Mid-Market SDR

Overview

You're an outbound SDR at Respondology calling marketing directors, social media managers, and brand leaders at mid-market companies (think 200-2000 employees). You're selling a social engagement platform that moderates comments, removes spam/bots, and helps brands respond at scale. You work 1:1 with a dedicated AE, so when you book it, you know exactly who's taking the meeting. The hiring manager (Dan) describes this as "phone destroyer" work—you're making 60-80+ calls daily, using Nooks for power dialing, and getting creative with outreach.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Likely Series A/B (79 employees, selling to Fortune 500s)

Size: 79 employees

Growth: Actively hiring SDRs, building internal tools, investing in AI capabilities

Market Position: Category creator/early mover in AI-native social engagement. Not competing with traditional social listening tools—different use case focused on comment moderation and response automation.

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 80-90% Outbound - Cold calls, personalized sequences, LinkedIn DMs to marketing/social leaders
• 10-20% Inbound - Some brand awareness from Fortune 500 customers, word-of-mouth in marketing circles
• Minimal partner referrals at this stage

SDR/AE Structure: 1:1 pairing. You work directly with one AE, so you know their style, what they need from discovery, and you see your deals through to close.

SE Support: Likely minimal or shared—this is more product demo than technical deep-dive. AEs probably run their own demos.

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Traditional social listening tools (Sprinklr, Sprout Social), basic moderation features in native platforms, manual community management

How They Differentiate: AI-native automation for moderation and response at scale. Not just listening—actively cleaning up comment sections 24/7 and engaging without manual work.

Common Objections:

• "We handle this manually with our community manager"
• "Facebook/Instagram have built-in moderation"
• "We don't get that much spam/hate in comments"
• "Is this just sentiment analysis?"

Win Themes: Scale (can't manually moderate thousands of comments), brand safety (catching problematic content before it spreads), revenue potential (turning comments into commerce opportunities)

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Calling/Prospecting (50%) | Email/LinkedIn (25%) | Research/List Building (15%) | Internal Meetings (10%)

Key Activities

• Cold Calling: 60-80 dials per day using Nooks power dialer. You're reaching marketing directors, social media managers, brand VPs at companies running active paid social campaigns. Most don't pick up. You leave voicemails and immediately follow up with email/LinkedIn.

• Research & Personalization: Using Apollo, Wiza, and Respondology's internal research tools to identify companies running heavy social campaigns (sports teams, CPG brands, retail). You're looking at their Instagram/Facebook posts to find comment section chaos you can reference.

• Creative Outreach: Dan wants "creative tactics"—cold FaceTimes, video messages, personalized emails referencing specific toxic comments on their posts. You're encouraged to stand out, not just send templated sequences.

• Meeting Qualification: When someone bites, you're running a 10-15 min discovery to confirm they have comment volume, brand safety concerns, and budget. You're booking 30-min demos for your AE, providing context on what you found.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Category Education: Most prospects have never heard of "social engagement platforms." You're explaining the problem (comment chaos) before you can pitch the solution. Lots of "we handle this fine manually" objections.

• High Dial Volume: 60-80 calls is a grind. Most go to voicemail. You need thick skin for the few who pick up and say "take me off your list" immediately.

• Hit Rate Variability: Some days you book 3 meetings. Some weeks you book 1. Depends on whether you hit the right persona at companies actually feeling comment section pain.

• Research-Heavy: You can't just blast generic messages. You need to find companies with active social presence, scroll their posts, screenshot messy comments, and personalize. It's time-consuming but required.

What Success Looks Like

• Booking 15-20 qualified meetings per month (3-5 per week)
• 20-30% of your meetings turn into opportunities (AE deems them real deals)
• You're calling 300+ dials per week consistently
• Your personalized outreach gets 5-10% response rates vs. 1-2% on generic blasts

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• Director/VP of Marketing (budget holder)
• Social Media Manager/Director (day-to-day user and champion)
• Brand/Community Managers (feel the pain most acutely)

What They Care About:

• Brand safety: Removing hate speech, spam, bot comments before they damage reputation
• Efficiency: Freeing up their team from manually moderating thousands of comments
• Engagement: Actually responding to customer questions at scale, not ignoring them
• ROI: Turning comment sections into lead gen/commerce opportunities (people ask "where can I buy this?")

Requirements

• 1-2 years SDR experience (mid-market or enterprise focus preferred)
• Comfortable making 60-80+ calls per day—this is phone-heavy
• Strong written communication for personalized email/LinkedIn sequences
• Experience with outbound tools (HubSpot, Apollo, Sales Nav, power dialers like Nooks)
• Self-starter who can work remote without constant oversight
• Creative—willing to try video messages, FaceTimes, unusual tactics to stand out
• Located in US or Canada (excluding CA, WA, NY due to employment regulations)