Pavilion and Operatix teamed up to look at year-end trends for 2021 in their State of Sales Development report. This thorough report examines remote work trends, company structure, primary success metrics for outbound SDR teams, as well as budgets and compensation.
Here are some of the results from this year’s survey:
- Remote work. It will come as no surprise that remote work has spiked, even when compared to early 2020 trends where only 37% of SDRs were allowed to work remotely, as compared to 95% in late 2021. Remote HQs represent roughly ⅓ of companies with SDR teams.
- Process. The most relied on technology in an SDR Tech Stack shows that 30% use Outreach, 21% use Salesloft, and 11% use Hubspot, with Salesforce and Sales Navigator making up the remaining 14%. Direct Mail has made a recent comeback for 18% of respondents, and over ⅓ are using gifting. Geography and account team were the most common opportunities for distribution in 2021.
- Success metrics. Common targets for respondents include 50 outbound calls per day, 10 cold outreach emails per day, and 4 sales per month. When asked for the number one skillset businesses look for when hiring an SDR, the top four answers were ranked as grit, coachability, intelligence, and curiosity. Emails and cold calling rank as the outbound channels currently creating the most success for SDR teams.
- Overall takeaways. The SDR world is constantly changing depending on the stage of the organization. 2021 had its challenges, but hiring and figuring out the right recipe for coming back into the office presented new roadblocks for sales teams. Though outbound has become more challenging, sales development remains a need for any SaaS organization.
Read the full report here.