What traits do you find in successful SDRs?

We were curious about what traits successful SDRs have in common— so we asked a few top sales leaders. (For some reason, most of these traits begin with “C”. Coincidence?)

It's a good mix of hard skills (communication and consistency), soft skills (curiosity, self-motivation) and things in between (coachability, resourcefulness).

If you'd like to share your experience with SDR skillsets, send us an email!

Communication

I think the most important underlying skills are all around communication. The best SDRs are relationship builders. They have the ability to build quick rapport and trust with people.
- Jon Foreman, Sales Enablement Manager at GSoft

Copywriting and social media are important hard skills that I’ve seen some of the most successful SDRs possess. It’s hard to break through the noise in cold outreach and if you can find a way to convey quickly how you can bring value and stand out from the dozen other salespeople, you’re going to come out on top.
- Melissa Lui, Head of Sales Development at AirGarage

Resourcefulness

[Resourcefulness has] always been important for salespeople in general but specially SDRs in a hybrid or remote space. The most successful SDRs know to seek out the answers on their own, don't stop until they've figured out a solution, and motivate themselves to keep going even when no one else is watching since no one is going to hold your hand and do the work for you!
- Elizabeth Peterson, Senior SDR Manager at Canto

Curiosity & EQ

Probably the two most important if I had to pick would be Curiosity & EQ - everything else can be taught. The reason I love these two traits is they allow for better conversations with customers, better qualification, and a greater ability to navigate tricky discussions.
- Andrew Vidler, SDR Manager at ON24

My most successful SDRs have been the ones who can trend spot. Trend spotting is a process of listening for patterns in behavior and then identifying trends in these patterns. The ability to do this well is an essential skill for successful SDR’s. It is the skill that allows you to better understand the needs of your customers and to know what product features or solutions would be most relevant to them.
- Matthew Ramirez, Founder at Rephrasely

Tenacity

Tenacity. SDRs are the frontline of the revenue organization which means they will hear more NOs than anybody else. Being able to face multiple “no’s” every single day and still pick up the phone or send the next email believing that person will say yes takes a tremendous amount of tenacity.
- Leslie Venetz, Founder at Sales Team Builder

They get up when they are knocked down and expect themselves to succeed. Not hope to succeed… EXPECT it.
- Kim Cram, VP of Sales at Novarad and founder at Kim Cram Consulting

Clockspeed

Clockspeed is ability to think quickly on your feet. A good way to test this in an interview is asking a curveball question very much out of the blue to see how they deal with the change of tact.
- Andrew Vidler, SDR Manager at ON24

Self-motivation

A couple of traits my most successful SDRs still possess are resourcefulness and self-motivation. These have always been important for salespeople in general but specially SDRs in a hybrid or remote space. The most successful SDRs know to seek out the answers on their own, don't stop until they've figured out a solution, and motivate themselves to keep going even when no one else is watching since no one is going to hold your hand and do the work for you!
- Elizabeth Peterson, Senior SDR Manager at Canto

Self-motivation is a really challenging one to teach someone else, I really think that has to come from within oneself. It’s important as a leader/manager to guide your SDRs and find out what motivates them and ensure you are doing as much as you can to set them up for success, and try and be there to catch them when they fail (because everyone fails - it’s how we grow).
- Gabby Siddle, SDR Manager at Slate

Coachability (& confidence)

Two traits that we look for SDRs to possess are confidence and coachability. These are traits you should notice before you hire them, but they can always continue developing over time.
- Seth Kinney, Senior VP of Global Sales at Inside Sales Solutions

Creativity

Creativity. If you are only showing up to dial down a list day after day, the SDR job is going to get very boring very fast. Reps who take a creative approach to research, connecting with the buyers, and infusing fun into the job will enjoy it much more.
- Leslie Venetz, Founder at Sales Team Builder

Consistency

Consistency… we shouldn't be prizing something (or someone) for being enduring or unchanging. When I think of consistency as a trait in [a sales development representative] I'm thinking about how they create and tweak their processes. Their ability to keep their activity strong during a bad month. Their adaptability to new trends and market conditions.
- Sara Angell, ADR Manager at UserGems

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When hiring SDRs, it’s hard to predict who already has these skills and who might need more development.

Interviews are incredibly useful for gauging competency, but — unfortunately — you don’t have time to interview everyone.

To overcome this, Melissa Lui, Head of Sales Development at AirGarage suggests using simulation assignments to better evaluate important hard skills, such as copywriting.

Using real-life situations helps you more confidently predict how well a candidate might perform on the job. That’s why we designed an interactive assessment that measures whether SDR applicants have the skills to ramp faster and stick around longer.