Understand the SDR's role in qualifying website leads for the sales team

The success of every company depends on its ability to generate and convert leads into real customers. However, it is necessary to understand that not every lead that reaches you has the potential to become a consumer of your brand, This is completely normal. Lead qualification depends on a number of factors.

This is precisely where the role of the Sales Development Representative (SDR), also known as a Sales Development Representative.

If you want to understand the SDR's role in qualifying website leads for the sales team, We have prepared this exclusive content on the subject. 

Next, learn who a company's SDR is, how they identify potential leads, the skills and competencies needed to take on this role, among other important issues.

What is an SDR and what does it do?

The SDR is a member of the company who works alongside the sales team and is responsible for identifying and qualifying leads, i.e. potential customers for the sales team. 

The SDR is the professional in charge of finding the best business opportunities, usually through active prospecting by phone call, e-mail or social media.

The SDR's main function is to filter the leads that arrive via the website and Landing Pages and only pass on to salespeople the contacts of people who might actually be interested in purchasing or contracting a product or service. 

If the lead meets a series of qualification criteria stipulated by the company, the SDR forwards the contact to the sales department to start negotiating.

If the SDR passes on only the qualified leads to the salespeople, does that mean that the other contacts are discarded? 

No, it's the opposite. Another role of the SDR in qualifying leads is to nurture those who are not ready to move forward in the buying journey at the moment. This happens by sending interesting and educational content, which keeps leads engaged and on the path to receiving future contact from the company.

To sum up, we can define the SDR as a professional on the front line of the sales team. They are the ones who identify and qualify new business opportunities in the sales pipeline softwares, which will directly impact the company's revenue.

Understand the customer journey on your website

A customer's journey on your company's website can be divided into several stages. The path varies according to the type of business and the sector in which the brand operates, but it usually consists of four fundamental stages to turn a visitor into a lead. 

Below, we explain each of them:

1- Discovery

The traditional discovery process on the web involves the internet user doing a search for a specific subject, service or product and ending up, in the search results, discovering your company's website as a solution. 

Discovery also happens in other ways, such as through recommendation from a friend or family member, as well as other trusted sources (digital influencers, TV shows, etc).

2- Exploration

After finding it, the user browses your company's website and begins to explore the pages and content available. This includes the products and services, presented in as much detail as possible, along with information about the company, prices, advantages, payment terms, testimonials from other users (social proof), among other topics.

3- Consideration

After exploring the website of your company and learn more about the history, products and services offered, the user begins the brand consideration stage. This means that they are evaluating whether or not to make a purchase on your site, comparing it with competitors' prices and conditions and thinking about the best decision to make.

4- Decision

The last stage is the decision stage. In it, the customer decides whether or not to buy from your brand. If they choose to go ahead with the negotiation, this is usually done by filling in a form or subscribing to a newsletter, where the user provides their contact details and thus becomes a lead.

What role does the SDR play in qualifying website leads?

The work of the SDR is part of the pre-sales stage worked on by many companies. Their role is to qualify leads from the website and save time for salespeople to be more productive and assertive in each contact to negotiate a sale, in other words, hard prospecting work.

To be clear, the SDR and the salesperson do not perform the same function, nor are their activities similar. 

You see, the SDR's focus is prospecting, as we highlighted above. Meanwhile, the salesperson's role is to sell. Prospecting, unlike selling itself, is a job that seeks to facilitate the negotiation stage, bringing great profiles for the sales team to contact.

Among the benefits of having SDR professionals on the company team are:

• Separate qualified leads from unqualified ones;
• Simplifying the sales funnel and buying journey of the consumer;
• Optimize salespeople's time;
• Nurture leads who are not initially ready to buy;
• Contribute directly to reducing the churn rate;
• Deliver great customer profiles to the sales department;
• Working intelligently to define the ideal customer;
• Understand the main characteristics of the persona and the target audience;
• Delivering agility, precision and strategy in pre-sales.

This set of skills means that the SDR knows how to filter and qualify leads from the website before passing them on to the sales department.

How does the SDR qualify leads?

Now that you know what it is, what it does and the benefits of having SDR professionals on your team, you're probably curious to understand how leads are qualified, what tools or strategies are used for this and whether it's too complex to replicate in your company.

The first answer is no, qualifying leads is not an impossible task if you have the right professional. On the contrary, it becomes something automatic and easy in the company's daily routine. There are some common techniques that every SDR professional uses to qualify leads on the site.

We'll explain what they are below:

Contacting the lead

The first thing the SDR does upon receiving the lead's details is to get in touch. To do this, they need to define the best approach and how to go about it. It's common to call the person's cell phone, send an email or contact them via social media. 

Customer questionnaire

Before contacting the lead, the SDR should prepare a questionnaire with the main questions to be asked, with the to identify whether the person really meets the company's requirements to be considered a potential client.

CRM registration

O Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is specific software for working with relationship with the customer. It stores lead data and other relevant notes for both the SDR and the sales department. The main focus of CRM is to help build a long-term relationship between the customer and the company.

Spin Selling

Spin Selling is a very common technique used by SDRs to qualify leads. It's a questionnaire that seeks to assess the lead's problems and needs in order to determine whether the company's product or service solution might actually be useful to them. 

The SDR who practices Spin Selling needs to be a in-depth knowledge of the company's solutions, This work involves a lot of persuasion, with the leads themselves answering the questions and convincing themselves of the product's effectiveness.

The advantages of having SDRs

The greater your company's demand, the greater the need to work strategically, and for this to happen, having professionals and an SDR department is fundamental to making the work of capturing leads evolve. 

Investing in both SDR and the other pre-sales stages is indispensable to bring a company up to date to what is constantly happening in the market and be prepared to deal with the competition.

Meet the CRM ally of every SDR professional

Ploomes is the ideal CRM for any SDR professional looking for greater assertiveness in carrying out their activities, especially storing information about leads. 

Lucas Pelisari

Lucas Pelisari has been an SEO and content specialist at UpSites for over 6 years, working on the creation and optimization of digital strategies focused on lead generation and organic growth.With experience in website development projects, on-page SEO and link building, he works directly on structuring content and pages aimed at positioning on Google and acquiring qualified traffic.Throughout his career, he has worked on projects for companies such as Kommo, Aldanth, Physical Care, In4, Design.com, Adaptive, Clipto and YeSim, as well as several other clients served by UpSites.He works on projects in different niches, including technology, SaaS, services and local businesses, with a focus on performance, conversion and scalability.Her work is directly linked to lead growth and increased organic visibility, with projects that have seen consistent traffic gains after implementing SEO and content strategies.His content covers topics such as professional website creation, SEO, page structure, performance, user experience and digital growth strategies, always with a practical approach based on real market scenarios.Professional networks:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucas-widmar-pelisari-78920033/Instagram: https://instagram.com/lucaswidmar

See all posts