Sales Development Representative

Overview

You're cold emailing and calling CFOs, VPs of Finance, and Controllers at mid-market software companies and e-commerce brands. Your job is to get them interested enough to take a 30-minute discovery call with an Account Executive. You're pitching the idea of AI-native ERP and trying to surface pain with their current system (usually NetSuite, Sage, or QuickBooks). Most of your emails get ignored. Most of your calls don't get picked up.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Series A ($90M from Khosla, Lightspeed, GV)

Size: 56 employees

Growth: Building out go-to-market team. You're likely one of the first few SDRs hired.

Market Position: Category creator - you're not competing in an established category. You're creating the "AI-native ERP" category, which means more education required.

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 80% Cold Outbound - You're building lists of target companies (software businesses and e-commerce brands in the $10M-100M revenue range), finding CFO/VP Finance contact info, and reaching out cold.
• 20% Inbound - Some warm leads from website, webinars, or content downloads. These are warmer but still need qualification.

SDR/AE Structure: Small SDR team (maybe 2-3 of you) supporting 2-4 AEs. Clear handoff process.

SE Support: SEs help with technical questions but you're mainly qualifying business fit.

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: NetSuite, Sage Intacct, QuickBooks Enterprise

How They Differentiate: AI-native (built after ChatGPT, not retrofitted). Automation for reconciliation, rev rec, anomaly detection. Faster implementation than NetSuite.

Common Objections You'll Hear: "We just implemented NetSuite," "Too risky to switch core financial systems," "Never heard of you," "Not looking right now," "Send me some information" (and then ghost).

Your Hook: Finance teams spending too much time on manual work. AI can automate reconciliations, journal entries, anomaly detection. Do more with fewer people (reference the $140M ARR company with 1 finance person).

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Prospecting/Research (40%) | Outreach (35%) | Follow-up (15%) | Admin/Meetings (10%)

Key Activities

• List building: You're identifying target companies using tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo, or Clearbit. Looking for software companies or e-commerce brands in the $10M-100M revenue range. Finding CFOs, VPs of Finance, Controllers. Researching their tech stack (do they use NetSuite? What integrations do they have?).
• Cold calling: 50-70 calls per day. Most go to voicemail. When you get someone live, you have 30 seconds to explain why they should care about AI-native ERP before they hang up or say "send me an email." You're trying to surface pain with their current system.
• Email sequences: Sending personalized emails to CFOs and finance leaders. Mentioning specific pain points (manual reconciliation work, slow month-end close, integration headaches). Following up 4-6 times over 2-3 weeks. Open rates around 25-30%, reply rates under 5%.
• LinkedIn outreach: Connecting with prospects, sending InMails, engaging with their posts. Trying to build familiarity before the cold call or email.
• Qualification calls: When someone responds, you're doing a 15-minute qualification call. Understanding their current ERP, pain points, team size, buying timeline. Deciding if they're a fit for AE handoff or if you need to nurture them longer.
• Handoffs: Scheduling discovery calls between qualified prospects and AEs. Writing handoff notes with key pain points and context. Following up to make sure the prospect shows up.
• CRM hygiene: Logging every call, email, and interaction in Salesforce or HubSpot. Updating lead status. Weekly pipeline reviews with your manager.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Low response rates: You'll send 100 emails to get 3-5 responses. You'll make 50 calls to have 2-3 real conversations. Rejection and silence are 90% of the job.
• Explaining a new category: "AI-native ERP" isn't a thing people are searching for. You're educating prospects on why this matters versus NetSuite with AI features. That's harder than selling in an established category.
• Reaching senior people: CFOs and VPs of Finance are hard to reach. They have assistants screening calls. Their inboxes are flooded. You need to be creative and persistent.
• Long follow-up cycles: You might email someone 5 times over 3 months before they respond. Staying organized and persistent without being annoying is tricky.
• Deal complexity you don't control: You book a meeting, feel great, then find out 6 months later the deal stalled in legal. You don't get credit for closed deals, but you feel the pain of lost opportunities.
• Startup unknowns: You're selling for a 56-person company. Prospects will ask questions you can't answer ("How many customers do you have?" "What's your uptime SLA?"). You're learning as you go.

What Success Looks Like

• Booking 8-12 qualified meetings per month consistently
• 50%+ of your meetings show up and convert to AE pipeline
• AEs accepting your handoffs as qualified (not sending them back)
• Building a pipeline of nurture prospects who aren't ready now but might be in 3-6 months
• Getting promoted to AE within 12-18 months if you hit quota

Who You're Selling To

Primary Targets:

• CFO (ultimate decision maker, budget owner)
• VP Finance (senior leader, usually more accessible than CFO)
• Controller or Director of Accounting (day-to-day system user, feels the pain of manual work)

What They Care About:

• CFOs: Strategic efficiency - doing more with fewer people. Automation ROI. Risk of switching systems.
• VPs of Finance: Operational pain - slow month-end close, integration issues, manual reconciliation work.
• Controllers: Workflow disruption - how hard is it to switch? Training time? Will this make my life easier or harder?

Requirements

• 0-2 years of SDR/BDR experience (or this is your first sales role)
• Comfortable with high-volume cold calling and emailing (rejection doesn't break you)
• Curiosity about fintech, AI, or enterprise software
• Organized and disciplined with CRM hygiene and follow-up
• Coachable and eager to learn - you'll get a lot of feedback early on
• Bonus: Understanding of accounting/finance workflows or interest in learning