What you'll get
- 4 copy-ready blocks
- 5 min read
SDR onboarding fails in a predictable way: two weeks of product decks, a login, a list and a quota, then surprise when month three underwhelms. This plan runs the other order. Days 1 to 30 learn the buyer, 31 to 60 learn the motion with training wheels, 61 to 90 own a real list with ramp-fair measures. Each phase has outputs a manager can actually check.
Days 1 to 30: Learn the buyer
The goal: by day 30 the rep can explain the buyer's problem better than the buyer's own job advert does.
Week 1 The world Ten calls shadowed live. Five client case notes
read. The ICP explained back to the manager in
the rep's own words.
Week 2 The problem Write the problem story for each segment: what
breaks, who feels it, what it costs. Checked by
someone who sells.
Week 3 The committee The six committee roles and what each cares
about, applied to three real accounts as maps.
Week 4 The output One account brief, researched solo: company,
trigger, committee, entry problem. Presented in
15 minutes.No quota, no sending. The rep answers inbound replies in week 4 under supervision, because replies are the safest live practice there is.
Days 31 to 60: Learn the motion
The goal: every piece of the machine used for real, at small volume, with feedback on each.
Week 5 Writing Tier 3 segment emails first, from the skeletons.
Every send reviewed before it goes, then after
for replies.
Week 6 Cadences Run the Tier 2 pattern on 10 accounts end to end,
owning the research block and the touches.
Week 7 The phone Call blocks begin: gatekeepers, openers, the
three branches. Two call reviews with the rubric
this week.
Week 8 The round trip A reply worked from first answer to booked
meeting, with the handover note written.The daily structure arrives here too: by week 6 the rep runs the SDR daily plan with the manager checking the four end-of-day numbers, not the hours. The patterns are the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cadences.
Days 61 to 90: Own a list
The goal: a real territory, full motion, measured like a ramping adult.
Week 9+ The list 30 to 40 named accounts, tiered, owned: research,
touches, replies, tracker rows, the lot.
The measures Accounts worked, real replies, people mapped,
next steps dated. Meetings count when they come,
but weeks 9 to 13 are judged on the leading four.
The reviews One call review and one written review a week.
One change per review, not a list of ten.By day 90 the question is not "did they hit quota" but "does the motion run without prompting, and do the four numbers trend right?" A rep with climbing replies and mapped committees in month three books meetings in month four with certainty; the reverse order produces neither.
What the manager owes each phase
Days 1-30 Two hours a day of access: shadowing seats, question time,
brief reviews. Onboarding is a teaching load; plan for it.
Days 31-60 Feedback inside 24 hours on every reviewed send and call.
Slow feedback teaches that quality does not matter.
Days 61-90 Protection from quota panic. The ramp measures were agreed;
changing them in week 10 because a month looked thin burns
the plan and the rep.Worked example (illustrative, not a real company)
Tessaro Analytics onboards a new SDR. Day 30 output: an account brief on Northfield Logistics good enough that a senior seller borrows its trigger line. Weeks 5 to 8 run at 15 accounts with every send reviewed; the week 8 round trip books a real meeting from an inbound reply. Weeks 9 to 13: 35 owned accounts, replies climbing from 2 to 6 a week, 11 committee names mapped, and in week 12 the first self-sourced meeting, which nobody panicked about being "late" because the leading numbers had said it was coming. All names are invented.
Five mistakes to avoid
- Product training first. Buyers do not care what the product does until the rep understands what the buyer suffers. Order matters; the product earns week 5, not day 1.
- Quota from day 31. A quota during the learning phase teaches shortcuts: spray sends, soft meetings, inflated statuses. The leading measures exist so progress is visible without it.
- Shadowing as a spectator sport. Every shadowed call needs a debrief question: what would you have asked next? Passive watching transfers nothing.
- Feedback in batches. Saving coaching for a Friday session means five days of practising mistakes. The 24-hour rule in phase two is the plan's engine.
- Measuring month three like month twelve. Meetings lag the motion by weeks. Judge the ramp on accounts worked, replies, names mapped and steps dated; the meetings arrive on schedule when those do.
Why this works on named accounts
Common questions
What should an SDR learn in the first 30 days?
The buyer, not the product: whose problem this is, how it shows up day to day, what it costs, who else is involved in buying and what each role cares about. The checkable output is a researched account brief and a committee map the rep built alone, explained in their own words.
When should a new SDR start sending and calling?
Supervised reply handling in week four, reviewed sends at small volume from week five, call blocks from week seven. Volume without review in month one produces bad habits at scale; the point of the slow start is that every early rep action gets feedback while habits are still wet.
What are fair targets for a ramping SDR?
Leading measures for the first 90 days: accounts worked properly, real replies, committee names mapped and next steps dated, with meeting expectations starting in month four. Agree them in writing at day one and resist revising them mid-ramp; a plan that changes under pressure was a hope, not a plan.
More from the Academy
SDR Daily Plan
For SDRs and their managers tired of days that end busy and empty.
You leave with an hour-by-hour plan built around named accounts, two protected call blocks and the four numbers worth logging at the end of each day.
SDR Job Description and Interview Kit
For founders and sales leads hiring their first or next SDR.
You leave with a job description that attracts researchers rather than grinders, four interview exercises that test the real work and a scoring sheet.
Tier 2 and Tier 3 Cadences
For teams whose 17-day cadence cannot cover the whole list.
You leave with the two lighter versions: a 10-day nine-touch cadence over four channels for Tier 2 and a five-touch email-and-LinkedIn cadence for Tier 3.
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