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No matter your source, SDR attrition never dips below 25%, and is usually between 30 and 40%. If you combine attrition with layoffs, that attrition rate climbs above 50%.
(Setting aside the debate about whether the SDR role should exist at all for a minute)
No one is surprised: The troops on the frontlines are the most expendable.
“But, Evan, this isn’t the army!”
So why do we feel the need to be so sloppy?
We have LESS pressure, and MORE opportunity to create meaningful work for humans to do, but instead we… abdicate that responsibility?
The Venture-SDR Shuffle Hurts Real People
When I talk to leaders on the verge of tanking their SDRs pay, whether via borderline-illegal clawbacks, or absurd quota changes, or actual termination, there is a hint of guilt and a general nonchalance.
Some I’m sure are hurting inside, but don’t feel like they can talk about it. (Thanks, professional culture). Likely, many cannot discuss layoffs for legal reasons.
But if you dig back into the history behind every SDR layoff, there’s a very predictable pattern:
The company commits to unreasonable targets it does not know how to fulfill - OR - the company commits to a product-market combination it does not currently fit.
The company builds models that it hopes will magically happen.
The company hires (or hopes it has already hired) the SDR team to initiate those conversations with the market.
They generate some engagement and pipeline, but the underlying assumptions prove to be far off. Lower ACV than expected, more competition than expected, more friction than expected. Every dollar is harder earned
Ultimately CAC payback is not what it needs to be, and 3-6 months after C-Suite Spreadsheet Wishlist V3.27, layoffs ensue.
I have seen this exact pattern firsthand at more than one unicorn and over half a dozen times.
It’s sloppy (and that’s being nice).
So where is the Breakdown?
There is a planning component that is not based on wisdom, but on the folly of top down fantasies of growth that have yet to be proven in segmented detail. In other words, leaders do make things up and hope it works out, and there isn’t much more to it than that.
Except… the more solvable part of the breakdown is the skills gap on what constitutes “good outbound.”
First, the game has shifted. A centralized resource for outbound orchestration (whether the GTM Engineer concept or a good top funnel RevOps/Marketing Ops resource, or a demand gen person who leans over into SDR) can accomplish a ton for any size company. Cold outbound email (at scale) is now something to outsource or centralize into a smaller, tech-enabled team. The need for distributed SDRs to work together to cover a TAM has slimmed down to only something for phone + social channels, with handcrafted emails as needed.
Second, SDRs by and large have forgotten how to call humans. Sherry Turkle predicted this in her book Reclaiming Conversation, which I bring up way too frequently. She wrote it in 2015, about asynchronous communication (think: email, text, social media) and the impact of the smartphone on community, culture and how conversant the next generation could become.
And back then, she observed “[t]hese days, students struggle with conversation.” Those students are now today’s SDRs.
The book is a refreshingly (if depressingly) honest catalogue of dozens of research efforts to document the impact of technology on the ability of humans to relate to humans.
It’s also the first thing I think of when the TitanX team tells me of yet another team of SDRs reluctant to pick up the phone.
We’ve lost touch with not just a sales channel, but a fundamentally human capability altogether.
Toward an Artful “First Touch” Role
(whatever you call it)
I’m not here to arbitrarily defend the SDR role for the sake of the role itself (though there is something to be said for the vast irresponsibility of venture-backed leadership teams when it comes to headcount planning and pivots that result in rapid hiring-and-firing seasons, like discussed above).
I’m here to advocate for prospecting, for pipe gen as a discipline that can be executed masterfully and creatively.
There is analogous expertise:
The cold open of a standup comic.
The sacrificial poet (that’s a video) of a slam poetry competition (info here, not a vid, explaining what a sacrificial poet is at a slam - I’ve been one, it’s so difficult).
You see, the first touchpoint (in any setting) matters. And if this is true in art and entertainment, how much more so in business?
Your entire growth model relies primarily on the success of these individuals.
So why hire cheap junior reps, equip them poorly with obsolete playbooks and cheap, low quality data, and barely train them?
That’s why, when our very own Cathy Park gives a great impression in a cold call like she did last Friday, a flurry of DMs go back and forth as she gets repeated praise from the prospect AND from the referral.
The trust is built, the table set for conversations about buying and selling.
The invitation to the marketplace is best delivered with a genuinely human voice, by genuine humans. (All this to say… pick up the phone.)
You can have a team of highly competent cold callers.
Feed them excellent data.
They have more conversations in a couple hours than they currently have in a week.
They become proficient at talking to your prospects, about your problem space, and presenting your solution.
Collapse ramp time. Multiply ramped outputs.
It is possible. Watch Joey break it down here:
“Dream Outcome Spreadsheet” says it all
Thanks for reading,
Evan Dunn (LinkedIn)