Phase 1 — Foundations
The goal of the first 30 days is not to book meetings. It's to lay the rails the SDRs will run on. Skip this phase and you'll have 3 SDRs spinning their wheels.
- Formalize the ICP — one ICP at launch, not three. Use the ICP template attached
- Build the target account list — 200-500 accounts max for the first 3 months
- Pick the tool stack — minimum: 1 sourcing tool (Apollo / Sales Navigator), 1 sending tool (Smartlead / Lemlist), 1 freshness tool (Ovalead), the CRM
- Write the pitch — a hook message in 3 versions (short / medium / long), validated by the founder
- Map the personas — who do you call inside the account? Economic buyer, champion, user
- Define the funnel and the definitions — what is an MQL? an SQL? a qualified meeting?
Phase 2 — Launch and iterate
The goal of the next 30 days: validate the pitch, iterate quickly, and generate the first conversions. This is the most uncomfortable phase — lots of noise, little signal — but also the most important one.
- Launch the first outbound sequence — 8 steps over 14 days (template provided in the cadence resource)
- Daily metrics tracking — touches sent, open rate, reply rate, meetings set
- Iterate on subject lines and hooks — A/B test every week
- First review of "ghost" accounts — accounts touched without a reply after 14 days, to archive or re-pitch differently
- Set up the SDR daily standup — 15 min, 9:00 a.m., focused on blockers
- First real discovery call — sit in on the SDR's first 5 calls, debrief immediately after
Phase 3 — Industrialize and ramp up
The SDRs start converging on what works. The goal now is to codify, measure, and scale.
- Document the playbooks — one per persona, one per use case
- Roll out lead scoring — use the scoring template
- Launch the job change tracker — re-pitch contacts who have moved to better employers (template provided)
- Analyze the touches/meeting ratio — a mature SDR converges around 2-3% meetings/touch
- First CRM hygiene audit — apply the quarterly checklist
- Quota and OTE — set the D91-D180 targets (qualified meetings/month) and the related variable comp
The 5 KPIs to track from day one
| KPI | Definition | Mature target |
|---|---|---|
| Touches/day | Emails + InMails + calls per SDR per day | 40-80 |
| Reply rate | Replies / emails sent | 3-8% |
| Meeting/touch | Meetings booked / total touches | 2-3% |
| Show rate | Meetings attended / meetings booked | > 70% |
| Meeting → SQL | Qualified meetings / meetings attended | > 50% |
The 5 classic launch mistakes
- Too many ICPs at launch. One ICP for the first 90 days. You iterate after
- Tools before pitch. Define the pitch before buying Lemlist, not the other way around
- No shared definition of an SQL. Marketing and Sales must align in writing
- Sales data in poor shape. Launching an SDR team on a filthy CRM database guarantees 30% bounces by month 1
- No coaching. An SDR who isn't debriefed 2x/week doesn't progress
The trap of bad data
Item #4 deserves a closer look. Out of 100 new SDRs, 70 launch outbound on inherited CRM databases that have never been cleaned. The result:
- 15-25% stale emails → bounces → degraded deliverability
- 10% of contacts have changed jobs → emails to a recipient who no longer exists at the target company
- SDR demoralization ("nothing works", "the market is dead")
Before launching the first sequence, run the database through a freshness tool like Ovalead. You'll save 3 months of trial and error.
Launch your first SDR team on a clean database
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