What Is an SDR?
TL;DR
An SDR, or sales development representative, is a salesperson whose job is to create qualified meetings rather than close deals. The role owns the top of the funnel: building target lists, running outbound email and calls, qualifying the replies, and handing a briefed meeting to an account executive.
What does an SDR do day to day?
Research and list building, then sequences and calls, then reply triage. The research half is the part that decides results and the part that gets cut when the meeting target is behind, which is why an SDR week that has become entirely execution is a leading indicator of a bad quarter.
Measurement follows the same boundary as the work. An SDR is held to meetings held and qualified pipeline created, not to revenue closed, because the role does not control the outcome of the meetings it books.
How is an SDR different from a BDR or an AE?
SDR and BDR are frequently the same job under two names. Where a company distinguishes them, the usual split puts inbound and marketing-generated leads with the SDR and pure outbound prospecting with the BDR, but the convention is not consistent enough to assume from the title alone.
The account executive boundary is real. The AE owns the opportunity after the first qualified meeting, carries a revenue quota, and runs the commercial conversation, so the SDR work ends where the evaluation begins.
Frequently asked questions
Usually, in practice. Some organisations use SDR for inbound qualification and BDR for outbound prospecting, others reverse it, and many use one term for both. Read the responsibilities rather than the acronym, because the titles carry no standard meaning across companies.