Overview
You prospect into mid-market brands and agencies to book demos for Respondology's social engagement platform. You're calling marketing directors, social media managers, and agency leads who manage high-volume social accounts. Your job is to get them interested enough to take a 30-minute demo with an AE.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Outbound SDR |
| Sales Motion | Outbound-heavy (Dan specifically wants a 'phone shark') |
| Deal Complexity | Consultative (selling to marketing/social teams) |
| Sales Cycle | N/A for SDR - focused on top-of-funnel |
| Deal Size | N/A for SDR role |
| Quota (est.) | 15-20 qualified meetings/month (industry standard for mid-market) |
Company Context
Stage: Unknown funding stage (82 employees suggests Series A/B range)
Size: 82 employees
Growth: Actively hiring SDRs, hiring manager is eager to fill role quickly
Market Position: Niche player in social media management - focused on comment moderation/engagement rather than broader social management tools
GTM Reality
Pipeline Sources:
- 80%+ Outbound - This role is about dialing and emailing. Dan wants someone who can work the phones.
- 20% Inbound - Some inbound from brands searching for comment moderation solutions, but not the primary source
- Unknown partner motion
SDR/AE Structure: You're an SDR booking meetings for AEs - standard handoff model
SE Support: Unknown, but product likely requires demo from AE or SE given technical nature of moderation platform
Competitive Landscape
Main Competitors: Unknown (likely other social listening/moderation tools, social media management platforms with moderation features)
How They Differentiate: AI-native moderation at scale, real-time spam/bot/hate removal, built specifically for high-volume paid and organic social
Common Objections: "We handle comments manually," "Our social platform has built-in moderation," "We don't get that much engagement," "Budget is tied up in other martech"
Win Themes: Scale (Fortune 500 use them), automation (24/7 without manual work), brand safety (removing toxic content)
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Cold Calling (40%) | Email/LinkedIn (30%) | Research/List Building (15%) | Admin/CRM (15%)
Key Activities
- Cold calling: 50-70 dials per day to marketing directors, social media managers, and agency contacts at mid-market companies. You're explaining why comment moderation matters and trying to book 15-minute discovery calls. Most don't pick up, many say "not interested" within 10 seconds.
- Email sequences: Writing and sending personalized email campaigns to prospects who don't answer. You're referencing their brand's social presence, pointing out spam in their comments, trying to create urgency around brand safety.
- List building: Researching mid-market brands and agencies with active social presences (high follower counts, paid campaigns, lots of comments). Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo, or similar tools to find the right contacts.
- Meeting hand-offs: Briefing AEs on the accounts you've booked, providing context on pain points discussed, ensuring smooth handoff. You own the meeting show rate.
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- Most brands don't think they have a comment moderation problem until you point it out - lots of cold calls end with "we're good, thanks" before you can explain the value
- Reaching the right person is tough - you'll talk to a lot of junior social coordinators who don't have budget authority and need to loop in their boss
- Mid-market often means "we're interested but don't have budget until next quarter" - expect long nurture cycles on some deals even after booking the meeting
- Comment moderation isn't top-of-mind for most marketers - you're creating demand, not responding to inbound interest
- Dan mentions he missed the deadline to post the official job link, which suggests fast-moving/scrappy environment - expect things to move quickly and processes to be less formal
What Success Looks Like
- Booking 15-20 qualified meetings per month (3-4 per week)
- 50%+ meeting show rate (prospects actually attend the demo)
- 30-40% of your meetings convert to qualified opportunities for AEs
- Developing a personal list of target accounts and building relationships over multiple touchpoints
Who You're Selling To
Primary Buyers:
- Marketing Directors at mid-market brands (100-1,000 employees)
- Social Media Managers at consumer brands with active social presence
- Agency leads managing social for multiple clients
What They Care About:
- Brand safety - removing spam, bots, and toxic comments before they damage reputation
- Time savings - not having their team manually moderating comments 24/7
- Engagement insights - understanding what their audience is actually saying in comments
- Scalability - handling high comment volume during campaigns or viral posts
Requirements
- Comfortable making 50-70+ cold calls per day (Dan specifically wants a 'phone shark')
- Ability to explain a technical product (AI moderation) in simple terms to marketers
- Experience prospecting into marketing/social media teams preferred
- Persistence - most prospects won't respond to first outreach
- Creativity in prospecting - finding ways to get noticed in crowded inboxes
- CRM hygiene - tracking all activity, keeping pipeline clean for AE handoffs