“Paul, we’re thinking about hiring an SDR. It’ll make my life easier. They can do the legwork of sourcing leads and generating opportunities and I can take the demo calls and worry about closing deals.”

Clients will often come to me with something like the above.

And it’s not necessarily a bad thought. At least on its surface. As long as the following two conditions are met. One, you’ve got a repeatable sales process. Two: it’s been documented in a playbook. If you still need to install these two pieces, hiring a rep of any kind will more than likely set you up for failure. Or at the very least a costly detour or sales reboot.

But here’s where things get interesting. Hiring an SDR as your first sales hire can be tricky. Sales Development Representatives are typically junior folks. Fresh out of college, in their first real job experience, or shortly after. They’re green. Usually still developing the discipline and self-awareness needed to be top employees. If you’re going to hire someone that junior, you’re going to have to babysit. 

As a startup founder, you’re already strapped for time. You don’t have enough hours in the day to tend to all the fires that are ablaze. The hardest part of your existence is knowing you’ll have to let some infernos burn away. So why put yourself through a nannying gig?

We haven’t even talked about actually hiring an SDR. SDRs are difficult hires because they inhabit a short-lived role. With the rare exception of SDR lifers (they exist, but they’re few and far between), the great SDRs graduate to AE in 1-2 years. While they’re SDRs, there’s very little experience or track record to go off of to evaluate them. And once they’ve established themselves…poof! They’ve gone to the greener, more glamorous pastures of closing deals as an Account Executive.

Here’s a better alternative: hire a proven AE. One that has two to three years of quota attainment. And require them to take on SDR tasks for the first few months of their stint with you. Their first priority? Fill your calendar with calls before taking their own sales meetings. The idea here is they should be teeing you up with opportunities because you’re still the best salesperson for your product, as the founder. This exercise also allows them to onboard smoothly and learn about product and messaging. After they’ve overloaded you with calls, they can start handling their own leads, qualifying them, and closing. The beauty of this type of hire is you get someone who has a proven track record as an SDR. And as an AE. Your new employee is largely de-risked. And you’re also getting someone committed to doing early grunt work. The hard yards before ascending to their natural role. You’ve filtered for folks who are natural fits for early-stage startups. Gritty, hardworking folks, who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.

Your pitch to your new AE hire could be something like this, “Listen, we’re going to ask you to help on the sales development side in the early portion of our time together. I’m going to need you to help fill my daily schedule with sales calls. But we’re also looking for somebody that’s very ambitious. While it may take you over 5 years to climb into sales management at a company like Salesforce, with us you could get there within 2 years if things work out the way we think. You could have reps reporting to you in short order. As long as we all deliver.” You’ve planted a seed of upward mobility. The sky is the limit for this recruit. If they’re someone who craves a steep learning curve and an ascension into sales leadership, your startup is the right place for them. 

By adopting this hiring strategy, you’ve selected folks who are willing to do anything to succeed, as well as those who are anxious to learn and grow. In short, the type of employees you should be attracting to your early-stage startup. And you’ve also managed to de-risk the hire a lot.