Overview
You prospect into banks, credit unions, fintechs, and payment processors to book discovery meetings for Account Executives. You're targeting VPs of Risk, Compliance Officers, COOs, and Heads of Operations who aren't actively looking for onboarding software. Most of your day is cold calling, sending email sequences, and researching accounts to find the right contact.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Outbound SDR (meeting-setter for AEs) |
| Sales Motion | Outbound-heavy cold calling and email |
| Deal Complexity | N/A (you qualify and pass to AE) |
| Sales Cycle | N/A (you book the first meeting) |
| Deal Size | N/A |
| Quota (est.) | 8-12 qualified meetings per month |
Company Context
Stage: Early-growth (61 employees, backed by Stax Payments unicorn founders)
Size: 61 employees
Growth: Rapidly hiring SDRs and AEs - building out the sales team to scale
Market Position: Challenger in banking tech - most prospects haven't heard of them
GTM Reality
Pipeline Sources:
- 80% Your cold outbound - lists of banks, fintechs, lenders pulled from databases
- 10% AE-requested accounts - strategic targets they want you to crack into
- 10% Inbound website forms - mostly SMB or non-ICP, but you follow up
SDR/AE Structure: You book meetings, AEs run discovery and close deals. Clean handoff but AEs will give feedback if meetings aren't qualified.
SE Support: Not involved at SDR stage - you're booking intro calls, not demos
Competitive Landscape
Main Competitors: You're mostly competing against inertia - prospects using manual processes or legacy vendors they've had for years
How They Differentiate: Consolidated platform (vs stitching together multiple tools), faster customer approvals, modern UI
Common Objections: "We already have a vendor", "Not looking right now", "Send me information" (aka blow-off), "Talk to [other person]"
Win Themes: Speed to onboard customers, fraud reduction, compliance automation - tie to pain points in discovery
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Calling/Emailing (60%) | Research (20%) | Meetings/Admin (20%)
Key Activities
- Cold calling: You make 50-70 calls per day to risk, compliance, and ops leaders. Most go to voicemail. You leave 30-40 voicemails per day. Maybe 5-8 people pick up, and most say they're not interested.
- Email sequences: You send personalized emails referencing their company, recent news, or pain points you think they have. Open rates are 20-30%, reply rates are 2-5%. Most replies are "not interested" or "remove me."
- Account research: Before calling, you research the bank or fintech - their size, what they do, recent funding or news. You look up the right person on LinkedIn and check their background.
- Qualifying conversations: When you get someone on the phone who's interested, you ask discovery questions about their current onboarding process, pain points, and timeline. If they're qualified (right title, budget authority, actual problem), you book them with an AE.
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- Rejection is constant. You'll hear "not interested" 40-50 times per day. People hang up, ignore emails, tell assistants to block you. You need thick skin.
- Financial services gatekeepers are tough. Receptionists won't transfer you. Executives have spam filters. Many companies have "no solicitation" policies.
- Your targets aren't actively looking. You're interrupting their day to pitch a product they didn't know existed. Most conversations are short and end in "no."
- Quota pressure is real. You need 8-12 qualified meetings per month (2-3 per week). Some weeks you'll book 4, some weeks you'll book zero. Leadership tracks your activity daily.
What Success Looks Like
- You book 8-12 meetings per month that AEs accept as qualified
- Your meetings convert to opportunities at 40-50% (AEs say they're good leads)
- You get better at pattern recognition - spotting which titles/companies are more likely to engage
Who You're Selling To
Primary Targets:
- VP/Director of Risk Management or Compliance at banks, credit unions, fintechs
- COO or Head of Operations (owns customer onboarding)
- Head of Underwriting at lenders
What They Care About:
- Fraud losses and compliance risk (regulators breathing down their neck)
- Customer onboarding speed (losing deals to competitors who approve faster)
- Manual work reduction (tired of their team manually reviewing every application)
Requirements
- 0-2 years SDR experience, or strong interest in breaking into tech sales
- Comfortable with high-volume cold calling and rejection
- Coachable - willing to iterate messaging, test approaches, take feedback from AEs
- Self-motivated - you'll be on the phone alone most of the day with minimal oversight
- Interest in fintech or financial services (helps you sound credible on calls)