The Fate of Sales Development

Opt In | Ep. 57

How Today’s Trends & Technology Will Impact the Future of Sales Development

Sales development looks a whole lot different in 2023 than it did in 2013. Or 2016. Or even 2020.

Tactics, trends, and technologies change quickly. Best practices are constantly evolving. How much value we place in the SDR role seems to change every day.

Point being, the world of sales development is dynamic. It’s hard to predict what it will look like in a few years’ time, let alone later this year.

But that didn’t stop us from trying! Alex and Lindsay ran a thought exercise with our partners at Transcends Marketing to see if they could predict the “fate” of sales development over the next few years. Taking stock of what we know, what’s happening now, and what we can learn from the past, they put together a laundry list of what sales development might look like in 2025 and beyond.

Side Note: One of the results from this thought exercise resulted in an article that Ashleigh Vogstad of Transcends published for the Fast Company Executive Board.

We highly recommend giving it a read ➡️ The dire fate of leads and how sales development can save them

From discussing the AI takeover to a forced reversal of our WFH culture to thinking about the SDR “gig economy,” Alex and Lindsay touch on a few different futuristic outcomes.

And while they don’t really think anything they predicted will come true (we don’t have a crystal ball), it’s a good exercise to help prep teams for the uncertain future of the sales development role.

Plus, it was pretty fun 😁

Opt in to theorizing about and planning for the future of sales development.

Summary

Transcript

Summary

AJ & Alex’s Take

The best way to learn about this is to watch the recording (linked at the bottom of this page), but if you’re looking for an abbreviated learning experience we’ve got you covered:

Alex

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.”

AI, Automation, and all of these shiny new tools won’t fix anything for you – they’ll just magnify what already exists (good or bad). Tools can help your reps make 100, 200, or even 500 calls in a day – but if they butcher every cold call because they don’t have proper training, that increase in volume won’t actually help you.

There are no silver bullets in sales. And every time a new process or piece of technology comes out, it’s good to remind ourselves of that.

AJ

The SDR gig economy is coming. I think. I foresee a world where SDRs are able to hop onto platforms like UpWork or Fiverr and support a few different companies at once. We’ve seen a rise in the request for fractional SDR work, and I think it’s only a matter of time before dedicated players enter that space.

It won’t work for everyone – some companies do thrive on having really technical and experienced SDRs (thinking about industries like cybersecurity and health tech). But some companies really do just need a highly skilled “warm body” to make ~40 calls a day.