SDR Outsourcing for Key Accounts: Outsourced Outbound, Worked Account by Account

A sales development representative (SDR) starts conversations with possible buyers and passes them to a seller. In SDR outsourcing, also called an outsourced SDR or SDR as a service, an outside company supplies the SDR, the tools and the management. You supply the offer and the sellers who take the conversations forward. Most outsourced SDR programmes are outbound: the SDR approaches people who have not asked to be contacted.

Ask every provider the same six questions.

1. Dedicated or shared. Does the person on my account work for other clients at the same time?
2. The list. Who builds it, and do I approve it before outreach starts?
3. The words. Who writes the messages, and do I see them first?
4. The sending. Whose domains and mailboxes are used, and who keeps them when the contract ends?
5. The count. What is reported: sends, meetings or progress inside accounts?
6. The term. What is the minimum period, and what happens to the data at the end?

On a long contact list a poor message costs little, because the next contact is one row down. On a short list of key accounts it costs the account, and the same few people are reached more than once. So the work changes. Each account is researched before anyone is approached. The buying committee is mapped. Several people are contacted, each with a reason that is true for that company. And one person stays with the account long enough to know its history.

Intandemly is an account-based selling company, working this way since April 2017, almost ten years. Each client gets a platform and a consultant dedicated to that client, supported by researchers, working a named list of key accounts agreed with you. We are not an SDR outsourcing provider: we do not sell leads and we do not promise a number of meetings. We report on five KPIs: outreach accounts, coverage rate, active buying committees, active conversations and the value of pipeline generated.