Key takeaways
- Sales development fills the top of the pipeline with qualified meetings.
- It sits between marketing and account executives.
- It is a function, not a job title: SDRs and BDRs are the people who do the work, often split by inbound and outbound.
- A shared definition of a qualified meeting keeps it honest.
How does a sales development team work
A sales development team takes target accounts and inbound leads, starts conversations and passes qualified meetings to account executives. Marketing supplies leads and messaging, sales development qualifies them, and AEs run the rest of the sale.
- Agree the ideal customer profile and target accounts
- Respond to inbound leads quickly
- Run outbound outreach to target accounts
- Qualify interest against agreed rules
- Hand over meetings with notes to account executives
Why do companies separate sales development from closing
Companies separate them because prospecting and closing need different focus. Closers who also prospect tend to do it only when their pipeline runs dry, which makes the pipeline uneven; a dedicated team keeps it steady.
How is sales development different from an SDR
Sales development is the function and an SDR is one job inside it. The function is a set of design choices a sales leader makes: how many reps support each account executive, whether inbound and outbound are split between SDRs and BDRs, which rules decide a qualified meeting and whether the team reports to sales or marketing.
The SDR then works inside those choices day to day. Getting the design right matters more than any single hire, because a well-run rep cannot fix a team with no agreed definition of a qualified meeting.
What does a sales development team measure
A sales development team measures qualified meetings and the opportunities they become, plus how quickly it responds to inbound leads. Activity and reply measures help coaching, but the goal is meetings that account executives accept and that progress.
How do you start a sales development function
Start small and specific, with clear rules agreed between sales development and the closers. Expand only once the first reps are booking meetings that account executives value.
An illustrative software company with three account executives might hire two SDRs, agree with the AEs what a qualified meeting means, give each SDR a list of target accounts and a set of tested messages, and review accepted meetings every week before hiring more.
How is AI changing sales development
AI assistants can take on research and first-draft writing that would otherwise fill much of an SDR's day. That shifts the role towards choosing the right accounts, checking what the assistant produced, personalising the messages that matter and holding better conversations.
Where Pebbles Ai fits
- CapabilityProspecting & customer recordsDescribe your ideal customer; your assistant finds matching companies, then the right people at up to ten of them, with results saved as contacts in the CRM (in Beta), in a segment.
- CapabilityOutreach contentSingle-touch or multi-touch email and LinkedIn campaigns, up to seven touches, with review, comments and multiple users on Team and above.
- CapabilityResearch & analysisAssistants read company websites and public sources and cite them, so each first message rests on a checked reason to reach out.
Common questions
Is sales development the same as business development?
Not quite. Sales development books meetings for the sales team; business development can also mean partnerships, new markets and strategic deals beyond direct selling.
Who does sales development report to?
Usually sales leadership, sometimes marketing or revenue operations. What matters is that it shares goals with the account executives it serves.
What is a sales development manager?
The person who hires, coaches and manages a team of SDRs or BDRs, sets their targets and agrees qualification rules with the account executives.
About this page. Written by the Pebbles Ai team for people who run sales, marketing and growth. Last updated .
