BC Startup Sales Podcast – Building Out An SDR Team with Shelley McNary (Bill.com)

Building out an SDR team is is no easy task in the world of business software. Many founders are curious about the allure of these programs as you never seem to have enough pipeline. Founders have probably heard about amazing resources called Sales Development Reps (SDR) that should generate a ton of inbound for your company. Today, we were joined on the podcast by Shelley McNary, the VP of Sales at Bill.com to discuss “Building Out An SDR Team” as well as the specifics behind how and when do this at your software company. Shelley knows a thing or two about the topic having led inside sales efforts for companies like Taleo, MapR, and SignalFX.

When building out an SDR team we need to know what we are talking about so first and foremost Shelley and I define the role and specifically what an SDR does. A quick side note here that we consistently use the term SDR, but recognize that some folks use BDR or MDR for their own purposes. It is all the same to us. Next, we run through the important question of when to launch these programs. Shelley talks about specifics from Bill.com and her prior life and how she made this decision to start on their own quest of building out an SDR team. Third, we cover how to think about the AE and SDR relationship and move on to profiles of hiring for this specific role in a market like today where demand is enormous. We then move on to specifics about training, onboarding, and key metrics. Shelley and I touch on specific work product that the Bill.com SDR team handles to give the listeners some ideas. Finally, we close on challenges and pitfalls of building out an SDR team. Shelley mentions one of the better resources that she has seen in Trish Bertuzzi’s book The Sales Development Playbook.

If you liked “Building Out An SDR Team” and want to read more content from the Bowery Capital Team, check out other relevant posts from the Bowery Capital Blog. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the podcast to get all our new content each week!