Sales Development Representative onboarding plan
SDRs ramp fastest when they start real outreach early with tight feedback. The plan should focus on who to target, what to say and how to hand over meetings, not on the full sales cycle.
What good onboarding achieves
Book qualified meetings consistently using approved messaging, sequences and handover rules.
Week one example
- Day 1: Team intros, CRM and outreach tool access, ICP walkthrough.
- Day 2: Learn personas and the problems each persona cares about.
- Day 3: Review the best-performing email and call scripts.
- Day 4: Shadow live cold calls; role-play objections with a peer.
- Day 5: Build a first prospect list and send a small reviewed batch of outreach.
30/60/90 progression
- Day 30: Runs daily outreach sequences and books first meetings.
- Day 60: Meets a ramped activity and meeting target with fewer reviews.
- Day 90: Hits full meeting target and gives feedback on messaging.
People to meet (examples)
- SDR manager
- AEs who receive booked meetings
- Marketing contact for campaigns
- A top-performing SDR
Systems to learn (examples)
- CRM
- Sales engagement tool (for example Outreach or Apollo)
- Data or prospecting tool
- Meeting booking tool
Manager checkpoints
- Day 3: review first prospect list
- Week 2: listen to five calls together
- Day 30: meeting quality feedback from AEs
- Day 60: activity versus conversion review
Common mistakes
- Waiting a month before allowing real outreach
- Not defining what counts as a qualified meeting
- No feedback loop from AEs on meeting quality
- Letting the SDR write messaging from scratch
Checklist
- Outreach tool and CRM access
- ICP and personas reviewed
- Approved scripts and templates saved
- Qualified meeting definition agreed
- First prospect list approved
- Objection role-play done
- Handover note format explained
- Weekly targets set