company has high SDR turnover. What can I do to keep my best people? High turnover often happens when SDRs don't see a future for themselves at the company. The most effective way to retain top talent is to create a clear and achievable career path. Show them exactly what they need to do to advance, whether it's to a senior SDR role or, eventually, to an Account Executive position. When people see a tangible future and feel invested in, they are far more motivated to stay and grow with you.
We want to use more technology, but when is the right time to introduce a new sales tool? You should introduce a new tool only after you have a process that is already working and repeatable. Technology should be used to make a good system more efficient, not to fix a broken one. Once you've identified a process that consistently gets results, you can look for tools, like AI-powered workflows, to automate specific parts of it and help your team scale their success.
Besides the number of meetings set, what other metrics should my SDR team be tracking? While meetings set is a key outcome, you should also track the metrics that lead to that result. Look at both activity metrics, like calls made and emails sent, and effectiveness metrics, like the number of positive replies or meaningful conversations. Tracking these earlier indicators helps you see what's actually working, so you can coach your team on their approach rather than just focusing on the final number.
Key Takeaways
- Get everyone on the same page first: Before anything else, make sure your sales and marketing teams agree on core strategies, the ideal customer profile, and specific team roles to build a solid foundation for pipeline growth.
- Structure is the key to repeatable success: Empower your SDRs with a clear framework that includes a disciplined daily routine, a thorough onboarding process, and a visible career path to keep them effective and motivated.
- Use technology to support your process, not define it: Identify your team's biggest bottlenecks and establish a working solution first; then, strategically use tools like AI-powered workflows to automate tasks and accelerate what you already do well.
