SDR Career Advancement: A Micro-progression Strategy

Why are SDR's in Such High Demand?

The demand for SDRs is at an all-time high - it’s the gold rush of the 21st century. Today’s market conditions have driven an unexpected peak in demand for this valuable resource driven by several factors:

• Demand has exceeded supply
• The role is now required to execute modern sales mechanics
• Remote work means SDRs have more employment options

These factors have made the role of SDR difficult and expensive to hire for. It has also naturally had an impact on tenure and retention rates.

Challenges in Hiring and Retaining SDRs

So, how do you retain your best SDR talent, so they want to stay?

To borrow Sir Richard Branson’s famous quote:

“Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to”

– Sir Richard Branson.

The first step in ensuring your team can retain SDRs is to build a culture of continuous improvement, you can do this by committing to developing a nurturing coaching-first culture that is personal and focused on helping each SDR achieve their personal career goals.

But training and encouragement are not enough in today's market. SDRs need to feel engaged and motivated, which can be a challenge when there isn’t an obvious, clear, or available path to the next big promotion. Not to oversimplify, but the typical progression for SDRs usually looks like this: SDR to Account Executive to Account Executive Manager.

The problems with this career trajectory are:

• It can take a long time to upskill as an ‘SDR’ to be ready for an AE role
• The skills required as an AE are different and therefore there is often a time lag from a performance perspective
• You have no AE roles available when an SDR is ‘ready’

These issues cause frustration amongst SDRs and as a result, they often leave the organization for a better offer elsewhere. The answer is micro-progression.

Understanding Micro Progression for SDRs

What is micro-progression?

We define micro-progression as breaking down the SDR role into “what good looks like” at various milestones of development. An SDR on day one or even month 4 of their role is very different from an SDR with a 2-year tenure so why not define and reward on this basis? At the very base level, we can simply break the SDR role down further and align it to the depth of skill and behavior required at each level, making the SDR career progression look more like this: Junior SDR to SDR to Senior SDR.

However, implementing a micro-progression career advancement program for SDRs can be difficult because the definition of "what good looks like" is often open to subjective interpretation and therefore frustration on behalf of the SDR. Next, we'll explore some tips to help you more effectively introduce a mico-progression career path for SDRs in your organization.

Implementing Micro Progression for SDR Development

Focus on 3 key tasks: Define, Develop, and Measure.

• Clearly define “What Good Looks Like” for each of the levels by mapping behaviors and business outcomes to a sales competency framework
• Strategically develop individual skills to improve behaviors and outcomes with formal learning pathways to support career development
• Constantly measure progress and performance, not just completion using qualitative and quantitative assessments

If you enable your SDRs to see their pathway to promotion and achieve micro progression, it increases motivation and reduces the temptation to look for it elsewhere. And if you were thinking this was just limited to SDRs, think again, this applies to any career pathway across your sales teams. Richardson can help you achieve this with our NEW Accelerate Sales Performance System, a data-driven sales performance platform that aggregates data across your RevTech stack to deliver focused, personalized, ongoing capability development that connects business metrics to the selling behaviors that influence them. Click here to contact us for a demo.