What is Sales Development Representative?
Also known as: SDR
A Sales Development Representative (SDR) is a salesperson focused on the top of the funnel: prospecting, qualifying leads, and booking meetings for account executives to close. SDRs handle outbound outreach rather than closing deals themselves.
The SDR role exists to separate the work of finding and qualifying prospects from the work of closing. SDRs run cold email, LinkedIn outreach, and calls to turn cold contacts into qualified meetings.
SDRs are measured on activity and pipeline: meetings booked, opportunities created, and reply rates. Because the role is volume-heavy, tooling that automates repetitive outreach and personalization has an outsized impact on an SDR's output.
A closely related title is BDR (Business Development Representative), often used interchangeably, though BDRs sometimes focus more on inbound or partnerships depending on the company.