Which Candidates Win

Maybe the most common question we get in our business (from both candidates and companies) is “What makes a great SDR?”

With a name like “topsdrs” we’re required to have a strong opinion on this, but it’s taken me a surprisingly long time to synthesize my thoughts on what legitimately separates the best candidates from the average. 

Everyone in the industry has a slightly different opinion on this, and every business has a slightly different need, but I believe there are a few foundational elements that are constant across all great sellers and are relevant regardless of the business.

The first is obvious but necessary - you have to exceed a minimum IQ/EQ threshold. This piece is untrainable. You need to have the intellectual firepower to deeply understand your own product, to develop/execute/adapt your outbound strategy, and to communicate to your client base. Closely related to this is your emotional intelligence. Obviously relationships are everything in this business - without an ability to connect with and to influence your clients and, importantly, your internal stakeholders, you will not go far in sales. 

The next piece I constantly refer back to as possibly the most important character trait is intentionality. I find this in every single one of our highest performing candidates. They are not drifting through life. They are deeply considering why they’re doing what they’re doing and have done so consistently throughout their life. These reps have spent the most time developing an opinion on why they want to go into sales, why they’re pursuing early stage businesses, and why they are bought into the specific companies they’re applying to. These are obvious variables to have opinions on, but the depth of thought and the conviction is the differentiator here - and to someone who interviews hundreds of candidates - it is an easy variable to assess. 

The last indicator of an outlier candidate is a track record of high-performance. The category in which you’re a high-performer is completely irrelevant, but there have to be signals that you’ve overperformed in whatever you chose to pursue. We’ve placed competitive dancers, chess players, musicians, actors, linguists, and of course, a lot of Ivy League rowers (sorry I’m obligated to plug the rowing community). What these people all have in common is a commitment to excellence that translates perfectly into sales (and truthfully almost any professional setting). 

I once posted a linkedin referencing a Ratatouille quote that was both kind of cringe linkedin-influencer content and also entirely relevant. It goes “Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist can come from anywhere”. I genuinely feel that this perfectly describes the reality of the SDR role. There is no resume indicator that will predict the next great sales-person. These people can come from legitimately any academic, extracurricular, or professional background - but there are some untrainable non-negotiables consistent across all top-performers. These are the things we look for.