Business Development Representative (BDR)

Overview

You'll spend your day cold calling salon owners, spa managers, and med spa operators to book qualified demos for Account Executives. Mangomint sells vertical SaaS (scheduling, payments, client management) to beauty and wellness businesses. You're an early BDR hire, which means the playbook isn't fully baked yet—you'll be testing messaging, lists, and sequences to figure out what works.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Series B ($48M raised total, $35M Series B in Sept 2024)

Size: 131 employees

Growth: Actively hiring across sales, engineering, and customer success. Recent funding round focused on marketing automation expansion. Strong momentum—TechCrunch covered their Series B.

Market Position: Challenger to legacy players (Mindbody, Zenoti, Vagaro). Competing on modern UX and support quality. Ranked #1 on G2 for customer support and ease of use for 4 years running.

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 70-80% Outbound - You'll be sourcing most of your own pipeline via cold calling, LinkedIn, and email sequences
• 20-30% Inbound - Some leads from content marketing, G2 reviews, and word-of-mouth in the salon/spa community
• Minimal partner/referral motion currently

SDR/AE Structure: Small BDR team (you're an early hire) feeding demos to a larger AE team. AEs handle discovery through close.

SE Support: No dedicated SEs. AEs run their own product demos, though you may sit in on early calls to learn the product.

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Mindbody (legacy leader), Zenoti (enterprise-focused), Vagaro (SMB), Boulevard (premium positioning), GlossGenius (solopreneur focus)

How They Differentiate: Modern, intuitive interface vs. clunky legacy software. Best-in-class support (consistently ranked #1). Built specifically for salons/spas vs. horizontal appointment software.

Common Objections:

• "We're stuck in a contract with Mindbody for another year"
• "We just switched systems 6 months ago, not doing that again"
• "We're too small/just starting out" (price objection)
• "My staff won't learn a new system"

Win Themes: Ease of use, modern mobile experience, responsive support, time saved on scheduling/admin, better client retention tools

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Calling/Prospecting (60%) | List Building/Research (20%) | Internal Meetings (20%)

Key Activities

• Cold Calling: 50-70 calls per day to salon/spa owners. You're often reaching front desk staff first, trying to get to the owner or manager. Most calls go to voicemail. You're asking for 15 minutes to show them the platform.

• List Building: Researching salons and spas via Google Maps, Yelp, Instagram, industry directories. You're looking for signals they might be ready to switch (growing business, poor reviews mentioning "hard to book", old website with clunky booking).

• Email/LinkedIn Sequences: Following up on calls with short emails and LinkedIn messages. Testing different angles—"modernize your booking," "reduce no-shows," "staff scheduling headaches."

• Qualifying Conversations: When you get someone on the phone, you're asking about their current setup, team size, frustrations. You need to confirm they have 2+ employees and some booking volume to be a good fit. Then schedule a demo for an AE.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• High volume rejection: Most salon owners don't answer or aren't interested. You'll leave 40-50 voicemails per day. It's repetitive and grindy.

• Gatekeeping: Front desk staff often screen calls. You need to build rapport quickly or they'll say "we're all set" and hang up.

• Contract lock-in: Many prospects are stuck in annual contracts with Mindbody or Zenoti. You're essentially building pipeline for 6-12 months out, which can feel unrewarding short-term.

• Building the playbook: You're an early BDR, so there's no perfected script or proven list strategy. You'll test a lot of things that don't work before finding what does.

What Success Looks Like

• Booking 15-25 qualified demos per month that AEs actually want to take (right business size, legitimate interest)
• 8-12% connect rate on calls, 15-20% of conversations converting to meetings
• Building a pipeline of "contracted but interested" prospects that converts in future quarters

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• Salon/spa owners (often the founder, handles all business decisions)
• Operations managers at multi-location med spas or salon chains
• Front desk managers who influence buying decisions

What They Care About:

• "Will my staff actually use this or fight me on it?" (ease of adoption)
• Reducing no-shows and late cancellations (revenue protection)
• Saving time on scheduling, rescheduling, and payment processing
• Looking professional to clients (modern booking experience)
• Minimizing downtime during the switch from their current system

Requirements

• Comfortable making 50-70+ cold calls per day to small business owners
• Resilient to rejection—most calls won't go anywhere, and that's normal
• Coachable and willing to iterate on messaging (you're building the playbook)
• Based in or willing to relocate to San Diego (this appears to be an in-office role)
• Previous BDR/SDR experience helpful but not required—they're looking for work ethic and phone skills
• Interest in vertical SaaS or small business software (you'll become an expert in salon/spa operations)