why you should be wary of the sdr trap

a lot of enterprise organizations (and organizations in general) paint the picture that being an sdr is great (and it is).

it’s a fantastic skill that applies to most aspects of your personal & professional life.

but the last few years have really shown that you must be careful about where you work as an sdr, with a specific focus on the enterprise space.

sdr’s should not take jobs at organizations that are enterprise first with a large sd program that has not had movement to ae. these orgs will tell you “it typically takes about a year” with no actual plan internally to do so. it is more a political game of keeping the carrot dangling in front of their performers.

they should also not be the guinea pigs at new enterprise orgs, or orgs without an actual developed sales team.

typically, if you’re jumping from an sdr role you are rolling into a SMB AE role. rarely do orgs allow you to jump into enterprise selling from an enterprise sdr role.

if the org doesn’t market to smb, it will be incredibly difficult to move to an ae role.

if that’s the case, you will likely have to hop to a startup that is a bit risky, and in sales if the org fails, it’s reflected upon you (i would know, i’ve been let go 5x from organizations in sales & it was always a reflection on myself in the recruiters eyes and my performance. a literal response i got once was “well if the company failed it seems like you failed to do your job” low iq yes, their pov nonetheless).

sales people must choose their orgs carefully, or risk having to restart yet again at another org.