How many meetings should Outbound BDRs set per month?

I know this varies widely, but how many meetings should SaaS outbound BDRs be setting per month? Just want to get a feel for what numbers look like elsewhere.

How many meetings per month?

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🔎 Prospecting
👑 Sales Strategy
🧢 Sales Management
19
Rallier
Politicker
12
SDR Manager and Consultant
This entirely depends on industry, AOV, and persona
BCD
Politicker
0
BDR
Yep!
CoorsKing
WR Officer
5
Retired King of the Coors Knights
I get like 1-2 moderately qualified ones a month so whoever is getting 20+... please share your secrets
twothousandandchael
Good Citizen
1
Director of Sales
@BigMeech you an AE sourcing all your own leads? Or only a % of your leads?
CoorsKing
WR Officer
3
Retired King of the Coors Knights
I am definitely outbounding as well, but I do have 2 SDRs. I would say 80% of deals that end up closing were sourced by me though. There are a few rare exceptions though (one of my SDRs sourced an absolute whale that has the potential to be 15x the largest deal at our company to date... I have that in Q4 and will 100% be buying them something if it closes). 
BlueJays2591
Politicker
0
Federal Business Dev Director
what do you count as qualified?
CoorsKing
WR Officer
2
Retired King of the Coors Knights
Not an intern, not someone trying to get a job at my company, not someone trying to sell to us. 

Basically anybody that ACTUALLY has a project/pain.

I get a lot that have no idea what we do, completely wrong line of business, no interest etc, but they just showed up because my SDR sent them some vague messaging and told them we would give them air pods or some shit if they show up.
BlueJays2591
Politicker
0
Federal Business Dev Director
haha are you serious about the airpods thing? that's crazy. we qualify to the point of pain point or project. anything under that can't get passed. 
Stratifyz
Big Shot
0
Account Executive
Have your SDR email me… I could use some pods 😂
funcoupons
WR Officer
3
👑
Really depends on call volume and what you're selling. 

When I was a BDR we were expected to set ten decently qualified meetings per week, and most people exceeded that. Did they all end up moving down the pipeline or closing? Hell no, but they met minimum standards to buy what we were selling and were at least somewhat interested.
BlueJays2591
Politicker
1
Federal Business Dev Director
i would be rich if 1 BDR was setting that many meetings per week lol
CaneWolf
Politicker
0
Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract
10 per week?? Wth were you selling?
paddy
WR Officer
2
Director of Business Development
I find it easier to set a daily goal to at least try to book one per day. The weekly/monthly goals take care of themselves if you take the job day-by-day instead of looming over where you're at for the month. At least for setting meetings. If you have monthly revenue targets however, then don't follow that advice lol
CuriousFox
WR Officer
2
🦊
Quality over quantity my dude 💯
NorthernSalesGuru
Politicker
1
Manager, Outbound Sales
This is so tough to put a blanket number on. Ranges enormously from industry, sales cycle etc.
HappyGilmore
Politicker
1
Account Executive
Lots of variables for this number as others have suggested based on industry/product/etc, however during my tenure as an SDR we were shooting for 8 meetings a month. 
BlueJays2591
Politicker
0
Federal Business Dev Director
what was your average deal size? 
HappyGilmore
Politicker
1
Account Executive
In the segment I was working (enterprise) it would vary depending on the company size but usually sourcing anywhere between 100k-300k deals if the meetings went well and an opportunity was there.
BlueJays2591
Politicker
0
Federal Business Dev Director
If all my BDRs set 8 meetings a month I would be the happiest BDR Manager on the planet, especially at that average size of opp
Blackwargreymon
Politicker
1
MDR
I get like 1-2 moderately qualified ones a month so whoever is getting 20+... please share your secrets
Clashingsoulsspell
Politicker
1
ISR
I get like 1-2 moderately qualified ones a month so whoever is getting 20+... please share your secrets
cw95
Politicker
0
Sales Development Lead
I accidentally voted 4, but on average I get around 7/8 qualified outbound meetings per month. Some months have various external factors which hinder it and you get around 4, some you just got nothing and some you kill it. 
twothousandandchael
Good Citizen
0
Director of Sales
Depends on a few things. 

-What's the Deal Size (ACV)?

-How long is the Sales Cycle typically?

On a more transactional sale of $15k-30k ACV that can could close in 30-60 days... you likely have a product where the switching costs to the buyer aren't incredibly high and time consuming. Or the product itself doesn't effect 10 other pieces of software they have in place. I'd expect the # of sourced leads per month to be 12-15'ish on average for a full time SDR. 

If we're talking Enterprise Deals... Ex. I talked to Segment.com's team and their SDRs were targeting sourcing 8-10 qualified leads per month. Their avg deal size was $70k-80k ACV though. And a buyer adopting/buying/implementing Segment is going to have a lot of work to do to get going. They do have a strong brand as well.

I've seen some SDR teams averaging 1 meeting per day. If only 50% get through to "demo" (further qualifying and discovery being the goal) that yields 10 leads per month. 
BlueJays2591
Politicker
0
Federal Business Dev Director
ACV and Sales Cycle varies widely. Could be 10k, could be 500k+. Sales cycle typically mirrors deal size. 
CaneWolf
Politicker
0
Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract
Thinking about this differently:

1) How many deals do the AEs need to hit in a quarter/year?
2) How many AEs are there?
3) How many BDRs are there?
4) How many leads come inbound?
5) What percentage of outbound leads turn into opportunities?
BlueJays2591
Politicker
0
Federal Business Dev Director
1. Varies. Have had AEs hit quota with 1 deal, some take 10+
2. 6-7 AEs to 1 BDR
3. 10 Outbound
4. All inbound leads go to our inbound team. pure outbound.
5. Unsure of this stat to be honest. generally all cold outreach. 
CaneWolf
Politicker
0
Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract
Man, that's a lot of lift for the BDRs. Normally I'd say you'd want 20-30% of each AEs closed business coming from BDRs but that's tough when the ratio is so unbalanced.
BlueJays2591
Politicker
0
Federal Business Dev Director
very high AE:BDR ratio, something we are trying to lower, but not something easily achieved.  
CaneWolf
Politicker
0
Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract
Is the budget in place for that or nah?
BlueJays2591
Politicker
0
Federal Business Dev Director
to a certain degree.
BlueJays2591
Politicker
1
Federal Business Dev Director
not enough to cut that ration in half
goose
Politicker
0
Sales Executive
This seems like asking how much should a college student be able to bench press.  I'd imagine the responses vary wildly depending on a large number of factors.
BlueJays2591
Politicker
1
Federal Business Dev Director
Which is why I said "I know this varies widely". I'm mainly wanting to see what others are doing/generating and then see how they are doing it. 
iworkinchonies
Politicker
0
Account Executive / Chronic degenerate
Our BDR quota is set at 50 qualified meetings/month (outbound and inbound) but at least 25 of those are expected to come from outbound. We have an average deal size of about $5k-$10k and a 30 day sales cycle. Its a tough quota but I only missed it once when I was a BDR. 
BlueJays2591
Politicker
0
Federal Business Dev Director
what industry?
Captain_Q
Arsonist
0
Sr. Account Executive
Two a week seems reasonable. 
Smithy
Politicker
0
Director of Sales
We have SDRs. But all AEs have a meeting target of 20 per month
BlueJays2591
Politicker
0
Federal Business Dev Director
do the meetings set by your SDRs count toward your AE's targets?
DrunkenArt
Politicker
0
Sales Representative
20+ a month BDR here, it's a roller coaster of a # tbh. I usually average around 24 a month, but it's all industry dependent. I happen to call a lot of companies in need of cybersecurity, which has been a hot topic over the past few months now. Some reps are up there with me but most other reps fall under 15 a month
BlueJays2591
Politicker
0
Federal Business Dev Director
that's awesome. what are your metrics like? 
DrunkenArt
Politicker
0
Sales Representative
Try to make 80 OB calls per day and set at least 1 appointment for AE's. Quota per month is 15 appointments per month and then if exceeded, we have some really nice multipliers 
BlueJays2591
Politicker
0
Federal Business Dev Director
Mind if I ask what industry you're in? 
YoungGoat
Opinionated
0
Surgical Technology Specialist
depends on what vertical they're prospecting and deal size
NoSuperhero
Politicker
0
BDR LEAD
10 Is a good round number. Hard, but not impossible. Also it depends on your industry, some people might get 5 a month and that's enough.
HoldemCaulfield
Politicker
0
Sales Training & Enablement
As most people have said, there's a lot of variables at work here depending on product market fit, definition of qualified, and sales cycle (to name a few).

That said, I think the tighter you can be around what you define as Qualified will help BDRs when they're prospecting and doing discovery for AEs, so I think define a Qualification Framework (is it meeting set or meeting completed?) early on and also revising and/or revisiting it regularly is important. When I managed Outbound BDRs we did a kicker --- meeting set + meeting completed --- they had to meet certain criteria in order to progress to the AE.

Nowadays, there are some great software tools out there like Ambition that can tell how many meetings you need to hit a number. I think you also have to think about a waterfall quota, because typically Outbound BDRs are either promoted from Inbound or newly-hired sales reps that likely don't have strong, cold-calling and objection handling skills.

That said, Atrium has a great calculator template that I used before when I ran Sales Ops:

https://support.atriumhq.com/hc/en-us/articles/360027987831-Calculators-and-Financial-Models

This is a great article on the topic as well from a few years ago:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-many-meetings-should-kickass-sdr-schedule-per-month-sweat

Hope this helps!
JuicyKlay
Celebrated Contributor
0
AM
What’s the most meetings you BDR’s have ever set in a month?
BlueJays2591
Politicker
0
Federal Business Dev Director
8 on the high end
slaydie
Big Shot
0
Account Executive
Totally depends on the industry. I like tracking how they convert to closed rev. That's most important to me. Like great they book 20 meetings a month but if none of them close then its kind of a waste of time, right?
BlueJays2591
Politicker
0
Federal Business Dev Director
We only log qualified opps that have legs on them. They need to have pain points identified with solutions that can be tied in, and a desire to move forward. Closing is on the AE. If we set 20 meetings a month and the AEs only close 2, not my BDRs problem (and sadly this is a close rate in several parts of the country)
slaydie
Big Shot
0
Account Executive
You're right! I should have said qualified opps as opposed to closed. Totally on the AE to close. I'm the first to admit when a SDR passes me a good opp and I can't close em and at the same time there are some meetings that get booked that should have been disqualified right away.
MR.StretchISR
Politicker
0
ISR
I get like 1-2 moderately qualified ones a month so whoever is getting 20+... please share your secrets
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