Overview
You're an outbound BDR prospecting into mid-market and enterprise accounts to book discovery meetings for AEs who sell Salesforce's Customer 360 platform (Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud integration). You spend most of your day cold calling, sending sequences, and researching accounts. You're measured on activity metrics and qualified meeting quota.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Outbound BDR (meeting setter) |
| Sales Motion | Outbound-heavy (70-80% cold prospecting) |
| Deal Complexity | N/A - you book meetings, don't close |
| Sales Cycle | Your job is the first 1-2 weeks |
| Deal Size | N/A - AEs handle deals ($50K-$500K+ typically) |
| Quota (est.) | 15-20 qualified meetings/month, 50-80 activities/day |
Company Context
Stage: Public (NYSE: CRM)
Size: 87,000+ employees globally
Growth: Actively hiring across BDR teams; heavy investment in AI/Agentforce products launching 2024-2025
Market Position: Dominant enterprise CRM leader, but facing competition from HubSpot (mid-market), Microsoft Dynamics, and point solutions. Known for complex pricing and implementation.
GTM Reality
Pipeline Sources:
- 20-30% Inbound - Marketing generates some leads, but quality varies; many are tire-kickers or existing customers
- 70-80% Outbound - You're building your own lists, cold calling, and running cadences
- Small % Partner referrals - mostly handled by different team
SDR/AE Structure: Dedicated BDR team supporting AE pods. You pass qualified meetings to AEs who run the full sales cycle.
SE Support: AEs have access to Solution Engineers for demos/POCs, but you don't work with them directly.
Competitive Landscape
Main Competitors: HubSpot (easier/cheaper for SMBs), Microsoft Dynamics 365 (bundled with Office), Zoho, Pipedrive, niche point solutions
How They Differentiate: Full enterprise platform with AI (Agentforce), massive ecosystem of integrations, established in Fortune 500
Common Objections: "Too expensive," "Too complex for our size," "Already have a CRM," "Just exploring," "Not a priority right now"
Win Themes: Scalability, AI capabilities, proven enterprise track record, AppExchange ecosystem
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Cold Calling (40%) | Email Sequences (25%) | Research/List Building (20%) | Meetings/Admin (15%)
Key Activities
- Cold Calling (50-80 dials/day): Calling VP Sales, CRO, VP Marketing, Head of Ops at mid-market companies ($50M-$500M revenue). Most don't pick up. You leave voicemails and move on. You're trying to find someone willing to take a 15-min intro call.
- Running Sequences: Enrolling prospects in multi-touch email/call cadences. You're tracking opens, sends, and replies in Salesforce (yes, you use Salesforce to sell Salesforce). Lots of bounces and unsubscribes.
- Account Research: Looking up companies in ZoomInfo/LinkedIn Sales Nav, finding the right contacts, reading up on their business so you can personalize your pitch. This takes more time than you'd think.
- Qualifying Meetings: When someone actually responds, you have a quick discovery call to see if they fit the ICP (company size, use case, timeline) before passing to an AE. Your AE will get annoyed if you pass bad leads.
- Internal Syncs: Daily stand-ups with your team, weekly 1:1s with your manager reviewing activity metrics and call recordings, quarterly business reviews. Salesforce has a lot of process.
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- High rejection rate: Most calls go to voicemail. Most emails get ignored. You'll hear "not interested" 50+ times a day. You need thick skin.
- Activity pressure: Salesforce tracks everything. You're expected to hit daily activity minimums (calls, emails, sends). If you're not hitting numbers, your manager will know immediately and you'll get coaching.
- Complex product: Customer 360 is a suite of products, not one thing. Prospects ask technical questions you can't answer. You're essentially scheduling meetings for people to learn more.
- Corporate bureaucracy: Big company processes. Lots of meetings, training modules, compliance requirements. Career progression is competitive - not everyone who wants to move to AE gets to.
- Gatekeepers: You're trying to reach VP-level buyers. Executive assistants and receptionists are paid to keep you away. You'll get stonewalled a lot.
What Success Looks Like
- Hit 15-20 qualified meetings per month consistently
- Maintain 50+ daily activities (calls + emails)
- Pass rate of 70%+ (meetings you book that AEs accept as qualified)
- Get promoted to AE within 12-18 months if you perform in top 25-30% of cohort
Who You're Selling To
Primary Buyers:
- VP of Sales / CRO (companies scaling sales teams)
- VP of Marketing (need better lead management/attribution)
- VP of Customer Success (service/support use cases)
- Head of Revenue Operations (platform/integration projects)
What They Care About:
- Can this scale as we grow? (Worried about outgrowing current CRM)
- Integration with our existing stack (worried about data silos)
- ROI and time to value (worried about long implementation)
- Total cost of ownership (worried about sticker shock + hidden costs)
Requirements
- 0-2 years of sales or BDR experience (they hire people right out of college)
- Comfortable making 50+ cold calls per day and handling rejection
- Willingness to learn complex B2B software (they'll train you on products)
- Strong work ethic and coachability - they track everything and will coach you constantly
- Bachelor's degree preferred but not always required
- Must be in-office in one of the listed cities (SF, Atlanta, Chicago, McLean, Toronto)