Overview
You book qualified demos for HockeyStack's Account Executive team. You work a mix of inbound leads (website requests, content downloads) and outbound prospecting (cold calls, emails, LinkedIn) to VP/Director-level marketing and revenue ops leaders at B2B companies. Your job is to get them interested enough to take a 30-minute discovery call.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Senior SDR (prospecting and qualifying) |
| Sales Motion | Balanced - mix of inbound lead follow-up and outbound cold outreach |
| Deal Complexity | N/A - focused on booking meetings |
| Sales Cycle | N/A - measured on meetings booked |
| Deal Size | N/A |
| Quota (est.) | 12-20 qualified meetings per month |
Company Context
Stage: Series A/B stage (YC S23, ~2 years old)
Size: 98 employees
Growth: Hiring aggressively including SDR Manager - signal that team is scaling
Market Position: Challenger brand in crowded martech analytics space - breaking through requires strong messaging
GTM Reality
Lead Sources:
- 40-50% Inbound: Website demo requests, content downloads, free trial/PLG signups (quality varies - lots of students, consultants, tire-kickers)
- 50-60% Outbound: You're cold calling, emailing, and LinkedIn messaging into target accounts
Your Targets:
- Mid-market to enterprise B2B companies (SaaS, tech, professional services)
- Marketing teams of 10+ people, sales teams of 20+ people
- Companies with complex GTM motions who need better attribution
Team Structure:
- You report to the SD Manager
- You're booking meetings for AEs in SF and NYC
- As "Senior" SDR, you might mentor junior reps or work more strategic accounts
Competitive Landscape
Main Competitors: 6sense, Dreamdata, Bizible/Adobe, plus "we'll just use Google Analytics and Salesforce reports"
Your Challenge: Most prospects think they already have analytics covered. You need to break through the "not interested" wall.
Messaging Angle: HockeyStack gives them unified view of marketing + sales data with AI insights vs manual reporting they're doing now
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Cold Calling (35%) | Email/LinkedIn Outreach (25%) | Inbound Lead Follow-up (25%) | Research & Admin (15%)
Key Activities
- Cold Calling: You're making 50-70 dials per day to VPs and Directors of Marketing. Most calls go to voicemail. You leave messages. When you connect, you have ~30 seconds to not get hung up on.
- Email Sequences: You're sending personalized outbound emails (not mass blasts) referencing something specific about their company, their tech stack, or a content piece they might care about. Response rates are low - 2-5% is normal.
- LinkedIn Outreach: You're connecting with prospects, commenting on their posts, sending InMails. You're trying to build familiarity before the cold call.
- Inbound Lead Qualification: When someone requests a demo, you're calling within 5 minutes to qualify them. Are they a real buyer? Do they have budget? What's their timeline? Or are they a student/consultant/tire-kicker?
- Discovery Questions: You're asking about their current analytics setup, what's broken, what reports they wish they had. You're qualifying for pain before booking the AE meeting.
- Meeting Handoffs: You're writing detailed notes about what the prospect cares about and passing clean context to the AE. Bad handoffs = AEs complain about meeting quality.
- CRM Hygiene: You're logging every call, email, and interaction in Salesforce/HubSpot. Data entry is 10-15% of your day.
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- Rejection is constant: Most people don't answer. When they do, most say "not interested" or "send me info" (which means no). You need thick skin.
- Inbound quality is inconsistent: Half your inbound leads are garbage - wrong persona, no budget, just browsing. You still need to follow up on all of them.
- Breaking through is difficult: Martech buyers are bombarded by vendors. Standing out in cold outreach is really hard. Your emails get ignored.
- Gatekeepers: Getting past executive assistants to reach VPs is a skill. Many prospects hide behind "send me an email."
- No-shows: You book a meeting, prospect doesn't show up. Happens 20-30% of the time even with reminders.
- Quota pressure: You need 12-20 qualified meetings per month. If you're behind mid-month, you're grinding to catch up. It's stressful.
- Messaging isn't perfected: You're at an early-stage company. The pitch is evolving. What works is still being figured out.
What Success Looks Like
- Hitting 90-100%+ of monthly meeting quota consistently
- High show rate on meetings you book (75%+)
- AEs accepting your meetings as "qualified" (not complaining about quality)
- Progressing to AE role within 12-18 months
Who You're Calling
Target Personas:
- VP/Director of Marketing (budget owner, cares about proving ROI)
- VP/Director of Revenue Operations (technical buyer, cares about data quality)
- Head of Marketing Operations (hands-on user, cares about efficiency)
What Gets Their Attention:
- Specific pain points: "Spending hours building manual reports," "Can't prove which campaigns drive revenue," "Attribution is broken across our funnel"
- Relevant use cases: "Other B2B SaaS companies with similar tech stack..."
- Quick value prop: "See which marketing touches actually drive pipeline in one dashboard"
What Doesn't Work:
- Generic pitches about "AI-powered insights"
- Talking about features before understanding their problems
- Asking for 60 minutes of their time (you're asking for 15-20 min discovery)
Requirements
- 2-4 years in SDR/BDR role at B2B SaaS company (or 1-2 years with strong performance)
- Track record of consistently hitting meeting quotas
- Experience selling to marketing or revenue operations leaders preferred
- Comfortable with high-volume cold calling and outreach
- Strong qualification skills - can sniff out tire-kickers vs real buyers
- Coachable and competitive - you want to progress to AE role
- Onsite in San Francisco required (no remote)
- Willingness to grind - this role is high activity and high rejection