Overview
You're the second outbound SDR at Popl, a 122-person company that sells digital business card and lead capture solutions. Until now, they've relied on "Field Marketing Reps" who book meetings at conferences and events. You're building the cold outbound motion alongside SDR #1, who's already booked 40 meetings. You'll be cold calling and emailing businesses to book demos for AEs.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Pure outbound SDR |
| Sales Motion | Outbound-heavy (company transitioning from event-based to cold outreach) |
| Deal Complexity | Transactional to consultative (depends on account size) |
| Sales Cycle | N/A (you hand off to AEs) |
| Deal Size | Unknown (likely $5-50K ACV based on SMB/mid-market focus) |
| Quota (est.) | Likely 15-25 qualified meetings per month |
Company Context
Stage: Likely Series A/B (122 employees, building out GTM)
Size: 122 employees
Growth: Hiring for outbound function, expanding beyond event marketing
Market Position: Competing in crowded digital business card space (HiHello, Linq, Dot, etc.)
GTM Reality
Pipeline Sources:
- 60-70% Field Marketing - BDRs book meetings at conferences and trade shows
- 20-30% Outbound - New motion you're helping build (cold calls, email sequences)
- 10% Inbound - Website traffic, though not mentioned as a major channel
SDR/AE Structure: Small team, likely 2-3 AEs, you'll be SDR #2
SE Support: Probably none at this stage - AEs likely do their own demos
Competitive Landscape
Main Competitors: HiHello, Linq, Dot, traditional business cards
How They Differentiate: Unknown specifics, but likely ease of use, integrations, or pricing
Common Objections: "We already have business cards", "Isn't this just a QR code?", "LinkedIn works fine", budget/timing
Win Themes: Likely modernizing networking, lead capture at events, eco-friendly alternative
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Cold Calling (40%) | Email/LinkedIn (30%) | Research/List Building (20%) | Internal Meetings (10%)
Key Activities
- Cold Calling: 50-70 calls per day to sales leaders, event coordinators, or business owners. Most won't pick up. You're trying to get 5-8 conversations daily about how they currently handle business cards and lead capture.
- Email Sequences: Writing and sending personalized cold emails. You'll A/B test messaging since the outbound playbook is new. Tracking open rates and replies obsessively.
- List Building: Researching companies that attend a lot of conferences/trade shows or have large sales teams. Building target account lists in the CRM. Looking for trigger events (hiring sales reps, attending upcoming conferences).
- Meeting Handoffs: Scheduling demos for AEs. You'll sit in on some early deals to understand what resonates and what objections come up.
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- You're building this from scratch - no proven playbook yet. You'll experiment a lot and many approaches will fail.
- Digital business cards are a crowded, somewhat commoditized market. You'll hear "we already use [competitor]" constantly.
- Getting gatekeepers to care is tough - this isn't urgent or mission-critical for most companies.
- You're SDR #2, so there's not a lot of mentorship or ramping support. You need to figure things out.
- Rejection rate will be high. Most people don't think they need a new business card solution.
What Success Looks Like
- Booking 15-25 qualified meetings per month within 90 days
- Building repeatable cold email and call sequences that other SDRs can use
- Converting 5-8% of conversations to meetings
- Finding which verticals/personas respond best to outreach
Who You're Selling To
Primary Buyers:
- Sales Leaders/VPs at SMB/mid-market companies (50-500 employees)
- Event/Marketing Coordinators who manage trade show presence
- Business owners who network frequently
What They Care About:
- Tracking ROI from conferences and networking events
- Modernizing their brand image vs paper cards
- Making it easier for their sales team to capture leads
- Not losing contact info from events
- Cost compared to printing cards
Requirements
- ~1 year of sales experience or less (they want hungry, not experienced)
- Comfortable making 50-70 cold calls per day with mostly no answers
- Competitive mindset - you'll compare numbers with SDR #1 constantly
- Coachable - willing to try new approaches when things don't work
- Self-motivated for remote work - no one's watching you dial
- Comfortable with ambiguity and building processes from scratch