Hitthabricks profile picture
Hitthabricks profile picture

Hitthabricks

Enterprise Account Executive

Executive
Contributor
Fire Starter
+3

How to know you’ll have a BDR?

After many successful years in sales, my last few employers decided to eliminate or dramatically downsize BDR headcount after I started. While I always expect to prospect, it's not something I plan on doing full-time anymore. Not the best use of my time. 
Has anyone else experienced this lately? Any recommendations on how to avoid this in the future? 
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6 comments

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Sunbunny31
Politicker
6
Sr Sales Executive 🐰
If they're cutting the role after you start, not sure how you'd avoid this in the future outside of asking about growth, headcount, hiring capacity, etc. If your general vetting of the company's position in the market and their outlook isn't throwing up any red flags, it's going to be hard to predict that they'll make a decision to change their model.
jefe
Arsonist
1
🍁
Yup. Really no way to tell about that specifically, unfortunately.
CuriousFox
WR Officer
5
🦊
Just assume that you won't and you'll never be disappointed. 🤷‍♀️
DataCorrupter
Politicker
3
Account Executive
Yeah, actually I have been seeing a lot more of this over the last few years. It seems like prospecting is changing significantly (probably don't need to tell anyone that), and so the outbound BDR/SDR role is kind of a crapshoot right now. There's either significant inbound that can support a healthy BDR org, or there's outbound BDRs that are not sourcing all that much pipeline. My last few companies have had an awkward time figuring out what to do with those teams if there wasn't strong product market fit/inbound leads.

It does seem like the AE is tasked with creating 99% of their pipeline now, whereas a few years ago it was maybe 50-60%. Troubling trend since it just adds more to your plate, more stuff leadership can squeeze you about.
Beans
Big Shot
1
Enterprise Account Executive
It's a dwindling role as leadership looks to have more full cycle sales reps and an expectation of AI / automation to replace the grunt outreach.
SonnyVaccaro
Good Citizen
0
Growth Lead
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