Progression | Notion

Sales development roles can include business development rep (BDR) or sales development rep (SDR) roles. These roles are typically entry-level roles within a company's sales organization that can align with career paths in sales, account management, or customer success management.

SDRs are vitally important to an organization's revenue, as well as its future sales leadership.

Well-executed business development can set a smooth course for sales reps, operating further along in a sales process.

SDR to AE

One of the most common routes is to become an Account Executive.

An account executive will often conduct discovery calls, run demos and ultimately close deals. Typical duties for a junior account executive include new client prospecting and outreach, creating and distributing advertising materials to attract new clients, and supporting existing client relationships.

SDR to SDR Manager

The SDR Manager role is an excellent way for people who want to progress in an organization to show what they're about. A great SDR Manager has experience in the SDR role. SDR Manager’s keep SDRs motivated to succeed by identifying what makes them tick and outlining a potential career path -- even if it’s not the traditional SDR-to-AE one.

SDRs want their managers to help them pursue their career objectives, whether they want to become a quota-carrying salesperson, account executive (AE), or something else entirely.

SDR to Rev Ops

Revenue Operations, also known as RevOps, is an automated business process that aligns the sales, marketing, and customer service organizations to make decisions that drive predictable revenue and promote growth.

SDR to CSM

A customer success manager leads the group of representatives who work directly with customers. Depending on the size and organization of your company, customer success managers may report to a senior manager or a VP of Customer Support and Success.

Customer success (CS) managers have a few key responsibilities:

To ensure representatives are helping customers get the most out of the product or service — thus increasing the likelihood of retaining those customers
To hire, train, and motivate CS representatives on engagement and retention best practices as well as product or service specificities
To develop the organization's customer success strategy to actively engage and retain customers
To lead the development of any supporting content and materials needed by CS representatives
To segment the customer base by agreed-upon factors, such as subscription type, product adoption, business size, or the like so that CS representatives can better help them
To address any escalated CS issues or questions
To encourage customer feedback through direct questioning and/or customer surveys
To analyze the feedback, performance, and retention rates of customers based on their interaction with the CS team to better understand the effectiveness of the broader customer success strategy