Overview
You prospect into live event businesses (music venues, comedy clubs, festivals, fairs) to book demos for Hive's event marketing platform. You spend most of your day cold calling venue owners and event promoters, researching prospects on social media to find angles, and following up with people who showed interest but didn't commit to a meeting.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Outbound BDR |
| Sales Motion | Outbound-heavy with some inbound leads |
| Deal Complexity | Transactional to Consultative |
| Sales Cycle | N/A (BDR books meetings, doesn't close) |
| Deal Size | N/A (AEs close deals) |
| Quota (est.) | 15-20 qualified meetings/month |
Company Context
Stage: Unknown (appears to be growth stage based on 75 employees)
Size: 75 employees
Growth: Actively hiring for sales roles
Market Position: Niche player in event marketing/ticketing space - competing against larger ticketing platforms and generic marketing automation tools
GTM Reality
Pipeline Sources:
- 30-40% Inbound - venues that found them through search or heard about them from other venues, but quality varies
- 60-70% Outbound - cold calling venue lists, LinkedIn outreach to event organizers, targeted email campaigns to festivals
- Some word-of-mouth from existing customers
SDR/AE Structure: You book meetings and hand them to AEs - classic SDR/AE split
SE Support: Likely minimal - AEs probably handle their own demos for this type of product
Competitive Landscape
Main Competitors: Ticketing platforms with built-in marketing (Eventbrite, Universe), generic marketing automation tools (Mailchimp, HubSpot), homegrown solutions
How They Differentiate: Purpose-built for live events with ticketing integrations and event-specific features
Common Objections: "We already use our ticketing platform's email tools", "We have someone doing this manually", "We're too small to need this"
Win Themes: Better segmentation/automation than basic ticketing tools, event-specific features vs generic marketing platforms
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Prospecting (60%) | Follow-ups (25%) | Admin/Internal (15%)
Key Activities
- Cold Calling: 50-70 calls per day to venue owners, talent buyers, and festival organizers - most calls go to voicemail, you're trying to catch them between shows or during office hours
- List Building: Researching venues on Instagram/Facebook to find contact info, looking at upcoming event calendars to prioritize who's actively promoting shows
- Email Sequences: Sending personalized emails with examples of how other similar venues use Hive, following up 4-6 times before giving up
- Meeting Qualification: When someone bites, asking questions about their current ticketing platform, email marketing setup, and pain points to make sure they're a real opportunity before passing to an AE
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- Venue owners and promoters are busy during evenings/weekends when shows happen - hard to reach them during normal business hours
- Lots of small venues don't see themselves as "tech buyers" and are skeptical of new software
- Many prospects are already locked into contracts with their ticketing platform and won't switch mid-season
- The events industry had a rough few years (pandemic) so budgets can be tight
- You hear "we're good with what we have" or "call me next season" constantly
What Success Looks Like
- Booking 15-20 qualified meetings per month consistently
- 30-40% of your meetings turn into legitimate opportunities that AEs work
- Building a pipeline of venues that aren't ready now but will be in 3-6 months
Who You're Selling To
Primary Buyers:
- Venue owners and talent buyers at music venues/comedy clubs (100-2000 capacity)
- Marketing directors at festival organizations
- Promoters running multiple shows per month
What They Care About:
- Selling more tickets without spending more on ads
- Easier way to segment and email their fan base
- Getting people to come back to multiple shows (retention)
- Not spending hours manually building email campaigns
- Integration with whatever ticketing system they already use
Requirements
- Comfortable making 50+ cold calls per day to people who mostly won't answer
- Ability to research and personalize outreach - generic spray-and-pray won't work in this niche
- Tech-savvy enough to quickly understand how Hive integrates with ticketing platforms and explain it simply
- Thick skin for rejection and "not interested" responses
- Interest in or knowledge of the live events industry helps (easier to build rapport)
- Self-motivated - lots of your work is alone at your desk dialing and emailing