In this article
Responsibilities across inbound and outbound
The SDR owns the inbound motion. Every enquiry — form, call, WhatsApp, marketplace, exhibition card — is answered within the hour, recorded in the CRM with its source, qualified in a short conversation against the written standard, and either booked with a salesperson, placed in a nurture path, or politely declined. The SDR also runs the nurture follow-up on the not-yet leads. The measure is speed and quality: response time, the share of enquiries qualified, and how many qualified leads become opportunities.
The BDR owns the outbound motion. From a target list built to the ideal-customer profile, the BDR runs multi-channel sequences — phone, email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp — to reach decision-makers, establishes whether there is a reason to talk, and books qualified first meetings for a salesperson. The measure is reach and conversion: accounts worked, conversations had, qualified meetings booked, and how many became opportunities.
Skills, measures, handoffs and management
Skills: the SDR needs speed, organisation, a good phone manner with people who already want something, and the discipline to qualify rather than to please. The BDR needs resilience, research ability, the craft of a message that earns a reply from a stranger, and the same qualification discipline under harder conditions. The first is closer to service; the second is closer to hunting. The same person can do both, but rarely does both well at once, because inbound interrupts outbound all day.
Handoffs: both hand to a salesperson, with a brief — who, what they said, why they qualify, what was promised — and both need the salesperson to report back on every handoff, or the qualification never improves. Management: the SDR is managed on a daily rhythm — the queue cleared, response times, the nurture tasks done; the BDR on a weekly one — sequences running, conversations, meetings, list quality. Both need a manager who listens to calls and coaches the qualification conversation, which in an SME is the owner or the sales lead, for an hour a week.
Does a small business need both?
If enquiries arrive steadily and go unanswered or unqualified, the inbound role comes first, and it is often the best hire a growing SME makes: a capable coordinator who answers within the hour, qualifies, books and nurtures, freeing the salespeople to sell. If enquiries are thin and growth depends on reaching accounts that do not know you, the outbound role matters — but it is the harder role to hire, train and keep in a small business, because outbound prospecting is lonely work with a slow payoff, and a new BDR in a two-person sales team usually drifts into inbound and admin within a quarter.
The common SME answer: hire the inbound role, and outsource the outbound motion to a team that does it all day — with the same qualification standard, the same CRM and the same weekly handoff review. A business with strong inbound demand may need no outbound at all; a business selling to a small, definable set of accounts may need only outbound. Decide from where the customers come from now and where the next ones must come from.
Setting either role up to succeed
Either role needs: a written qualification standard; a CRM with the queue, the sequences and the handoffs in it; templates and a script for the first conversation, from the playbook; a salesperson who takes the handoffs promptly; a manager who reviews calls; and a measure that is about quality — qualified handoffs that became opportunities — not about volume. Pay a base and a modest incentive on qualified handoffs confirmed by the salesperson, not on meetings booked.
Onboarding is a fortnight with the best salesperson and a few customers, so the new person knows what a good buyer sounds like. Most failures in these roles are onboarding failures dressed as hiring failures.
Decision table · use it here or print it
SDR and BDR, side by side
The names are used interchangeably; the jobs are not. Read the rows, then pick your situation to see whether you need one, both, or neither yet.
| SDR — sales development | BDR — business development | Account executive (for contrast) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Works | Inbound: enquiries, form fills, content downloads | Outbound: lists, cold calls, LinkedIn, events | Both, once qualified |
| Job | Respond fast, qualify, book the meeting | Find, reach, interest, qualify, book the meeting | Discover, propose, negotiate, close |
| Skills | Speed, structure, qualification, CRM discipline | Research, persistence, messaging, resilience | Consultative selling, commercial judgement |
| Measured by | Response time, contact rate, qualified meetings from enquiries | Conversations, qualified meetings from outreach, pipeline created | Revenue, win rate, cycle time |
| Handoff | To the AE with the enquiry’s context | To the AE with the account research and the trigger | To delivery with the promises made |
| Management | Daily queue review; a written SLA | Weekly list and sequence review; call coaching | Pipeline review; deal coaching |
| Typical SME need | When enquiries exceed what salespeople answer within the hour | When there are not enough enquiries and a list can be built | From the first sale |
Free to print and share with your team.
Mistakes, and what to decide
The mistakes: one person expected to do both, with inbound swallowing outbound; paying on meetings booked; no qualification standard, so handoffs are disputed; the salesperson ignoring handoffs; a BDR hired in a business whose offer is not yet clear; and copying a title without the management rhythm that makes the role work. A safeguard: before creating either role, count the enquiries that went unanswered last month and the accounts that were never contacted — the numbers tell you which role, or both.
This is the sales-team-design conversation we have with owners: which motion the business needs, whether to hire or outsource each half, the standard, the CRM setup and the handoff review — and where outbound is the gap, our SDR and BDR service runs it under your name with your standard. The free audit starts with last month’s enquiries and last month’s prospecting, both counted.
Questions owners ask
Which role should a small business hire first?
Usually the inbound one, if enquiries exist and go unanswered — it frees the salespeople and pays fast. Outbound is harder to keep in-house and is often better outsourced until the team is larger.
Can one person do both jobs?
For a while, and then inbound wins, because it is easier and interrupts all day. If you need both motions, give them to different people or outsource one.
How should SDRs and BDRs be paid?
A base plus a modest incentive on qualified handoffs confirmed by the salesperson. Paying on meetings or leads booked produces volume and arguments.
What should they hand over to sales?
A brief: who the buyer is, what they said in their words, why they qualify against the standard, what was promised, and the next step booked. In the CRM, not in a message.
Do the titles matter?
No. Some companies swap them or use one for both. What matters is that the inbound and outbound motions are owned, measured and managed separately.
What does GullySales do?
The team-design decision from your enquiry and prospecting numbers, the qualification standard and CRM setup, onboarding and call coaching for an in-house SDR, and the outsourced outbound motion under your name where that is the gap. Scoped in the free audit and priced in writing.